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Will Russia Accept Cease-Fire?; President Trump Causing Stock Market Chaos?; President Trump Hosts Irish Leader. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 12, 2025 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

MICHEAL MARTIN, IRISH PRIME MINISTER: I have got to attribute to the president on the peace initiatives.

The one thing we have learned in Ireland about the peace process that you have just spoken about, and I recall back in the early '90s, when the first tentative steps to get peace in Ireland, people criticized people like John Hume or people like Albert Reynolds, the then- taoiseach. But they kept going.

And when we got that cease-fire in '93, OK, it took a number of years to get the comprehensive peace settlement, but the guns more or less largely went silent.

The war in Ukraine is a devastating war on young people, and I think that very simple, straightforward narrative is to be commended. And we all have children. I mean, we have been shocked at the prospect of young people losing their lives in that number, be they Ukrainian, be they Russian, whatever.

Anything we can do to stop the violence, I think, is an extremely positive thing. And there will be all sorts of people having qualifications and all the rest of it. It's our job then to work on it and to try and build it, Europe, U.S. and everything.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I will say -- I will say -- and thank you for that. But I will say, last week, 2,500 young people died while we sit here and talk...

MARTIN: Yes.

TRUMP: ... and while they talk about peace, but they have been talking about peace. This should have never happened. This war should have never happened. It would have never happened if I was president. That's what makes me more angry than anything else, because you have had far more people die than they report, than these people report, for whatever reason.

But you had far more people. The numbers are far more devastating. You will find that out someday. And it doesn't affect you very much. They're not Irish, and they're not from my country. They're from Russia mostly, almost all from Russia and from Ukraine. And people could say, why are you doing this? Why are you involved in that thing?

Because 2,000 people a week are dying, and they have families, and they have mothers, and they have fathers, and they have sisters, and they have brothers and friends, and they're dying. And I have seen the pictures, the satellite pictures that we see all the time. And it looks like Gettysburg in its prime, because that was, they say, one of the most horrific battles ever.

You have kids lying all over these fields that are dead, because the weapons today are unbelievable between drones and various types of guns. I'm not even talking about, beyond that, with the big babies, you understand what I mean? I hate to even mention the name, the nuclear name. I hate to mention it.

But you have weapons today that are so powerful. And I see kids every week. I see pictures of kids laying all over the field dead. They're dead, beautiful kids. They're dead. And they're not from here and they're not from where you are, but he's working very -- we're all working hard to get this thing finished.

It's crazy over nothing. And it's not going to go anywhere. It's just a terrible situation.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And I think we have a chance to get it done. So we have gotten half of it as a cease-fire. And if we can get Russia to stop, then we have a full cease-fire.

And I think it'll never go back to war. I think something will...

(CROSSTALK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have been listening to President Donald Trump alongside the Irish taoiseach, Micheal Martin, inside the Oval Office at the White House.

Thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. I'm Boris Sanchez, alongside Brianna Keilar, in the nation's capital.

There, you just heard President Trump talking about the potential for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine that the U.S. is trying to broker. The president would not comment on a potential meeting with Vladimir Putin. But, in his remarks, he was asked specifically if he felt that the United States would have to pressure the Kremlin into accepting a cease-fire.

And he said that he hopes that would be unnecessary, though there are things he could do that would be unpleasant in the financial sense, so President Trump, during this availability for reporters in the White House, signaling that perhaps economic sanctions may be on the way if Russia were not to accept the cease-fire deal.

The president was also asked about cuts to the Department of Education behalf of DOGE and about the stock market, which he says he believes is soon going to surge.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes.

Let's go to Jeff Zeleny, who is at the White House and has been following all of this.

Jeff, those are some of the highlights from this Oval Office availability at a really crucial moment, both in negotiations with Ukraine, but also the president's tariff war and his overhaul of the federal government.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: No doubt about it.

This is more than just a traditional ceremonial meeting between the Irish prime minister and the American president, which, of course, happens every year to reinforce the longstanding relationships between the United States and Ireland. The reason it's happening slightly before St. Patrick's Day is because Congress is going into recess. The members are leaving, so that is why they're doing it now.

In fact, the president and the prime minister are heading to Capitol Hill right now for the lunch that they normally have. But underscoring and underlying all of this, about 50 minutes' or so worth of questions, and the situation in Ukraine no doubt has rattled European leaders.

[13:05:13]

The president's decision to embolden Vladimir Putin certainly has as well, as has the latest round of the trade wars. This is something that has been ongoing, the president speaking very strongly against the European Union, once again saying he thinks that their entire reason they're forming together was to, in his words, screw the United States. Excuse my language.

This is something that the president has talked about a lot, but, certainly, it's coming much to the forefront as the E.U. is talking about specific tariffs on Kentucky bourbon, if you will, Wisconsin motorcycles, Harley-Davidsons, and many other American products.

But the president went on to take a variety of questions, becoming short with reporters at one point when asked about the stock market, when asked about the uncertainty in the markets. He defended his decisions, and he said that he needs and deserves some flexibility.

So that, of course, was one of the exchanges that we had our eye on, as well as just the deal with Russia. Will Vladimir Putin now sign a cease-fire, will he not? As for the sanctions you were talking about, it's an open question whether these economic sanctions actually can be more done on that front, because, basically, for the last three years or so, the trade has all but evaporated and dried up between Russia and the United States.

So, sanctions, it's unclear if that actually would have much more of an effect. But there's no doubt the wide-ranging conversation here talked about really the underlying relationship, and it is frayed. There is no doubt about it. As every foreign leader we have seen come and sit in the Oval Office here, gone are the days of when these are simply ceremonial meetings.

KEILAR: All right, Jeff Zeleny live for us at the White House, thank you.

SANCHEZ: It has been a roller coaster so far for stock traders, as President Trump's on-again/off-again tariffs inject more uncertainty and volatility into markets.

KEILAR: CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has been following it all. She's with us live now.

Vanessa, how is Wall Street reacting today in what may be really the kickoff of a global trade war? And what do these new tariffs mean for America?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, Wall Street today has been very much up and down, much like the president's announcements on tariffs.

You can see there's a mixed picture right there, the S&P now up about just 31 points there, the Dow, though, down about 53. We have really seen this up and down for the past three days now, and investors are grappling with two things. The first thing is a global trade war, and what we have seen in just the last 24 hours is 25 percent tariffs on all aluminum and steel coming into the U.S.

The United Nations (sic) really addressed this quickly with reciprocal tariffs, putting their own tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. goods, and we just heard from Canada that they are putting a 25 percent tariff on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, and targeting also steel and aluminum.

Also, in the background of all this, we got an inflation report today that showed inflation actually cooled in the month of February and year over year, inflation up 0.2 percent in February and 2.8 percent annually, and that is a cooling compared to the increases that we have seen for the past four months.

And some of the price changes that we have seen for consumers come along the lines of cost savings on airline tickets and gas prices, but we have seen the price of food tick up a little bit, particularly on eggs. Look at that, up 10.4 percent in the month of February alone. That is a dramatic increase, and shelter also up 0.3 percent.

That accounted for the largest share of increases in this CPI report. But investors today just trying to grapple with these two pieces of news, an escalating trade war and a cooling inflation report -- Boris, Brianna.

SANCHEZ: So, as you saw there, despite claims from the White House that egg prices are down, this latest CPI report actually shows that they have gone up 10 percent.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for breaking that down for us.

Joining us now to discuss market turmoil tariffs and Trump's trade war is Neil Irwin, the chief economic correspondent for Axios.

Neil, I want to start by asking you about something Trump touted in the Oval Office moments ago. We talked about inflation cooling. How do you read that in the middle of this escalating trade war?

NEIL IRWIN, CHIEF ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS: Yes, so this number we got today, the Consumer Price Index for February, what it shows is that this kind of elevated inflation we had at the end of last year heading into January looked to have been temporary.

[13:10:00]

So the underlying inflationary dynamic in the economy is pretty benign. It's getting better. The question is, what happens now? In February, we only had the earliest impact of the trade escalations and the trade wars, the tariffs. We don't know for sure how much those are going to affect prices and headline inflation in the months ahead, partly because we keep getting the stop-and-start action exactly what's being implemented, how high, how broad it's going to be.

So, for now, the inflation picture looks pretty good. The question is, what comes next?

KEILAR: And on the tariffs here, immediate retaliation from the E.U. overnight, as more new steel and aluminum tariffs, broad tariffs, hit.

You hear Trump saying the U.S. is going to react there, which appears to be putting us at risk of a global trade war there. He's trying to fix real or perceived trade imbalances. He's trying to goose industrial manufacturing here in the U.S.

Can he do that without it over time really costing the American consumer?

IRWIN: I think the real question here is, how much is this going to be a one-off change in the kind of terms of trade with all of these major trading partners, and how much is it just going to be chaos and an ongoing on-again/off-again type of arrangement?

If you talk to CEOs, they will tell you, look, they don't want to pay tariffs. They don't want to have to reroute their supply chains. But if it's a one-time change, they know it's going to be in place, they will adjust, and prices might go up in a one-time way. They might have to raise their prices. They might have to take a hit to their profit margins, but they can live with it.

What's harder to live with is this policy changing every day in a way that makes it very hard to commit to things, to build a factory, to hire people. And so that's, I think, the open question. Does -- do we find a new normal for trade policy between the U.S. and its major partners? Is that stable, or do we keep having the chaos we have had over the last month? SANCHEZ: The counterargument from folks in the administration would

be that these tariff threats yield results. They would point to the Ontario premier -- premier -- I believe premier. Premier?

KEILAR: Yes, Premier.

SANCHEZ: Doug Ford undoing his 25 percent surcharge on electrical imports into three U.S. states as a result of Trump threatening to double steal and aluminum tariffs on Canada. They would point to that and say that's a success story. How do you read it?

IRWIN: Well, that's reversing a policy that was only retaliation for tariffs the U.S. put in place.

This gets back to a fundamental question about Trump's trade policy. How much of this is about having a negotiating tool, a source of leverage, versus his other goals, which is resetting the entire framework of the global economy, redomesticating U.S. manufacturing, creating a revenue source for the federal government?

Those things are in tension with using this as a negotiating ploy, using this for tactical advantage on whether it's fentanyl or trying to get very narrow gains from different countries. There's a tension between those.

And the White House right now is trying to have it both ways. So we will see which way it leans as this policy area goes forward.

KEILAR: And it's hard to answer some of these questions, because you don't know. What is true today on tariffs, Neil, may not be true tomorrow. That makes it really difficult.

But Americans have their point of view about how they're seeing this; 61 percent of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling tariffs; 76 percent of Republicans, though, approve of the tariffs, but that's lower than their approval on all of the other categories that are polled.

I wonder how much that public opinion, and certainly if it's persistent, could impact things.

IRWIN: Yes, I think it could.

And the stock market -- let's be clear, the stock market hasn't dropped all that much this last few weeks. But whenever it starts to move, it gets people's attention. And that's before you get to the price impact, inflation impact.

And if the price of goods at Walmart starts to go up in the months ahead, we have seen what happens. We saw that in 2022. People really don't like it. And so there really is a risk here for the White House that, if they try and break things and move fast and take some chances with the economy, if people start seeing goods get more expensive, if they start seeing their stock portfolio drop, it will have a cost politically. We see that in the data already on surveys. And it's early days. We're

two months into this administration, not even. And the kinds of things they're threatening on trade would involve much more expansive tariffs than we saw back in 2018-2019, and would show up in terms of consumer prices, would show up in GDP growth, would show up in the job market, most likely.

KEILAR: All right, Neil Irwin, thank you so much for being with us.

Still to come: All eyes are now on Russia after Ukraine accepted a 30-day cease-fire deal that was proposed by the U.S. President Trump is vowing to speak with Putin about it within days. He was actually asked if he was going to be meeting with Putin, and he wouldn't answer. So that was very interesting to hear just moments ago.

Plus, the case of a pro-Palestinian activist arrested by ICE heads to court. What the judge just decided.

[13:15:04]

SANCHEZ: And later: new measles cases confirmed in yet another state, as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes stunning claims about the MMR vaccine.

That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says everything now depends on Russia when it comes to the cease-fire proposal that's on the table.

The Ukrainian leader says he expects the U.S. to take -- quote -- "strong steps" against Moscow if it rejects the 30-day truce that Ukraine agreed to during talks with the U.S. yesterday. So far, the Kremlin has refused to comment on the plan, saying it is waiting to be briefed by U.S. officials.

[13:20:07]

But, if the deal is reached, President Zelenskyy says those 30 days will be critical for determining Ukraine's future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): If we are going to have 30-day truce, these 30 days will have to be used to put certain matters on paper. I mean, we have our ideas, our suggestions, but we will need to agree our steps with our allies, also regarding format of security guarantees Ukraine will have after the end of the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is with us now from Kyiv. Clarissa, what did Zelenskyy mean by the U.S. taking strong steps if

Russia rejects the cease-fire proposal?

(SIRENS BLARING)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, you can probably hear behind me, I just want to address for our viewers, that we have an air alert siren that's been going off for the last 45 seconds or so. That is pretty common, of course, here in Kyiv. This one is apparently related to the threat of ballistics. We haven't heard anything else, but, obviously, we are keeping a very close eye on that.

In terms of what President Zelenskyy talked about during this press conference today, it was very interesting. You could really tell he was choosing his words extremely carefully, Brianna. He did not riff in English at all. He was only speaking Ukrainian.

And he didn't get into the exact specifics of what strong actions he would expect the U.S. to take if indeed Russia does not partake in this 30-day cease-fire, but he indicated that those actions might potentially include further sanctions against Russia and also, crucially, beefing up Ukraine's military competence.

And you also really had the sense, listening to President Zelenskyy today, that this was kind of a triumphant moment after those talks in Jeddah, not because people here believe that peace is around the corner, but because they feel that there's been a bit of a reset with the U.S. and Ukrainian relationship, which they view as being so crucial, but also with Ukraine kind of taking ownership of the narrative again, basically telling the world, listen, we're ready for peace, we are not the impediment towards peace.

And the ball is now really in the court of President Vladimir Putin to decide whether Russia wants peace or not. I will say, when you talk to ordinary Ukrainians, they're very cynical as to whether Russia actually wants peace, as to whether they will go ahead with this cease-fire. And they're very wary that, even if Russia did indicate that they will go ahead with this cease-fire, that they would be able to maintain it, because Ukrainians have seen time and time again that Russia will join up to a cease-fire and then proceed to violate it.

So, a mixture of some cynicism here and wariness, but at the same time overall, I would say a feeling of triumph that the debacle of the Oval Office spat between Trump and Zelenskyy is firmly, they hope, now in the rearview mirror and the onus is now on Russia to make the next move.

KEILAR: Yes, I think, Clarissa, this idea that Russia could just outright reject this, does that even serve Russia's interests at this point in time, or do they proceed with something and then actually capitalize on having a bit of a rest during a cease-fire?

WARD: It's going to be so interesting to see, Brianna, what Russia's response to this is. And I think there's a lot of speculation that basically it will be

incredibly difficult for President Putin to categorically reject this, because the relationship with President Trump is crucial to him. It's as good as it is going to get between the U.S. and Russia.

At the same time, though, he also has domestic considerations, the tone of his own rhetoric as recently as last week, talking to a group of grieving widows, telling them, listen, don't worry, it won't be in vain. We're looking for a piece that suits us.

When he has talked in the past last summer about what some of the demands would be around negotiations, he's always talked about negotiations first before some kind of a cease-fire would be implemented. So it will be quite a delicate act for him to try to row that back and essentially say, OK, we're on board, 30-day cease-fire starts now, and during that 30 days we can then get into the nuts and bolts and the nitty-gritty of the negotiations.

I think what we're seeing right now, though, Brianna, honestly, is that the Russians are stalling for time. They have already said through the Putin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, that they're not going to respond until they have had a direct bilateral conversation with the Americans through the proper channels, and then we might hear what their next move will be, Brianna.

[13:25:07]

KEILAR: All right, Clarissa Ward live for us from Kyiv, thank you for that report -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective from CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel Leighton, always great to be with you.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking about the ball now being in Russia's court. When you look at their options, how do you think they're going to respond to this?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, this is going to be really interesting, Boris. One of the key things to look for is, number one, as Clarissa was mentioning, how long is it going to take for the Russians to respond?

So, if they take a long time, they're clearly mulling things over, trying to figure out where they can get the most advantage. So one of the possible ways that this could unfold is, obviously, the one would be an outright rejection. I don't think it's going to happen that way.

I think what they will do is they will engage in talks, especially with the U.S., regarding a possible cease-fire, and they may delay those talks a bit or drag them out. They may accept it, they may accept this proposal to an extent, but then you have to watch how they're going to implement this, because this really doesn't call for a direct peace or a cease-fire or anything like that. What it calls for is a brief cessation of hostilities for about 30

days. If that happens, that could serve the Russians well internationally. It could serve them well in the sense that they would go in and they'd say -- people would look at it and say, OK, they have stopped fighting for a brief time, but they will also use that to reconstitute their military forces.

And if they do that, then they can, in essence, live to fight another day, and that could be a problem going forward for Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: Would you foresee a situation in which Russia escalates its attacks just before accepting something like that? Would that be an indication to you that they're on the precipice of accepting a cease- fire?

LEIGHTON: Yes, it is a possible indication. Something like that would be very logical for the Russians to do. You heard the air raid sirens in the background when Clarissa was speaking, and that's kind of an indicator that the Russians are ramping things up.

They may lob a lot of artillery into Ukrainian positions, a lot of missiles, even conduct air attacks and drone attacks, and then they may decide that it's in their interest to stop fighting temporarily. But if they do that, don't expect it to last for a long time.

SANCHEZ: When you think about the strong steps that President Zelenskyy is describing he'd like to see the U.S. take to put pressure on Russia if they don't accept this deal, what do you think that would look like?

You had President Trump saying that they would suffer some financial ramifications, but we also heard from Jeff Zeleny at the White House essentially saying the U.S. has kind of maxed out sanctions on Russia. There's not that much more effect that they're going to feel.

So what is in the range of options for the administration?

LEIGHTON: Yes, so the normal options would include sanctions, economic-type actions against the Russians, but, as Jeff mentioned and as you're mentioning, this is going to be, have limited efficacy when it comes to the Russians.

They are already on a war footing. Their economy is basically cut off from the Western world already, so it really doesn't matter in that sense what would happen. So the only way that the Trump administration could exercise real power over the Russians would be to do something that they are not known for doing, and that would be to move troops into a place like Poland and say, hey, if you move in any direction toward Ukraine or take any more Ukrainian territory, we're going to get involved.

And I don't see anybody doing that on the U.S. side at the moment. But that would be the one card that the U.S. could play, which would be escalatory, potentially escalatory, but it would also put the Russians on notice that they have gone too far. SANCHEZ: I want to get your perspective also on another view of what

a deal could look like that we heard from Ian Bremmer, one of our foreign policy analysts, yesterday. He was sort of describing that what we could wind up seeing is a much broader deal, that Putin could use Ukraine as a bargaining chip, one piece of a much broader deal between Russia and the United States that could involve nuclear weapons, all kinds of economic agreements.

How does that fit into this picture? Do you think we're going to wind up seeing something far more comprehensive than just a cease-fire or even peace with Ukraine?

LEIGHTON: I think that might be a possible goal by both the Trump administration and the Russians.

So what the Russians are looking at is the possibility of dividing up the world into different spheres of influence. So this goes in line with what Ian was saying. They would potentially use Ukraine as a stepping-stone to get there, and they could accept on a provisional basis a cease-fire.

But the goal would be to extend their influence into other parts of Eurasia, either Central Asia or obviously Ukraine, potentially other parts of Europe, including potentially NATO members.

So that could then really call into question our alliances and many other things. And that would definitely be a Russian goal, to divide us from our NATO allies. It would also make things easier for the Russians, both politically and militarily.

SANCHEZ: So many implications with how this could turn out.