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Trump to Speak with Putin About Potential Ceasefire with Ukraine; Israel Strikes Gaza, Shattering Fragile Ceasefire with Hamas; Trump's Tariff Problem: He Might Need Years for His Plan to Work; Judge Demands Answers by Noon from Trump Administration on Migrant Flights; Behind the Scenes in the Prison at Center of Trump Deportations. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 18, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The two may have quote something to announce after speaking today. Ukraine has already agreed to a 30-day ceasefire but there are a lot of questions over what Ukraine might be forced or asked to give up.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House for the latest on these discussions this morning. Alayna, what do you hear?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well look John, these come as of course the White House is very much hoping that they will close in on a potential ceasefire agreement, get Russia to the table on that 30-day ceasefire deal that Ukraine has already accepted, the one of course proposed by the United States. That's really the main goal of today.

But another key priority as well in my conversations with sources who are familiar with some of the the prep work leading up to this call today, they argue that a key thing that they are really trying to determine with the Russian president is what concessions are they willing to make, including what kind of occupied land or occupied troops would they be willing to remove from occupied territory in Ukraine. All of that of course going to be very crucial to that call today.

Now the president himself actually alluded to some of that over the weekend. He said that during the call with Putin he was going to be discussing land and discussing dividing up assets. You can expect that to take place as well.

But this really comes after months of intense negotiations back and forth between United States officials, Ukrainian officials, and Russian officials really trying to lead all to this moment.

And like I said, last week we saw the Ukrainians say that they agreed to that U.S. proposed 30-day ceasefire deal. And after that we heard many top officials, including the president himself, say that essentially the ball is in Russia's court. Trump specifically said that Russia holds all the cards. Now John, I am told that this call is expected to take place somewhere between the 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Eastern hour. So we should be hearing more of this, you know, soon. It's going to happen this morning.

But I do want to read for you as well what the president posted about this last night because he gave a little bit of a preview to this on True Social.

He said, quote: Tomorrow morning I will be speaking to President Putin concerning the war in Ukraine. Many elements of a final agreement have been agreed to, but much remains. Thousands of young soldiers and others are being killed. He went on to say -- it must end now. I look very much forward to the call with President Putin.

Now, we also have heard from the Kremlin as well about this. They have said that Putin himself is preparing. They put together some talking points to this.

But I think it's notable as well to look at what preceded this. You know, we know that Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, he traveled to Moscow last week. He met directly with Putin for a meeting, I was told, that lasted several hours into the early morning of Friday.

And then he later traveled, I was told, to Mar-a-Lago to brief the president directly on this. The president was very encouraged by that readout. We know that Witkoff said they had a positive call, they had negotiated some things, and he felt cautiously optimistic.

I was told that was really the point that led to this call being set up. The president essentially asked his aides to prepare for this call to happen. And look, all in all, we really have to see how this goes.

We know the last time he spoke with Putin, he was using very friendly tone. We'll see if that actually pays off today in these discussions -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, we will. And Alayna, you're telling us it could take place within the next 90 minutes or so. So we will be standing by looking for any signs for when it's done.

Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very much -- Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, joining me now to talk about that Trump and Putin call and the crumbling ceasefire in Gaza is CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Mr. Leighton, so glad to have you. There's so much to talk about.

So, you know, there is a ceasefire on the table. Ukraine has agreed to it. The U.S., good with it. Putin has said no. So what would you expect the U.S. president to now use? A stick, not a carrot to get Putin to comply?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, normal negotiators would probably have a stick in their arsenal at this particular point, Sara, and good morning to you. I think what you're seeing is that Putin is very deftly, you know, saying that there's certain elements of the agreement that he agrees with in principle, but that there are, quote, many things to still work out. Those many things will be the devil in the details.

And so I think what President Trump is going to try to do is he's going to try to move Putin and convince him that this is the best deal that he can get at this particular moment in time. But the danger lies in Putin really maneuvering in such a way that he will gain a lot of advantages by, you know, demanding things like, let's say, complete control over the Zaporizhian nuclear power plant, for example. That's the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

[07:35:00]

And if he does that, that will then limit Ukraine's access to energy. So there are some things that in that way, in that vein, that he would probably do, that Putin will probably do. And that's the kind of thing that I expect. In essence, I expect a lot of pushback from Putin. And you know, it could be a much more difficult discussion than what President Trump is alluding to at this point.

SIDNER: Yes, and Ukraine, unlikely to accept something like, you know, having Russia take over that, that power plant, the nuclear plant, which, you know, powers the entire country and other places.

All right, I do want to ask you about sanctions. Trump, a couple of weeks ago, after praising Putin, also said that the U.S. could put some more sanctions against Russia. But sanctions seem a really weak threat. Do they even work? This war continues to go on with sanctions sitting on Russia, and they have been there.

LEIGHTON: Yes. Well, the thing that we have to keep in mind, Sara, is that Russia has basically developed a block of alliances with countries like China and North Korea. The North Koreans have sent troops, and the Chinese have sent more material to the Russians.

So the Russians can sustain themselves for quite some time. Russia, being a vast country, has a lot of resources. It does have wartime industrial capacity, and they've made their economy a wartime economy.

So sanctions are going to have limited utility. The things that would work would be some kind of military pressure on the Russians. And so far, we haven't seen either the United States or the Europeans trying to put something like that on, you know, on the Russians at this particular moment in time.

SIDNER: All right, I want to now move to a ceasefire that has been literally blown up. Israel has said basically two things are the reason for the end of the ceasefire.

One, that Hamas did not release all the hostages. And because its officials say Hamas rejected the U.S. deal, that was on the table. Are you surprised how quickly and how severe this attack happened?

LEIGHTON: Yes, I am a bit surprised that it happened at this particular moment in time. But when you look at the dynamics of the Israeli political landscape, it's pretty clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to not only keep the conflict going, he doesn't want to go to phase two of the agreement that was reached under the Biden administration. And that is something that, you know, is really putting the population of Gaza at risk for the kinds of scenes that we're seeing right now.

So what we're seeing is really the outgrowth of Israeli efforts to, yes, get the hostages back, but number one, to continue to pound Hamas in essence in an effort to destroy it and to make it completely unviable as an organization. That has not succeeded in spite of the massive amounts of orphans that Israel has pounded into Gaza. And they're continuing to do this, but it's a strategy that really portends a war without end, and that's a very dangerous scenario for the Middle East.

SIDNER: I was going to ask you about how you thought this would end. And for you, and for a lot of people, I don't see what the end is going to be. I do want to mention what Hamas is saying this morning, saying that Israel's coordination with the United States ahead of resuming the war confirms what it says is Washington's complicity in the war.

The U.S. has been accused of this before by protesters here in America. What do you eventually see happening here in this scenario where there doesn't seem to be any way to get the two sides together right now?

LEIGHTON: Yes, it's going to be really difficult, and I really feel for the families of the Israeli hostages, because that's going to, I think, be something that is going to be dragged out even longer. Hamas is, you know, basically put into a bit of a corner, but they are still able to survive. And that very fact that they're able to survive does indicate that they have certain planning capabilities.

Supposedly one of the other things that Hamas, you know, was planning was some kind of an attack in the style of October 7, 2023. If that is actually the case, then the Israelis will use that as a justification, or have perhaps already used this as a justification for their actions today. And that is something that, you know, I think we'll see more and more of that.

So the future does not look good for Gaza. And a resolution of that conflict, I suspect, will go on for six to 12 months from now.

SIDNER: All right, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you so much for your great analysis this morning -- John.

BERMAN: All right, the clock is ticking toward April 2, the day that President Trump now says he will put all kinds of tariffs in place. The markets have been gyrating wildly in anticipation.

Now, the president's always claimed that this would bring -- the tariffs would bring money into the country and spur domestic manufacturing. But economists now are saying, literally, not so fast. CNN's Matt Egan is here with that report. [07:40:02]

What are they telling you, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, they're saying this is one of those things that's a lot easier said than done. Sure, tariffs could help encourage companies to make some more stuff in the United States.

But a dramatic revival of manufacturing, that is something that would take a considerable amount of time, far more time than what President Trump has left in his term in the White House.

RSM Chief Economist Joe Brusuelas, he told me, the sort of reindustrialization that's being talked about isn't the product of months or years, it's the product of decades. And this is a timeline that was echoed by multiple economists and academics who study trade.

The issue here, of course, is that tariffs, they can kick in with very little notice, especially these days. But building a factory, I mean, that is something that can take years and billions of dollars. That's why CEOs, they need to have clarity on where tariffs are going to be when factories open.

That's going to decide whether or not it makes sense in the first place. These days, CEOs don't really have any confidence on where tariffs are going to be at the end of the week, let alone the end of the decade.

Now, look, none of this is to say that manufacturing jobs don't need the help right now. They obviously do. I mean, manufacturing employment crashed in the 80s and in the 90s, then again during the Great Recession. The question, though, is whether or not tariffs are going to be in place long enough to meaningfully reverse this drop in employment.

Now, the White House says that the initial focus here is on trying to get factories that are already open and underutilized to be ramped up. And they've acknowledged that this is going to be a step-by-step process. The White House has also said that they're happy to see a number of companies make major investment announcements since the president took office, including Taiwan Semiconductor, GE Aerospace, Chrysler parent company Stellantis, drug maker Eli Lilly.

But again, John, I think the question here is whether or not investors, CEOs and voters really have the stomach for the kind of long-term trade war that might be needed to get manufacturing back to where it was -- John.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, thank you so much for all of that.

With us now, CNN political analyst Laura Barron-Lopez and Semaphore political reporter Shelby Talcott. Just one quick question on tariffs here, because something that Ed Yardeni from Ed Yardeni Research said yesterday on CNBC caught my eye.

He said, quote, any day where the president doesn't talk about tariffs is a good day for the market.

Laura, does the White House feel the same way? Do they now have a bit of reticence or a filter when it comes to all the tariff talk after what's been happening in the markets?

LAURA BARRON LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the White House is very aware and follows -- and the president follows the markets closely. And they're very aware that the president's plans around tariffs are not necessarily helping him when it comes to pulling with the American people. I mean, the only issue that he is above water on, according to recent polls, is immigration. On the economy and on other things like health care and things that help people's pocketbooks, he's not doing very well. But just because the White House is aware of it doesn't mean that the president is going to necessarily back off on tariffs.

BERMAN: That's a key distinction there. And Shelby, Laura just mentioned that the issue where the president is above water, which means positive approval rating right now, is immigration, which is where this fight with the federal judiciary is currently happening. With the White House either crossing the line or pushing the line when it comes to deportations over, you know, an 18th century law. How does the White House feel this fight is going as of this morning?

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Listen, administration officials are doubling down on their argument that we heard in court yesterday, which, of course, is the argument that that verbal order is not the same as a written order and that they essentially did nothing wrong by not returning these flights back to the U.S.

But I also want to note that this is something that the administration has planned for. They game planned this not over the last two months of the transition, but really over the last four years when it comes to immigration and even invoking the Alien Enemies Act. So they were expecting this pushback and they're prepared to fight it in court. They've been working on this for years.

BERMAN: And Laura, what are you hearing on this subject?

BARRON LOPEZ: Well, look, I think when it comes to a verbal and written order, yes, that's the administration's argument. But, you know, when you talk to legal scholars, immigration lawyers, judges themselves, there's no distinction between a written and verbal order. And you heard that yesterday in the hearing where the judge called it a stretch and was kind of incredulous that the administration was even making this argument because a verbal order holds just as much weight as a written order.

[07:45:04]

I think what's key here is that the administration, to Shelby's point, is sending out all these signals that they are not necessarily going to follow court orders. And just last night, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, was telling Fox, repeating what other administration officials have said, saying that they may very well continue flights, deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, despite the fact that the judge has put a temporary block on them.

BERMAN: And Shelby, that's a big deal, right? We're two months into this administration, and there's been a bit of a dance for these two months about whether the administration would explicitly go against a court order or a judge's ruling. There's, I guess, a little bit of gray area, whether that's happened in this case, although it seems ever more likely that perhaps they did go against an explicit court order.

How much does the White House want to cross that line, not just on immigration, but maybe for several other issues?

TALCOTT: Well, I think that's a question, right? We heard Tom Homan, the border czar yesterday, say that essentially he didn't care about the court order. Now, when Karoline Leavitt was asked about that, she said those were just Tom Homan's words and that the administration plans to abide by court orders.

So we're kind of hearing different things depending on the administration official that you're talking to. And so I think, you know, a big thing is going to be how this court case plays out, and that will help determine what the administration is going to do in the next few days, in the next few weeks.

BERMAN: You know, she did say that, you know, Tom Homan, we're not taking his word for it, that the White House is obeying the law. But she also said, Laura, that this judge has no authority here, has no authority in the interpretation of a law.

BARRON LOPEZ: That's right. Even Karoline Leavitt's words were a bit contradictory yesterday. She said that the judge has no jurisdiction. She said that the administration believes that they are going to prevail in court. You know that ultimately the president has all of this authority under the Alien Enemies Act.

I mean, you know, I can't really find a constitutional scholar who says that the president is invoking the Alien Enemies Act in the correct way. This is a wartime power. It's never been used in a time of peace, which is currently what we're in.

But I think one of the big things here, John, is due process and the potential erosion of due process, which is that this act and invoking it allows the president to detain or deport any Venezuelan national living here, whether they're here legally or they're undocumented, without any day in court, without any hearing, without due process.

And so that's why, you know, we're asking the administration questions about who exactly did you deport? What are their names? And they aren't providing that so far because none of these people had any kind of hearing.

And there's some early signs -- I was talking to a lawyer representing a client who -- that their client, a Venezuelan national, they say had no ties whatsoever to the Tren de Aragua gang. So there's the potential that some of the people deported are not necessarily linked to this gang, but we don't have the answers to that. And the administration is not providing it because of the fact that there was no hearing and there was no due process.

BERMAN: Laura Barron-Lopez, Shelby Talcott, thank you so much for both being with us this morning.

New video shows the moment actor and comedian Tracy Morgan had to be taken out of Madison Square Garden in a wheelchair after getting sick courtside.

And CNN gets a look inside the notorious El Salvador prison where President Trump is sending alleged Venezuelan gang members.

[07:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, the family of a missing U.S. college student is asking the Dominican Republic to have her declared dead. The parents of Sudiksha Konanki wrote a letter to the government saying investigators believe she drowned and they've not found any evidence of foul play.

New surveillance video shows her with her friends at a hotel bar just hours before she was reported missing. In the video, she's also near the man who was the last known person to have seen her. He is not considered a suspect, and he's asking a court to grant him his freedom, claiming his rights have been violated.

Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan appeared to fall ill at the Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. During the third quarter, the broadcaster announced play was delayed to clean up after a fan got sick who was sitting courtside. Morgan has faced serious health issues in the past, including a near fatal crash in 2014, a kidney transplant, also battles diabetes. CNN has reached out to his representatives for comment.

Starting next fall, tuition will be free for Harvard undergraduates for families earning less than $200,000 a year. Harvard is joining schools, including MIT, the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania, in offering more financial aid to middle income families. Now, from 1980 to 2020, the cost for an undergraduate degree jumped 169 percent -- Sara.

SIDNER: Outrageous. All right, thank you so much, John.

This is the El Salvador mega prison now at the center of President Trump's deportation. It was designed for taking in the worst of the worst, as they put it. And CNN's David Culver is giving us a rare look at what goes on inside that prison.

[07:55:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: (voice-over): Under a veil of darkness, they arrive, shackled and seemingly shell-shocked, bound for a prison where the past is erased and the future is a door that never opens. More than 250 alleged criminals deported from the U.S., arriving in El Salvador over the weekend. Most are from Venezuela, accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua, a violent transnational gang.

Their destination, El Salvador's terrorism confinement center, known as CECOT, a supermax prison built by President Nayib Bukele to house his country's most dangerous criminals. One by one, hundreds of guards process these new arrivals, who are stripped of choice, power and identity.

It will cost the U.S. about $6 million to keep them here for at least the first year. These images, released by El Salvador's government and proudly shared online by President Bukele, highlight his controversial yet seemingly effective gang crackdown while also positioning him firmly in President Trump's good graces, helping to fulfill Trump's mass deportation promises.

President Trump thanking Bukele for his understanding of this horrible situation, adding we will not forget.

CECOT was built to contain, to isolate.

CULVER: All right, we're going to go in here.

CULVER (voice-over): And late last year, we stepped inside to see it for ourselves. These men described as the worst of the worst, tattooed with reminders of El Salvador's dark past. It's tense and uncomfortable. But here, officials say comfort isn't meant to exist.

CULVER: There's no mattresses, there's no sheets. You've got a toilet over here for them to go to the bathroom. You've got this basin here that they use to bathe themselves. And then you can see there there's a barrel of water that they can drink from. And he says there's always somebody standing here in front of the cells.

And then if you look up, there's another corridor with more security personnel. Twenty-four-seven light.

CULVER (voice-over): The prison sits like an isolated fortress nestled in mountainous terrain about an hour and a half drive from the capital.

CULVER: It's been equated to seven football stadiums. It's almost multiple prisons within the prison. The far end, you have one that's nine meters high of concrete. And then above that three meters of electrified fencing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's 1,500 volt.

CULVER: 1,500 volts.

CULVER (voice-over): More than a thousand security personnel, guards, police and military are stationed on site. Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors. Each sector holds more than two dozen large cells. CULVER: Roughly 80 inmates per cell. But it can fluctuate.

What is it like to live here?

MARVIN VASQUEZ, INMATE: It's probably not a five-star, but they give you the three times the food. They give you some programs. You go to -- you go to do exercise, some church religion program too.

CULVER: But that's limited to just 30 minutes a day. The other 23.5 hours, they're kept inside and locked up.

CULVER (voice-over): For inmates who get violent with other prisoners or guards --

CULVER: They're going to close the door. I just want to get a sense of -- wow.

CULVER (voice-over): Solitary confinement awaits.

CULVER: The only light you get is through this hole, and they can be in here for 15 days, potentially. All right. I'm ready to get out.

CULVER (voice-over): Critics point specifically to the prisons strict control and isolation of inmates, calling it a violation of human rights.

CULVER: The director brought up that a lot of folks will raise concerns from a human rights perspective, and an abuse of human rights, that he's calm hearing that because he sees it day to day. The process they go through to maintain as he sees it proper punishment.

CULVER (voice-over): And now that proper punishment isn't just for alleged Salvadoran criminals, it's also for those the U.S. decides to send away. An outsourcing of confinement into Bukele's prized prison, merciless for those inside, but to many beyond these walls, CECOT stands as a symbol of El Salvador's restored security.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: We are standing by for the phone call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. It could begin within minutes, Ukraine and the world on edge, as the president hints at major concessions.

A ceasefire in Gaza shattered overnight, major airstrikes by Israel, hundreds reportedly killed. Where does this leave negotiations?

And after 280 days, they finally figured out a way to get two U.S. astronauts home. An update on the long overdue return.