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Trump Envoy, Putin Meet After New Russian Strikes on Ukraine; Trump Speaks Ahead of Departure to Rome for Pope's Funeral; Former Congressman George Santos to be Sentenced for Fraud. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired April 25, 2025 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TINA KNOWLES, AUTHOR, BEYONCE'S MOTHER, FASHION DESIGNER: She was like, "Mom, you promised." And so I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And they were calling for them. So I just took little pieces out and, you know, glued them in her hair. And so she talks about that story and how much love that took for me to do it.
[09:00:19]
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Unlike her children, who grew up in the middle class until worldwide stardom, Knowles grew up dirt poor, the last of seven children.
(On camera): You grew up in Galveston, Texas, which has a long and sordid history.
KNOWLES: Yes.
SIDNER: The last place to let slaves who were free go.
KNOWLES: Exactly. Right.
SIDNER: And you were born in the time of segregation.
KNOWLES: Mm-hmm.
SIDNER: What was life like for you then? How did you get through it?
KNOWLES: Well, I had questions all the time, like why do we have to ride in the back of the bus? Why can't we use the -- drink out of the water fountain? I experienced all of that, but I think I just had such a good childhood that I didn't focus on it.
But when I got to be a teenager, that's when it got really rough because, like I said, I had a mouth on me and my brother, they beat my brother. They started harassing my family. So we had a long history with the police just kind of targeting us.
So on top of the racism, then you had someone harassing your family. So I had some pretty traumatic experiences with racism.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, President Trump's special envoy is in Russia meeting with Putin. And overnight, Russia launched new strikes against Ukraine despite Donald Trump's plea to Putin on social media to stop. And today, the retrial of Karen Read starts back up with jurors set to leave the courtroom, visiting the site where prosecutors say she killed her police officer boyfriend.
And next, our disgraced former Congressman George Santos will be sentenced by a federal judge after pleading guilty last year to identity theft and wire fraud charges tied to his 2022 midterm campaign.
I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. And this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
SIDNER: Happening right now, President Trump's special envoy meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It comes as Trump reveals new details about his so-called peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. And on the heels of this, another night of deadly Russian attacks on Ukraine despite Trump's rare rebuke of Putin on Thursday, posting, "Vladimir, stop!" after Moscow launched the deadliest attack on Kyiv since last summer, killing at least 12 people.
New this morning, Trump speaking out to "Time" magazine about plans for Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. While privately, sources tell CNN he's been venting behind the scenes about how hard it's been to broker a deal to end the war, something he said he could do within 24 hours of taking office.
CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent, Alex Marquardt, joining us once again now. Tell me more about what you are learning. I know this meeting appears to be happening now in Moscow.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and so much is on the line, Sara. Remember, the U.S. side has said that they would walk away from trying to broker peace in Ukraine if they don't see any kind of progress within the next few days. So this is an absolutely critical meeting.
Witkoff there meeting with not just Vladimir Putin, but two of his closest, most senior aides, while Witkoff has not been accompanied by any other senior U.S. officials. This is in keeping with what we've seen over the past few months. This is the fourth time this year that Witkoff is meeting with Vladimir Putin, and he is clearly trying to move the prospects of a peace deal forward or maybe just right now a ceasefire.
He is trying to get Putin to sign on to something that will end the fighting, that will get the fighting to stop so they can move towards negotiating this truce. And rather, this rather remarkable reporting from our colleagues at the White House with President Trump admitting privately that this is indeed more complicated than he thought, that is something that we heard from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine repeatedly, that it is far more difficult to end this war than perhaps Trump thinks.
So Witkoff going into this meeting, as we're also hearing from the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who claims that they are ready for a deal, but that it needs, in his words, fine tuning.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The president of the United States believes, and I think rightly so, that we are moving in the right direction. The statement by the president mentions a deal and we are ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points, elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:05:16]
MARQUARDT: And Sara, skeptics or critics of Russia, and of course there are many of them, will tell you that when you hear Lavrov saying things like that, fine tuning, more negotiations needed, that that is the Russians dragging their feet. And that's actually something that we've heard from President Trump as well.
Big questions about what kind of pressure the U.S. is putting on Russia. What kind of concessions they are asking of the Russians. Because certainly the U.S. is asking the Ukrainians to make very, very painful concessions. And now we're hearing, we heard President Trump just yesterday saying the concession that they're expecting of the Russians is to end the war, which is really a low bar.
Not asking them to give back large amounts of territory or help with the rebuilding. And there's this remarkable new interview in "Time" magazine in which President Trump yet again puts the blame on Ukraine for starting this war. He essentially says that Ukraine provoked the Russians. I think what caused the war, he said, to start was when they started talking about joining NATO.
Sara, that is a talking point that we've heard from the Kremlin time and time again that they had to launch this special military operation, as they called it, because Ukraine was getting too close to NATO. So there's a lot of concern among the Ukrainians and the Europeans about what Putin is going to tell Witkoff today. Because we have seen Witkoff and his boss Trump being rather sympathetic to the Russian view of things.
Sara?
SIDNER: We certainly have. And to remind people that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine, not the other way around.
Alex Marquardt, thank you so much for your reporting.
John?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. With us now, Jim Sciutto, CNN Chief National Security Analyst, as well as CNN Military Analyst, retired U.S. Army Major General James "Spider" Marks.
Gentlemen, great to see you this morning.
Jim, we just heard from Alex there and we saw the social media post from President Trump in regards to Russia's attack yesterday on Kyiv. The president said, "Vladimir, stop!" Well, then we saw a new round of attacks overnight. What evidence have we seen that the Trump administration has applied any sticks to Russia in the whole carrot and stick metaphor?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: We haven't seen the evidence, frankly. And I spoke to a Ukrainian member of parliament yesterday, the chair of the equivalent of their Foreign Affairs Committee. And he said in his words that Putin is humiliating Trump because Trump, of course, has been pushing the ceasefire for more than a month now.
And Vladimir Putin, Russia has not signed off on it. And in fact, by their actions, these strikes that we've been seeing on an almost daily basis, those are direct challenges to Trump's ambition there. So to see that rare statement from Trump giving some criticism to Russia for continuing to carry out this war as it has for three years now, it's -- it's notable.
But one might say it's been a long time coming, right, because he has been much more willing to put pressure, quite public pressure and criticism on the leader of Ukraine for standing the way of peace, even after Ukraine, of course, signed on to the ceasefire than he has been willing to -- to Russia.
The question is, does he then back up a statement like that with genuine action, genuine economic pressure that he shows us, that the president, the administration shows us is underway?
BERMAN: Spider, the President said that the concession that Russia is making is not to invade all of Ukraine. How much of a concession is that?
MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's not a concession. Russia has demonstrated that it doesn't have the capacity to do that. But they invaded three years ago in the invasion force. The intent was to take Ukraine entirely, except for maybe a little sliver north of Moldova. And that failed within 10 days. And as a result of that, the Ukrainians have demonstrated incredible ability to resist Russian offensive.
And so then Russia just decided to adjust its strategy and go for the Kherson to Crimea offensive operation. And that's where it's been stuck ever since. So Russia has neither the capacity nor the leadership and ability and strategic initiative to do that.
So the warfare we're seeing right now is going to be the long-term engagement, which is the Russian way of war, which is the use of incredible amounts of artillery, dumb bombings, incredible destruction on the receiving end of all of that and the application of manpower at tremendous cost.
Look, the Russians have lost close to a million men. I mean, just think about that for a second, marinate in that number. And Stalin made the made the comment 50 years ago, 70 years ago. You know, the loss of one individual is a tragedy. The loss of a million is simply a statistic. And that's where we are.
[09:10:14]
BERMAN: But Spider, if the Russians have lost that much already and are willing to go on, what could get them to stop?
MARKS: Look, the only thing I think we're hearing from this administration is pressure that we don't -- I don't know what the narrative is. I don't know what the strategic objective is. It seems to be a whipsaw of daily proclamations of increased pressures. Those pressures we have never this administration has never indicated that they are willing to take. We could talk about increased military aid to Ukraine. That's been off the table. We could talk about deployment of forces to Poland. That's been off the table.
Increase air support, training both ground forces and air forces to conduct operational warfare, which is complicated, which takes time. This is a longer-term horizon in order to adjust the dynamic on the battlefield right now. And this administration has said that's not what we're going to do. So I don't know what the additional pressures are going to look like. Putin has the momentum and he knows it.
BERMAN: Jim, and you've covered all different types of diplomacy in war for years. I was speaking -- you speak even Democrats were super supportive of Ukraine and they say what may have to happen, what likely will have to happen at some point is an acceptance of where the lines are now, sort of like what they refer to as the Korean situation, where you have this is an official line that's divided that country for, you know, however many, 60, 70 years now. You know, how do you phrase that in a way that Ukraine can accept that?
SCIUTTO: You know, a fact of this war and the outlines of a settlement of this war for some time, and this goes back to the last administration as well, is that and you wouldn't have Biden administration officials say this publicly or European officials say this or even Ukrainian officials say this publicly because it politically at home, it's extremely sensitive, is that they have to give up some territory, right, that it's -- it's not believed they could gain back all the territory that Russia has taken, particularly Crimea, because Crimea, Russia sees as a strategic asset, warm water port headquarters, the Black Sea fleet, et cetera.
But there's a difference between accepting that, perhaps in armistice form, as you did on the Korean Peninsula, where you -- you say that this is just to stop the war for now. We're not finalizing this, et cetera. And of course, that's lasted for 70-some-odd years. But there is a difference between accepting that fact and formalizing that right, saying legally this is now part of Russian territory.
Why is that? Because Europe fought two wars in the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people because powers change the borders of Europe by force. And what's kept the peace since 1945 is saying you can't do that. So to allow Russia to do that, to put a rubber stamp on it, makes Europe very scared that it might happen again.
And when you speak to Eastern European, particularly Eastern facing members of the alliance, they're like, if that's OK, if that's cool, we may be next. And that -- that is the difference, right? So, you know, you try to shove that down Zelenskyy's throat, but it's -- it's a -- it's a hard pill, bitter pill for them to swallow.
BERMAN: Yeah. And the words here really do matter. Jim Sciutto, General James "Spider" Marks, always great to see you both. Thank you very much.
Kate?
BOLDUAN: This morning, disgraced former Congressman George Santos is set to face his sentence. How long he could spend behind bars after being convicted of wire fraud and identity theft.
And testimony will also soon resume in the murder trial of Karen Read. Why jurors are going to be taking a trip away from the courtroom today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:18:08]
BOLDUAN: All right, we're going to show you live pictures of Joint Base Andrews with President Trump will be appears he's landing there right now in Marine One and he's going to be heading to Air Force One as he's -- he and the First Lady are headed to Rome today as part of so many heads of state are headed to Rome to Vatican City for the Pope's funeral, which will be taking place tomorrow at 10 a.m. local time. CNN will have special coverage of that throughout.
And we're seeing they're arriving at Joint Base Andrews right now. The president just left the White House and did spend some time speaking to reporters on as he was leaving the White House heading to Marine One. I think we now have that tape ready.
Let's roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: President, you said you have spoken to President Xi. When did that happen? China says it hasn't happened.
DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT: I spoke to him numerous times. So, we're leaving and going to Rome where we'll be attending the funeral of Pope Francis. Some of you are going to go. Anybody going? And it's going to be very interesting. We're going to meet with a lot of the foreign leaders. They want to meet. Trade deals are going very well. I think Russia and Ukraine, I think they're coming along. We hope. Very fragile. And Iran, I think, is going very well. We'll see what happens.
We're working on plenty of things that shouldn't be worked on because none of this stuff should have happened. This should have been taken place by Biden. It should have been fixed by Biden. But he couldn't do it, nor could he come close to doing. So anyway, we're going to Rome to pay our respects. And we'll be leaving that same day. We'll be coming back home tomorrow night. And I'll see some of you over there. Otherwise, I'll see you on television.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: You said you spoke with President Xi. Have you spoken to him since the tariffs? When did you last speak to him?
[09:20:04]
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't want to -- I don't want to comment on that, but I've spoken to him many times, yeah.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- from Japan --
TRUMP: From Japan, I'm getting along very well with Japan. We're very close to a deal.
REPORTER: Will you be meeting with the --
TRUMP: I'll be meeting with the Italian -- yes. Your Prime Minister?
REPORTER: No, with President Zelenskyy.
TRUMP: Oh, it's possible.
REPORTER: How would you and the First Lady remember Pope Francis?
TRUMP: Very well. Good man. He loved the world, actually. And he was just a good man. I met him twice. I thought he was a fantastic kind of a guy.
REPORTER: You told Time Magazine that President Xi called you. When did that happen and what did you discuss?
TRUMP: I'll let you know at the appropriate time. Let's see if we can make a deal.
REPORTER: Any updates on the Witkoff Putin meeting, sir?
TRUMP: They're meeting with Putin right now as we speak. And we have a lot of things going on. And I think, in the end, we're going to end up with a lot good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals. We're going make our country rich, but we're going to try and get out of war so that we can save 5,000 people a week. And that's what my aim is. I want to save 5,000 young men. They happen to be mostly Ukrainian, Russian. 5,000 young Ukrainian and Russian men and that's -- that's a big honor if I could do it. I think I think we're pretty close.
(CROSSTALK)
No deadline, I just want to do it as fast as possible.
What? REPORTER: 12 states have sued you over your tariff plan, what do you think of those who voted for you but -- ?
TRUMP: I think the tariff plan is doing very well. We're resetting the table. We're going to make our country very rich. Very, very rich, it's already happening. Thank you very much.
(CROSSTALK)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: All right. That was just a few moments ago. The President and the First Lady now heading -- will be heading off shortly, if they have not already, from Joint Base Andrews to Rome.
And what we heard a lot -- some of the most interesting bits you just heard right there from the president is one he was actually pinned down if he'd spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping since tariffs have set in, he said no comment. So I think that can actually tell you quite a lot.
We're going to continue to follow this, obviously. Much more to come on that.
Let's turn to this right now. Next hour, disgraced former Congressman George Santos, he's going to be sentenced in federal court. He pleaded guilty last year. He was ousted from Congress in 2023 and just hours ahead of his sentencing, Santos spoke to "The New York Times" saying, quote, "My expectation is I'm going to prison for 87 months. I came to this world alone. I will deal with it alone. And I will go out alone."
CNN's Brynn Gingras outside the courthouse this morning with much more.
A lot of deep thinking that George Santos is clearly going through right now as he's about to face his sentence. What do you what are you hearing, Brynn?
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, there's been a lot of a roller coaster with George Santos. I mean, really, since this all started, Kate. I can tell you right now at the courthouse here in Central Islip, New York, we're still waiting for the disgraced former congressman to arrive. And then, of course, go into that sentencing hearing, putting an end to a more than two-year ordeal. And like you said, also, which got him kicked out of Congress.
Now, he said to "The New York Times" that he expects 87 months. Well, that's because in court filings, prosecutors are asking the judge to sentence him to 87 months for the crimes that he pled guilty to. They essentially said in those filings that he has shown no remorse, that he actually believes he's a victim in this case and that he hasn't paid back the more than a half a million dollars in restitution that is owed to the victims in this case.
Now, after that filing was made earlier this last this month, George Santos really went on a tirade on X against the Department of Justice, just really railing against them. And prosecutors essentially said, see, this just proves he's not remorseful.
Now, in his own court filings, George Santos is asking for two years behind bars. That is the minimum sentence that he could receive today. He says he is, quote, "profoundly sorry" and that he actually has tried to pay back the money, saying that he has liquidated personal assets, he's cut down his living expenses. So we'll see which side the judge believes.
I can tell you one thing we will be looking out for is if this judge is going to remand him today after the sentencing or set a date for him to come back and report to prison. So we'll be on the lookout for that.
But that court hearing starts at 10:30 and we'll give you updates.
Kate?
BOLDUAN: Brynn, thank you so much, as always. Really appreciate it.
Sara?
BERMAN: I'll take it.
BOLDUAN: Oh, sorry, John. How about you, John?
BERMAN: This morning, a race against the clock as the Trump administration gives migrants just 12 hours to fight deportation orders.
And a leaked Trump administration budget proposal revealed plans to eliminate suicide prevention services for LGBTQ plus youth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:29:23]
BOLDUAN: This morning, President Trump is applying more pressure on Ukraine to make concessions to end the war with Russia, a war that Russia started. And this is coming from a new interview just published that Trump gave to "Time" magazine saying this in part, and there was a lot about Ukraine and Russia in there.
"Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelenskyy understands that. And everybody understands that it's been with them for a long time. Crimea is the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow invaded and annexed in 2014. Ukraine's President Zelenskyy has long made it clear this is not something he's going to concede."
Trump also once again put the blame for the war on Ukraine, saying in this interview also this. I think what caused the war to start was when they started talking about joining NATO.
[09:30:08]
