Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump's Pause on Possible Russia Sanctions Could Hurt Ukraine; 10 GOP Senators Urge Trump Admin Not to Withhold Education Funding; Most Massive Black Hole Collision Ever Detected in Space. Aired 9:30- 10a ET

Aired July 17, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:31:37]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So senior Russian officials are weighing in on President Trump's threat to impose secondary sanctions on countries doing business with Russia if a peace deal is not reached within 50 days. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says 50 days, it used to be 24 hours, it used to be 100 days. We've been through all of this.

With us now, retired general David Petraeus, former head of U.S. Central Command, former CIA director general.

Always great to see you. So 50 days, which is now I think 47 days, with the summer fighting season full on and with a lot of Russian troops in key positions now in Ukraine, do you think the Russians view that 50-day threat as more of a sanction or more of an opportunity, a window to exploit?

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Well, first, I think the really important action that's been taken is not the threat of the 50 days, John. It's the resumption of assistance of U.S., particularly the air defense and ballistic missile interceptors. There are a few other countries from which Ukraine can get those. Part of this full-on summer offensive is indeed every single night.

A large number of drones and missiles launched against Ukraine. And that was a real worry that they would not be able to prevent these missiles from landing in their cities. Enough of them do get through that there is a significant amount of damage and destruction almost every night. The 50 days really is more about what's the course going to be continuing on from there. And I think they have to be a bit worried about that.

Up until now, they have been able to delay, to duck and bob and weave and all the rest of this more than given the benefit of the doubt. And I think that President Trump now realizes that they have not been in good faith. They have been playing him. He doesn't like that. And that is great. Beyond that, of course, he had the success of the NATO summit, where the countries of NATO agreed to unprecedented levels of spending as a percentage of GDP.

So in many respects, the alliance is really quite united right now. And again, Russia has to be a bit concerned about that because they've been trying to divide elements of the coalition. They've been trying to divide Europe from North America and so forth.

BERMAN: A united coalition, more united than it's been maybe in months, enough to turn the tide on the ground in Ukraine. Do you think?

PETRAEUS: I'm not sure that it's enough to turn the tide. Keep in mind that, of course, Russia has been taking horrific losses to achieve the incremental gains of each day. They're estimated now to have had over a million soldiers killed and wounded, some 500,000 of them so severely wounded or killed that they couldn't return to the front lines. These are almost incomprehensible. They seem to be able to sustain this.

And, of course, what we really should be trying to do is through every means possible to enable Ukraine to change this dynamic on the battlefield where Putin can't even achieve anything on a daily basis, despite horrific losses, and where they can defend themselves every night and indeed take the fight increasingly to Russia as they have been. Remember Operation Spider Web, where this diabolically creative operation, where $1 million worth of Ukrainian drones damaged or destroyed $7 billion worth of Russian strategic aircraft.

And among the components of an all-of-the-above approach should be for the European countries finally to seize that $300 billion of frozen Russian reserves in their banks and just give it to Ukraine so that they can manufacture even more than the 3.5 million drones that they intend to make this year.

[09:35:15]

Noting that when I was last there a couple of months ago, I asked the Ukrainian commander, how many drones did you use yesterday, one day, against the Russians, he said 7,000.

BERMAN: 7,000 drones.

PETRAEUS: In a day.

BERMAN: In a day.

PETRAEUS: And most of those are the one way 15 or 30 minute suicide drones. They go out when they see the Russians coming, trying to rush across the street into the next wood line. That's what has made this no man's land the front lines, really the deadliest ever. Russians cannot even use tanks or armored personnel carriers anymore. They get engaged and taken out immediately.

BERMAN: Gives you a sense of just how resource intensive right now, though, in some ways, specific resources, too, are involved in this battle.

General David Petraeus, out in Aspen, I'm sure you'll be talking about this quite a bit the next few days in the discussions out there. Thanks for your time this morning. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's always good to have him. Coming up for us, one person is dead, several children injured after a

lightning strike in New Jersey. We have more details on what happened. And astronomers detect the largest collision of two black holes ever recorded.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:48]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking overnight, Congress closing in on signing off on those massive DOGE spending cuts. The Senate approved slashing billions in funding already promised to foreign aid and public broadcasting. But yesterday, a group of Republican senators urged the Trump administration to remove a freeze on $6.8 billion in funding for education, writing, "The decision to withhold this funding is directly contrary to President Trump's goal of returning K through 12 education to the states."

Joining me now is Sharia Smith, president of the union that represents the Department of Education employees, American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

Thank you for being here. You heard what Republicans are saying about the freezing of the $6.8 billion that was promised to states for education. What effect is this actually having on the parents, teachers and children so far?

SHARIA SMITH, PRESIDENT OF UNION THAT REPRESENTS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION EMPLOYEES: Detrimental one, certainly. You know, this administration has made a lot of lip service to returning things to the states. We are aware that states have made surveys saying, hey, well, how are we going to help our migrant students? How are we going to help our special needs students when we do not have funding?

And that is what our department, the U.S. Department of Education, did. We did not interfere with curriculum or teacher quality. We funded schools, states, colleges so they can actually educate students.

SIDNER: Overall, the federal funding for schools is only about 13 percent of funding, but each state gets different levels of funding. So who is ultimately hit the hardest by these cuts?

SMITH: Certainly the poorest states. And you know, that's what makes it so sad to me. I'm from one of those states. I'm from the state of Indiana. I came from a family that did not have a lot of money. My people were sharecroppers and factory workers, and without federal funding, our school district would not have been able to educate me properly, which would have allowed me -- which then allowed me to become a teacher and then to become a lawyer.

So what we are going to see is a negative impact, a lack of services for our most vulnerable students, for our students who do not come from wealth, and for our students with special needs.

SIDNER: Let's move on to this idea from the Trump administration that they just want to completely dismantle the Department of Education. And one of the moves to do that, the Supreme Court agreed with them that it was OK for them to go ahead and fire about 1300 people who work for the Department of Education. What is the future of education in this country, as you see it, if the department is dismantled?

SMITH: My reading of the Supreme Court decision wasn't that they agreed that they should fire us, but they've lifted a stay that stopped them from -- stopped them from firing us and required them to reintegrate us. But what this is, is a slap in the face to states, because that litigation that you just mentioned was brought by states, 18 states stated that we need the U.S. Department of Education to actually do our jobs for our citizens and for our children.

And the Supreme Court stated that or is allowing this administration to hamper that progress. And that is, you know, that's why I'm not surprised to hear that there are Republican representatives from those very -- from other states saying, hey, we need this help. This is what we've been saying all along.

SIDNER: What does this mean for the students and the teachers? And we're talking across the board here. The Department of Education involved, for example, in student loans, et cetera. What will this mean if the Department of Education does not have the staff that it needs to give the services that it used to give?

[09:45:02]

SMITH: Yes. It means that those services won't be provided. It means currently school districts are in limbo about whether they can have -- what services they can provide special needs children. It means that students who do not come from wealth, who would be eligible for Pell grants and student loans will not have the funding to continue their education. It means that, which then means that we will not have qualified people in the classrooms.

We already have a teacher shortage, and if you restrict the ability to get student loans for people to get their education to become teachers, to become doctors, to become lawyers, you know, that means we're just going to have less qualified people doing those roles. The detrimental effects of these changes will be far reaching. And they're -- you know, they're happening right now.

SIDNER: All right. Sharia Smith, what would you say are the next steps here when it comes to employees, when it comes to the Department of Education and what the employees that you represent will do?

SMITH: Yes, we've encouraged our members to assert their rights as American citizens and let their representatives know that this is a negative impact. So happy to hear that there are Republican representatives who are speaking up against these cuts. We are certainly challenging, in our view, the illegal layoffs in our agency, these layoffs are not because of performance. They're not because our services are not needed.

The recipients of our services filed the lawsuit saying that they need us. And so we are lifting that up in the courts and through our internal mechanisms under our CBA.

SIDNER: All right. Sharia Smith, thank you so much for walking us through how this is affecting the employees, students, teachers and all those inside using funds from the Department of Education. Appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right. We just learned that Attorney General Pam Bondi is on her way to Alcatraz today. Why she is going to one of the country's most notorious and most closed prisons. And what astronomers are calling the biggest black hole collision ever, as big as 240 suns. Why this is leading scientists to rethink everything.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:51]

SIDNER: A lightning strike killed a 61-year-old man, injured 13 others, including a 7-year-old, at an outdoor archery club in New Jersey last night. Police say about half the victims belong to a Boy Scout troop. The area was under a thunderstorm warning when that lightning strike happened.

New this morning, 20 Democratic-led states are suing the Trump administration for ending a FEMA program that helps communities guard against damage from natural disasters. The lawsuit, of course, coming nearly two weeks after one of the deadliest natural disasters in Texas, those devastating flash floods. FEMA announced in April that it was ending the program to eliminate, quote, "wastes, fraud and abuse."

Now, President Trump, taking credit for convincing Coca-Cola to switch up its American recipe and make the drink with real cane sugar. That is what Coke already sells in Mexico. The U.S. it's concurrently made with high fructose corn syrup, which has, of course, been in the crosshairs of RFK Jr.'s Health and Human Services Department. Coca- Cola did not confirm the change, but told CNN it appreciates the president's enthusiasm. And some new details they say they'll be offering soon. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for the plug. We really appreciate it.

Whoa, I am in space and we have breaking space news. It's very nice. It's the biggest collision of massive black holes ever recorded. What am I talking about? I have absolutely no idea, but I do know is that an international team of astronomers detected two black holes slamming into each other. Both of them each more massive than 100 suns.

It sounds like a "Mad Libs." I'm told these were reliable facts. And this is the fact man. The only person who can sort this out is CNN NEWS CENTRAL's very own black hole correspondent, CNN's Tom Foreman.

What the heck is going on here?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You got to get on board here, Kate. The space community is beside itself over this. This is a huge, huge thing. For the first time ever, we have this collision of two black holes that are too big. They're not supposed to be the size they are. There are bigger ones at the centers of galaxies. But this type, it's too big to be the kind you'd normally have from collapsing stars.

So there's a basic question about them. They're spinning around each other. When they did this at a speed -- nearly the speed of light. Unbelievable. Just right at the limit of what is even possible. So this has opened up a whole new area of exploration for space explorers out there to say, how did this happen? What does it mean? What does it tell us about the nature of black holes? And what does it tell us about the nature of our universe?

Because, you know, the explorer -- the exploration of things like this, figuring out how our universe works and how we fit into it. You know, at the beginning, it always looks like something that just seems esoteric and odd. But this leads us to an understanding of how we can change our life here on earth, and how we can continue to explore and understand the universe that we live in, Kate. So yes, people are very excited about this.

BOLDUAN: And you know what? We're here for really deep thinking here at CNN CENTRAL.

FOREMAN: Yes.

[09:55:02]

BOLDUAN: Deep introspection is what I am known for.

Do you know at all, the last time you were on and cracking us up with your Tom Foremaness, you were talking about a supermassive black hole, which was offensive.

FOREMAN: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Is there any reporting? Have you spoken to the supermassive black hole? Is that involved in this collision?

FOREMAN: It has had nothing to do with this latest collision. I will say this. This was detected through a system called LIGO, which is just amazing. Think about this. We were unable to detect a black hole merger at all until 2016. That's the first time we ever did it. This system, one of the stations for this is in Washington, one is in Louisiana, and they're measuring this infinitesimally small ripple in space time.

I know that sounds confusing, but just imagine that all of space and time, as Einstein did, imagine it being like a big sheet out there and somebody has a marble on it somewhere, and if it moves fast enough, maybe it sends a little ripple along that fabric, and maybe you're able to measure it.

I cannot describe how incredibly small this is in terms of what they measured. That's why it's so exciting. And Einstein theorized a long, long, long time ago that this was possible, but that we probably could never measure it. So, you know, he was wrong about that.

SIDNER: Look at us.

BOLDUAN: Look -- take that, Einstein.

FOREMAN: This is big. Cosmic news.

SIDNER: Technology.

BOLDUAN: Cosmic.

SIDNER: It's cosmic.

BOLDUAN: Tom Foreman, we love you, or, I mean, I can speak for myself.

SIDNER: We do. That is true. I don't know about the black hole in my brain, but I know that we love Tom Foreman.

Thank you so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM" next.

BERMAN: Black hole.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]