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Trump Says He Believes Putin is "Going to Make a Deal"; July Wholesale Inflation Jumped the Most in 3 Years; Corporate Culture Change for Employees Who Must Return to Office; Now: CA Gov Announces Next Steps Over Congressional Maps. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: ... ready to end their redistricting standoff and return to the state, while California Governor Gavin Newsom ramps up efforts to redraw his state's congressional maps.

And why the CEOs from some of the biggest companies are cracking down on remote work and pushing for less work flexibility. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

We begin this hour with the breaking news that President Trump was speaking from the Oval Office a short time ago on the eve of this pivotal summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. With the future of Ukraine at stake, the President is now raising expectations surrounding the talks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that President Putin would like to see a deal. I think if I weren't president, he would take over all of Ukraine. It's a war that should have never happened. If I weren't president, in my opinion, he would much rather take over all of Ukraine. But I am president, and he's not going to mess around with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Our reporters are covering every angle of this story. CNN's Jim Sciutto is in Anchorage ahead of the summit tomorrow, and CNN's Alayna Treene is live for us at the White House.

Jim, first to you, do you get the sense that Vladimir Putin is actually serious about finding an avenue to peace?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Boris, there's no evidence over the last several months or years, really, that Putin is interested in any agreement short of giving him what he wants in Ukraine, right? Remember, he first invaded Ukraine in 2014 partially and then launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, attempting to take the whole country. Really, all that has held him back has been a ferocious fight from Ukrainian forces backed by Europe and the U.S. And again, as I said in the last hour, the early assessments were that Russia might very well have been successful in that, had Ukraine not been able to punch above its weight, as it were, and hold the Russian forces back.

And even in Putin's positions in recent weeks and months, U.S. officials have said, and European diplomats, that he is sticking to his maximalist demands for Ukraine, which is large amounts of territory, wanting to reduce Ukrainian forces to something too small, really, to defend the country, and offering no substantial security guarantees to Ukraine that Russia won't invade again. Those have been its positions to date, by all accounts.

Now, whether President Trump can negotiate Putin off those maximalist demands tomorrow, that's certainly possible, but there's been no evidence to date that Putin is willing to do so. And one final point I would say, Boris, is that by the indications from Ukrainian officials I speak with, but also European officials, Putin believes he's winning. Putin believes he has the upper hand on the battlefield right now, and is making costly gains, but still making gains on the battlefield, so therefore does not feel a great deal of pressure to concede.

Again, that could change tomorrow, face-to-face with Donald Trump, but the evidence to date has been that this is not a Putin willing to make a deal on terms that Ukraine or Europe would accept.

SANCHEZ: And Alayna, the President is sort of framing this meeting as a precursor to a trilateral meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy, and Trump himself, potentially including some European allies. What else is the White House saying about that?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, this is actually - he's now said this multiple times today, Boris and Danny, that he believes that really this hopefully will be a good meeting with Putin, but that the second meeting is how he's framing it would be even more important because that next meeting would include Zelenskyy. I want you to take a look at how he framed it just last hour when he was in the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think it's going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelenskyy, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders along, maybe not. It's - I don't know, that - it's going to be very important. We're going to see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: The reason I think those comments, Boris and Danny, are so important is because we know that the United States, European allies, and Zelenskyy, not only did they speak with the President yesterday, but they've been in close contact with other administration officials this week, they are trying to bend Trump's ear before he has this one- on-one meeting with Putin. And part of that is because they are, you know, wary that potentially some things that are very important could get agreed to tomorrow and they will not have a seat at that table. We did hear President Donald Trump this morning say that he believes

that Putin is convinced that he wants peace, that he believes a peace deal could be reached.

[15:05:00]

He also said that he doesn't know that they're going to get an immediate ceasefire in that first meeting, all things that, of course, are likely making Europe and Zelenskyy a little bit nervous as he gears up to head to Anchorage tomorrow. But some other important things I thought he said, one was he kind of acknowledged his mindset heading into this, Donald Trump.

He said that he had long thought that this war between Russia and Ukraine would be the easiest to settle. He ended up saying it's been the most difficult one.

And we also heard him earlier say that there is still a chance this could end in failure. He said he believes there is a 25 percent chance that he ends up having to walk away from this meeting with Putin. He said he believes he'll know whether or not that's the case within the first few minutes. And so, it's still unclear exactly what the United States is expecting from tomorrow. But if all goes well in Trump's eyes, it will be the precursor to at least one other meeting that will include Zelenskyy.

FREEMAN: Alayna Treene and Jim Sciutto, thank you both for breaking all of that down for us.

Joining us now, retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Ty Seidule. He's now a professor at Hamilton College and the former head of the history department at the U.S. Military Academy. Also with us, former CIA case officer, Kevin Carroll. He worked as the former senior counselor to John Kelly during his time at Homeland Security.

Thank you gentlemen both for joining us.

Kevin, if I may go to you first, can you just break down realistically right now how Ukraine and Russia are positioned on the battlefield going into this summit? Because that seems to be really key in order to understand what might happen tomorrow.

KEVIN CARROLL, FORMER SENIOR COUNSELOR AT HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT: I think Ukraine has done a tremendous job. They've fought very bravely and well in a defensive campaign against a country with a much more land mass, much more population, larger economy, bigger army. They've had difficulty launching counter-offenses, you know, because they've lacked until recently the air power that they've needed to accomplish that.

You know, the Russians have conquered about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. I don't think that the Russian army has performed very well. They've been very brutal. They've suffered enormous casualties, but they haven't showed a lot of great operational success.

So, I think that Putin's hope is that he'll somehow be able to get Donald Trump to pull U.S. support from Ukraine and win the war that way.

SANCHEZ: General, it seems that the framework for any deal would be some concession on the part of Ukraine - of territory. Obviously, President Zelenskyy has objected to that. He says that that is not on the table, but that's what Putin wants. And in exchange, in theory, there would be some security guarantees for Ukraine that would prohibit Putin from further incursion into their territory. Does that seem like the likeliest path forward to you?

BRIGADIER GENERAL TY SEIDULE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yes, I just don't know how - thank you. I just don't know how Zelenskyy goes back to his people and says, hey, we're going to move out of some of the territory that we have spent so many lives doing. And so, what I fear is that that will be what will be said. And if Zelenskyy says no to that, somehow he is an impediment to peace, when the real impediment to peace is Vladimir Putin. All he has to do to end this war is leave. So, I think that is - a possibility is that that will be given, but I just don't think that is possible.

Plus, what are the security guarantees that are going to be given? This is something where the devil really is in the details. Will there be a U.S. security guarantee? Will there be European group boots on the ground? All of these things take an enormous amount of planning. And if there's one thing this summit hasn't had, it's much planning, not planning with the Europeans, not planning with Zelenskyy, not planning with interagency with DOD or state or anyone else.

So, what I fear is that we're going in half-baked and what we'll get out of this summit was completely unpredictable because if there's one thing that foreign policy experts always get wrong is predicting Donald Trump. We'd never get that right.

FREEMAN: Well, Kevin, I was just wondering from your perspective here, because again, Zelenskyy has been warning, right, that so many parts of Eastern Ukraine really is a springboard for a future new offensive. That's the way he's been posturing here. But would Putin be satisfied taking just that one part of Ukraine and then going from there? I mean, what are we talking about when it actually comes to any sort of deal here?

CARROLL: I don't think so. I mean, what Putin wants is to ensure that all of Ukraine remains in the orbit of Russia. He does not want a westward facing Ukraine, a Ukraine that's democratic as it is, that is perhaps a member of the European Union, certainly not a member of NATO. So, I think we should take Putin at his word. He's an evil man, but he states his intentions in public pretty clearly. And he wants firmly to get Ukraine back under the thumb of Russia, even though it's a different culture with a different language and some different religions. It's just a different place. And that's why they've - among the reasons they've fought so hard for their freedom.

SANCHEZ: To that point, do you think there are security guarantees that Putin would agree to, that Zelenskyy would want?

[15:10:01] CARROLL: Certainly, Zelenskyy would like membership in NATO. And

that's one of the things that's absolutely a red line for Putin. So, I don't really see that there's a deal to be had here, which is acceptable to Zelenskyy as a democratically elected leader who has legal constraints on him by the Ukrainian constitution against Putin, who's a dictator who doesn't have to care about public opinion or the rule of law or the value of human life.

FREEMAN: And General, can you give your perspective on this? Because one of the things that we heard in this press conference just a little while ago from President Trump is seemingly a little more willingness to include E.U. leaders at the table if this second meeting comes about. Do you think that's a direct result of the push that leaders of Germany, the U.K. and France have been making over the course of this past week?

SEIDULE: Yes, I think that's exactly it. I also think he goes back to the 2018 Helsinki meeting where he ponied up to, saddled up to Putin. And the reaction of that was just unbelievably bad all around. That's when John McCain said it was a disastrous performance and so did other Republicans.

So, I think he also knows that he has got a reputation, Trump does, for saddling up to Putin. And what he doesn't want is to be humiliated by Vladimir Putin. And that's sort of what happened last time. So, it is crucial that the Europeans and the Ukrainians are a part of this because it's not going to work if they're not a part of it.

SANCHEZ: General, I also wanted to get your thoughts on the idea that having this summit on U.S. territory is a victory for Putin. The President was asked about that earlier today. He said that it's not any kind of reward for him. This is happening on a U.S. military base in Alaska, which also carries symbolic significance because it used to be part of Russian territory.

SEIDULE: I don't think you could have done anything to make Vladimir Putin more happy than to have it on U.S. soil without Zelenskyy. Because what Putin wants is to be seen as an equal to the United States of America, sort of like the old Soviet days. He wants to recreate the Russian empire. And the idea of coming to the U.S. without anybody else puts him on equal footing with the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, the President of the United States. So, I think this is absolutely a win for Vladimir Putin. And that's why Trump has to be extraordinarily careful to make sure that nothing else that Putin wants is going to come.

Because again, what he wants is just as the other guest said is a complete and total victory to control Ukraine. And remember, he has attacked Estonia via cyber. He attacked Georgia, he attacked Crimea. He supported Assad. He supports North Korea and Iran. This guy is an enemy of the United States and an enemy of democracy. And so, giving him anything is not going to be in our best interest.

SANCHEZ: General Ty Seidule, Kevin Carroll, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate you both. Thank you.

SEIDULE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, we're watching the latest from California where Governor Gavin Newsom will soon make his biggest push yet to redraw the state's congressional maps. We're monitoring that event right now as we watch Sen. Alex Padilla.

FREEMAN: Plus, a new inflation report could signal higher prices are on the way. We'll break down those numbers.

And later, why many CEOs are making a big U-turn on the flexibility their workers once enjoyed. That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:42]

SANCHEZ: The latest inflation numbers show a spike in costs for manufacturers and producers, a sign that consumers may soon see higher prices themselves. Wholesale prices surged nearly a full percentage point last month, the highest rate in three years, surprising many economists. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich took a deep dive into the numbers.

And Vanessa, it is clear that tariffs have everything to do with this.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and producers are feeling it. The numbers heating up, coming in much, much higher than expected. Almost a full percentage point up in the month of July. That is the steepest increase that we've seen in three years. And then year over year, above 3 percent. Inflation for producers up 3.3 percent. And this is really divided into two categories.

The first category is goods. The month before in June, goods were up 0.3 percent, now up 0.7 percent, so an acceleration. And then services, which made up the bulk of this increase for producers, was down in the month of June by 0.1 percent. And now you see that steep, steep increase up over a full percentage point.

But then breaking down services, let's see sort of what became more expensive for these producers. Machinery and equipment up almost 4 percent. Transportation and warehousing. This is the moving and storing of all the goods and products that importers have been bringing into the country. Good news on the healthcare front. Hospital outpatient care actually fell by half a percentage point after increasing the month before. So good news on the healthcare front.

But I want to draw your attention to this, final demand trade services. This is the profit that these producers are making every single month. And as you can see, it's growing up 2 percent. That is a signal that producers are starting to keep more of the profits and - keep more of the profits by passing more of the price changes, the cost, down to consumers.

Now look at goods. You saw home electronic equipment up 5 percent there. Iron and steel scraps, you can see those tariffs on steel of 50 percent starting to weigh on producer prices. Food costs, which made up a big share of this report, up 1.4 percent. Gasoline prices, a bright spot here for producers, down 1.8 percent.

[15:20:06]

So, producers paying a lot more, but in the month of July, they were bringing in so much more. Take a look at the Port of Los Angeles. They just had a record month in July. The most cargo that they've ever moved in the history of the Port of Los Angeles. Look at the numbers here. Over 1 million containers moved in the month of July. That was an 8 percent increase from the previous July in 2024.

Why were they - why did they see this kind of movement? Well, importers racing to get stuff into the U.S. before all of these tariff deadlines. That pause on reciprocal tariffs was ending earlier this month in August. And of course, we were waiting to see if the pause on the China deadline got extended, which it did, but really, really importers trying to get all of this stuff into the country to beat the higher prices.

The surge is behind us. So, the goods are very much here. The Port of Los Angeles expects a lot of the volume to normalize. However, the stuff that's in the country right now is seeing the higher prices, but not as high as they could have been had they started bringing stuff in after those tariff deadlines started to expire and the tariff rates went up, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for walking us through the numbers. Danny?

FREEMAN: A big shift is underway in corporate offices across the country, and many of you may have already noticed it. To start, bosses increasingly are ordering their employees to return to the office five days a week. AT&T CEO John Stankey recently made headlines after essentially telling his employees to get on board or get out. And he's not the only one.

The head of AI startup Cognition reportedly told his workers that six days in the office and 80-hour work weeks are expected. For more on this, we have Eleanor Hawkins, author of Axios Communications Newsletter. She's here. She's written a piece about all of this that frankly got a lot of us talking here.

So, thank you so much for joining us to break it all down.

Listen, it seems like from what I'm reading from what you wrote, American bosses are basically saying they've had enough coddling their employees with things like job security, hybrid work, normal working hours, the party is over. So, tell me, what's driving this change?

ELEANOR HAWKINS, AUTHOR, AXIOS COMMUNICATIONS NEWSLETTER: It's a little bit deeper than that. So, there are several things that are driving it. I would say the first is that in 2024, we saw a record number of CEO transitions. So, with a new CEO, you see a new strategy, maybe a new expectation for workplace norms and culture. Several of these CEOs are brought in to turn around their businesses. So, think of Nike, think of Starbucks. And so, you're seeing a lot of these incoming CEOs try to reset their corporate culture. The second major factor I would say is that every company is

undergoing some sort of transformation. It could be a digital transformation. It could be a transformation with their business operations. And with that changes the way that they work. It changes the way that the workplace operates. And then, of course, there are several other factors like A.I., A.I. is disrupting quite a bit. There's increased competition, there's economic uncertainty, there is trade uncertainty.

So, because of all of those reasons, CEOs are kind of increasing the tough talk and saying, wait a second, let's get back to business. Let's prioritize productivity and speed over flexibility.

FREEMAN: Well, the other thing that's interesting is you write that working from home or rather, I guess I should say going back to the office full time is one of the stickier points for these bosses in transition. But you also note that Pew says, nearly half of workers say they're unlikely to stay at their job if they're required to go back in the office full time. And a majority of workers say they'd actually choose a hybrid arrangement. What do you think? Do you think that people right now though in this kind of transitionary economy have the luxury to actually walk away from jobs because of this?

HAWKINS: They don't. And that's been the biggest sticking point for a lot of these employees, right? For all of the reasons I just laid out, it does seem like a rational idea for CEOs to come in and say, hey, go back to the office. Let's get back to work as normal. However, the problem is a lot of these employees maybe took this job because it initially was hybrid or initially was remote or initially prioritized things like diversity and inclusion or mission-driven values.

And now, CEOs are flipping the script and a lot of employees feel like they were hoodwinked and many of them don't have the option to look for jobs elsewhere. So, they feel stuck in a way.

FREEMAN: Eleanor Hawkins, thank you so much for breaking this down. We have to leave it there because we have some breaking news, but thank you for being with us.

We're looking right now at Governor Gavin Newsom speaking in LA. Let's take a listen.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D) CALIFORNIA: ... before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm election and here he is once again trying to rig the system. He does not play by a different set of rules, he does not believe in the rules. As a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves from the way things have been done. It is not good enough to hold hands and have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be.

[15:25:07]

We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt and we have got to meet fire with fire. We've got to be held to a higher level of accountability. So, what this is about. It is not complicated. We are doing this in reaction to a President of The United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said find me five seats. We're doing it in reaction to that act. We're doing it mindful of our higher angels and better angels. We're doing it mindful that we want to model better behavior, that we have been doing for 15 years in the state of California with our redistricting commission.

We cannot unilaterally disarm.

We can't stand back and watch this democracy disappear. We cannot stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district, all across this country. Not just in Texas, but also in Missouri, where J.D. Vance went a week ago in Indiana, in places like Ohio, in places like Florida. We need to stand up - not just California - other blue states need to stand up. We need to be firm in our resolve. We need to put - so we're here in that light and I'm grateful to have remarkable partners in the legislature.

It's a tall task. We're asking them for two-thirds of a legislative consent, but this is the difference. This is the difference between what's happening in Texas and what's happening here in California. We didn't receive a phone call from the President of the United States to then quietly go in the back room and start drawing maps and legislatively try to jam them through against the consent of the people. We're doing precisely the opposite. We're working through a very transparent, temporary, and public process. We're putting the maps on the ballot, and we're giving the power to the people. This will be the first redistricting that's ever been done. That's the difference.

We tried to raise the standards, and these guys are not playing by any set of rules. So, this time requires us to act anew, not just think anew. And so, I'm grateful to all of the remarkable leaders that have stepped up this unifying effort here in the state of California, and we'll be asking for the people. On November 4th, a special election, coinciding with a lot of local municipal elections to provide a temporary pathway for congressional maps. We will affirm our commitment to the state independent redistricting after the 2030 census, but we're asking the voters for their consent to do midterm redistricting in 2026, 2028 and 2030 for the congressional maps to respond to what's happening in Texas, to respond what Trump is trying to excite.

And we'll do so in a way that also affirms our desire as a state to level the playing field all across the United States. We believe in a national independent redistricting framework, and we believe that's the right goal and the right thing to pursue. And I will just state for the fact, Zoe Lofgren, who runs our California delegation, she authored the bill. Democrats - Democrats unanimously supported that national independent redistricting commission. Republicans were nowhere to be found. They want to rig these elections, and they want the power that gerrymandering provides because they know what Donald Trump knows. He's going to lose the midterms. He knows de facto his presidency ends in 17 months when Speaker Jeffries is back in office. He knows it. Why else - why else would you try to rig the system? Why else would you make the phone call? He's a failed president. Who else sends ICE, same time having a conversation like this. Someone who's weak, someone is broken. Someone's weakness is masquerading as strength.

The most unpopular president in modern history. An economy that's collapsing all around him. You saw the new wholesale prices going up almost a full percentage point today. Inflation is going up. Job creation is going down. He's trying to rewrite history. Smithsonian, censoring historical facts. And in the spirit of what Adam Schiff said, he's trying to put America in reverse on voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, on women's rights.

[15:30:02]

He wants to bring us back to a pre-1960s world. That's what this is all about. It's about power, and I want to end on this ...