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Trump Pushes For Meeting Between Putin And Zelenskyy; Texas Dem Spends Night On House Floor After Refusing Escort; Florida Woman On Trial, Accused Of Arranging Son-In-Law's Murder. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 19, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:15]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Eight people were killed and dozens more were injured after Russia launched the largest aerial assault on Ukraine since July. The Ukrainian Air Force says Russia launched 270 drones and eight missiles overnight.

The assault was being carried out just as the president of Ukraine and European leaders were at the White House for meetings with President Trump. Leaving the hours long session, President Zelenskyy said that they had made a significant step toward ending the war.

Much of the gathering focused on the critical issue of security guarantees for Ukraine at the end of this war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In a very significant step President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine and this is one of the key points that we need to consider. We're optimistic that collectively we can reach an agreement that would deter any future aggression against Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The talks are ongoing still today. French President Emmanuel Macron and the British prime minister are co-hosting a meeting with other allies dubbed the "Coalition of the Willing" this morning.

CNN's Clare Sebastian is in London with much more on this. What do we know about this -- like, what day two of this in terms of rounds of meetings is actually going to mean?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kate. Well, they're obviously trying to keep up the momentum and build on the work that was done at the White House.

This morning we've seen a meeting of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing." That's the grouping of about 30 countries, all of whom -- who have agreed in some form or another to contribute to Ukraine's security in the event of a peace settlement. That group also met, by the way, on Sunday, so this is their second meeting in three days. So intensive work going on there.

And as that has finished, we now understand that there's a meeting of the European Council underway. That's all EU heads of state meeting virtually. This was a meeting that was called really to debrief off the back of that White House meeting. We expect a press briefing to come out of that, so we'll get more details in the coming hours.

But look, on the issue of security guarantees, this is where Europe is now keenly focused. How can they map out some kind of structure that will deter Russian aggression?

French President Macron, coming out of the meeting in the Oval Office yesterday, talked about securing no limits on Ukraine's army. Of course, Russia has tried to impose limits in the past. He talked about reassurance forces in the air, the sea, and the land. You'll remember in the Oval Office Trump didn't explicitly rule out U.S. peacekeepers somehow being involved, although he was pretty vague on that.

So there's a lot of details to be ironed out on that but as I said, a critical moment for Europe and we're seeing them really pushing forward trying to get to concrete solutions even though, of course, security guarantees at this point pretty hypothetical given that we don't have a peace deal.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right.

Clare, thank you so much for your reporting as always -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now, CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier; and Jim Townsend, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy.

And Kim, I want to pick up on a point Clare was just making there because I want to know where you think we are this morning. What concrete takeaways are there? What's different now than yesterday morning?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: We don't know what Zelenskyy told Trump and the European leaders behind closed doors in terms of what Ukraine is willing to give up. Possibly, just the territory that Russia currently holds as opposed to all of the Donbas, which is what Russia is reportedly demanding in order to stop fighting, including areas that it doesn't yet occupy.

But what we did get were the European leaders saying out loud that Trump was OK with Article 5-style security guarantees. Now, Article 5 of NATO means an attack on one is an attack on all. So this is European leaders saying and Donald Trump agreeing that they would have some sort of troops inside Ukraine such that if Russia ever attacked Ukraine in the future, it wouldn't just be attacking Ukraine; it would be attacking NATO member states. Probably not under the banner of NATO but those individual states wouldn't pull their troops out. They would stay and dare Putin to keep going.

[07:35:30] BERMAN: You know, Jim, as Clare and Kim both noted here, security guarantees only matter if you have a deal to stop the fighting somewhere. So the security guarantees in some ways might be an easier discussion point than how you actually stop the fighting.

What do you think about that?

JIM TOWNSEND, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR EUROPEAN AND NATO POLICY, ADJUNCT SENIOR FELLOW, CNAS TRANSATLANTIC SECURITY PROGRAM (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think going back to what Kim said and your point as well, it's the rules of engagement that's going to be really a difficult thing for these nations to talk about. The rules of engagement lay out just what the plan will be if the Russians do something. Will this group actually work with Ukraine to push back militarily on the Russians, or do they fall back, or do they leave?

That -- those rules of engagement and the agreement by the nations on what they will do will dictate what these -- what this presence will look like. Is it going to be a small presence that's just representative -- something that's not meant to fight, or is this going to be a robust group in there -- real boots on the ground with weapons? And rules of engagement that says if something happens -- if Ukraine is attacked your job is to fight Russia too.

BERMAN: Kim, what do you think the likelihood is that Vladimir Putin will agree to sit down with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the next two weeks?

DOZIER: Well, Donald Trump has led us to believe --

TOWNSEND: Well, I don't think --

BERMAN: I'm sorry. Jim first, then Kim.

TOWNSEND: I don't think there's going to be a big -- I don't think there's going to be a lot of hope that they're going to sit down in the next couple of weeks. I think this is something that will have to come at the end of a lot of work being done by the staffs so that there's something for them to actually agree to -- a piece of paper -- something.

We don't -- there are not going to be negotiations between the two. And also, Putin has not seen -- does not seem to be a feeling that he's equal to or that Zelenskyy is equal to him. He's got a hard time sitting down one-on-one with someone that he doesn't respect and with a country that he doesn't believe really exists. So this is going to take a while just to get the atmosphere so that those two can sit down and have something done that's successful.

BERMAN: And Kim, the reason I'm asking is because you hear the German Chancellor Merz saying it's going to happen in the next two weeks. The White House saying one of the concrete takeaways from the summit yesterday was that Putin and Zelenskyy will meet. I'm just not sure that we know for certain that it will happen.

DOZIER: Well, what Zelenskyy and the European leaders have effectively done is to box Putin in. Putin has previously said he wouldn't meet with Zelenskyy unless a number of preconditions were met, including that Ukraine agreed to dismantle its military and legally recognize areas that Russia has annexed, like Crimea, like the Donbas. Now that's all taken away. Let's see if Putin shows up.

BERMAN: Yeah, that's an interesting point, Jim, and if you can expand on that a little bit because I do wonder if something that did happen yesterday was a shift in putting a little diplomatic pressure back on Putin. Putting a little more of the emphasis on the decisions that he makes next.

DOZIER: Yeah. What Zelenskyy and the European leaders --

TOWNSEND: I think so. I really do.

BERMAN: I'm sorry, Kim. We'll do Kim first this time and then Jim.

DOZIER: Sorry. We'll go with Kimberly next time.

Um, I think that what the European leaders and Zelenskyy have done is smoked Putin out in terms of putting him in a position where he has to come to a meeting where he recognizes President Zelenskyy as the legitimate leader of Ukraine. Yes, with Donald Trump probably there. That's going to be very uncomfortable and hopefully, for the Europeans and Zelenskyy, he storms out. They just have to make sure that Putin doesn't end up convincing Trump that Zelenskyy is the optical to peace -- obstacle to peace, not Russia.

BERMAN: OK, and this time Jim with a "J". Quick last word.

TOWNSEND: Well, I think what Kim says is exactly right and I think we can be focused quite a bit on whether it's a trilateral meeting or a bilateral meeting and how soon it's going to happen.

But one thing that we've got to think about now, too, is getting some hard work done by the staffs because we don't want these meetings to happen half thought through. They've got to happen when things have been agreed at the staff's level so that when they sit down some of the hard, thorny issues have been agreed and they can -- they can be part of something that's --

[07:40:08]

BERMAN: Um-hum.

TOWNSEND: -- moving the process forward.

So let's get these staffs working -- and I think that's beginning to happen, particularly in Europe.

BERMAN: Yeah, we'll see what that means for the Russian side because they have a staff, too.

Kim Dozer, Jim Townsend, great to see you both this morning. Thank you very much -- Kate. BOLDUAN: Overnight, a Democratic Texas lawmaker spent the night on the Statehouse floor. She's still there. State Rep. Nicole Collier is one of the dozens of Democrats who returned to Austin, Texas yesterday after they had left the state to protest the Republican redistricting efforts that have been going on as we have been tracking.

Collier accuses -- refuses to go along with a Republican demand that the Democrats who left the state now have a law enforcement escort if they leave the capitol grounds until the House reconvenes. Most Democrats complied signing what they called permission slips.

Collier said this about why she would not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE COLLIER, (D) TEXAS STATE HOUSE: We've had enough. We've had enough of them taking all --

GENE WU, (D) TEXAS STATE HOUSE: Hell, yes.

COLLIER: -- of our rights away. And so I've taken a stand.

WU: Hell, yes.

COLLIER: I'm pushing back.

WU: Yeah.

COLLIER: And that's what we've got to do.

When I heard the order, I was like hell, no. Why should we bow down to what they want? I'm taking a stand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Arlette Saenz in Austin for us this morning. Arlette, what do hear and what's the latest?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Kate, this move is certainly keeping the redistricting conversation in the spotlight. But what State Rep. Nicole Collier is doing here is protesting this requirement that the House Democrat agree to being under police escort until they return to the chamber on Wednesday morning. The Texas House Speaker announced this yesterday when they had turned -- returned saying that they would be confined and locked into the House floor unless they signed a written agreement.

Now the hope from the GOP is they want to make sure that they don't have another quorum break and could actually get to this redistricting bill. But Collier has said that she will not comply with that request, describing it as authoritarian. So she has spent the night on the Texas House floor. There have been other lawmakers, like State Rep. Gene Wu who have joined her in support.

But aside from this sign of protest there is little that Democrats can do in this moment to stop Republicans from pushing through these congressional maps that could net them up to five U.S. House seats in the next midterm election. Instead, right now, they're starting to turn their attention to making the legal arguments for why the courts should strike down these laws once they go into effect.

But last night Texas Gov. Greg Abbott defended their proposal while also taking a swipe at California.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT, (R) TEXAS: What the Democrats have done is disgraceful and potentially illegal. I'll tell you this much. If California dares to try to squeeze out more Republicans, there are going to be lawsuits that will overturn that. What I can tell you in the state of Texas, the five Republican seats that w are adding -- they are going to withstand legal challenges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, this redistricting bill passed out of committee last night and it could come up on the House floor for debate as soon as tomorrow. The GOP side has yet to lay out a specific timeline for when this could be passed but they want to get this done very soon.

And at the same time you have Democrats in California who are beginning to consider their own legislation to redraw their congressional maps to pick up five Democratic seats. That could be -- or has to be completed by the end of this week.

So a lot to watch in both states as this redistricting showdown continues.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

Arlette, thank you so much.

Let's talk about this. Joining me right now is CNN political commentator Paul Begala, and the former campaign manager for Marco Rubio's presidential campaign, Terry Sullivan. It's good to see you, guys.

Terry, let's start on the over -- the overall effort here. After Texas gets this new map in place, does this become a driving issue for the midterms? Do you believe the Democratic line at all that this could backfire on Republicans?

TERRY SULLIVAN, PARTNER, FIREHOUSE STRATEGIES, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR MARCO RUBIO'S PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN: I mean, absolutely it could. I mean, you know, if California ends up picking up more seats, if other states get involved in this process -- I mean, this is kind of a risky play to maintain control of the House but it's realistically the only shot Republicans have historically. You're going to lose a lot of seats in this midterm election of the party in power, and so this is a risk they're willing to take.

BOLDUAN: Paul, would you tell Democrats to sign those permission slips in the Texas House, or do you think they should be sleeping on the House floor? I mean, what do Democrats get out of this in the end?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST (via Webex by Cisco): What they get is attention and pressure, and that's a good thing.

Nicole Collier, that state representative that was that piece, from Fort Worth -- she just may have given the Democrats their slogan for the midterms -- ah, hell no. That's what they need.

[07:45:00]

The Republicans -- I think Terry makes a good point. They may gain a few seats when this all nets out. California will go this way; Texas that way. But they're putting their house up on five-foot stilts and there's a 40-foot wave coming, OK?

They're 20 points behind underwater now on inflation. Hamburger prices are $6.12 a pound -- $6.00! I've got four boys. That's enough to make you a vegetarian. Oh, I can't be a vegetarian because wholesale vegetable prices are up 40 percent.

BOLDUAN: They're also big boys. If people saw your family pictures, they're also very big boys.

BEGALA: They're giants. But vegetable prices are up 40 percent. So it's the cost of living that's going to drive this election, not the maps.

I think this is a smart thing the Democrats are doing though to call attention to it and to rev up their base because that's what they need right now. They need some strength and some fight. And I love that slogan that Rep. Collier has -- ah, hell, no.

BOLDUAN: I mean, I say that every morning when I walk and when I see my alarm go off. I'm like, really? Three a.m. again, Terry?

BEGALA: No, you see -- no, when you see Berman. Come on, we all say that when we see John Berman.

BOLDUAN: Oh, I say thank God. Thank the Lord above I get to see him one more day.

Terry, what this really gets to though is this is about President Trump wanting to assert more control over elections and help Republicans. Related to that, is this pledge that he is now making to end mail-in voting -- I guess, making once again to end mail-in voting --

SULLIVAN: Right.

BOLDUAN: -- calling it a fraud and saying that he's got an executive order that's being drafted.

Can he do this legally? Most say likely not even if he tries. But there is at least one person that President Trump is touting that is on his side when it comes to not trusting or liking mail-in voting, which is Vladimir Putin.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Vladimir Putin, a smart guy, said you can't have an honest election with mail-in voting. And he said there's not a country in the world that uses it now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: There actually are. For the record, there's a whole slew of them.

Regardless, why do you think the president is jumping on this now? What's happening here?

SULLIVAN: Look, he's always believed that mail-in voting was a problem and rife with cheating and irregularities. And look, frankly, it has been to a certain extent. Not to the point of overturning elections in most cases but it is -- the -- people think that the elections commissions are somehow holier than thou. It's no more efficient than the DMV run by volunteers.

And so there are problems, and we should have ballot security. Turning over mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, early voting is not the solution, but this is something he's felt passionately about for a long time.

BOLDUAN: He has, except I -- we found examples -- I mean, shocking he said something last year.

SULLIVAN: Right.

BOLDUAN: I know you've heard this story before, Terry.

But Paul, in 2024 he promoted mail-in voting. We found examples in April and June of last year. And some Republican-led states, like Florida, have embraced mail-in voting as an efficient, safe way to expand voter participation.

I mean, who -- if mail-in voting goes out the door, who does it help and who does it hurt?

BEGALA: Actually, traditionally, the Republicans have done a better job at mail-in voting because traditionally they've been a more organized party, frankly, than my beloved Democrats. Lately, the Democrats have been doing better because Trump is so chaotic.

But he's simply lying in a different form or fashion. Canada, Britain, Australia, Germany, Switzerland all have mail-in ballots. More importantly, perhaps, Utah does almost all its voting -- Utah -- not exactly a left-wing state. Democrats lose most elections there. But I can tell you as a Democrat the elections there are fair and they're honest, and they're accurate, and they're all done by mail-in ballots. I think Mr. Trump's problem is really not mail-in voting, it's voting. I mean, he's a lot of things but he is a smart, talented politician, OK, and he knows he's about to lose his rear end in 441 days when we have this midterm. The walls are caving in for him.

People don't want to cut taxes for the rich and pay for it by cutting Medicaid for working people. They don't want that. They don't want to see the debt going up $3 trillion.

They sure don't want to see him surrendering to Vladimir Putin. I mean, America -- good Lord, our economy is 15 times bigger than Putin's. Our military is seven times bigger. Our population is three times bigger. Putin ought to be coming to him on bended knee.

So the notion that he's citing Vladimir Putin who is a punk leader with a broke economy, and an inept military, and a corrupt government -- he's citing him instead of Utah where they run perfectly honest, ethical, fair, elections with mail-in voting? I have to say I prefer Salt Lake City to Moscow.

BOLDUAN: Terry, final thoughts?

SULLIVAN: To be clear, real quick, Donald Trump -- I was just going to say Donald Trump got more votes than any other person who ran for president in history this last time, so he doesn't have a problem with voting in general.

[07:50:00]

And look, at the end of the day all of this redistricting, all of this stuff is all politics. It's how it's always been. We all know it. And it's everybody jockeying for position. Incumbent presidents always lose -- always lose seats in the House and in the Senate during the midterm elections, and this one is going to be no different, and both sides are playing it to the max to try to -- try to get their advantage in this situation.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, and totally appropriate is your new tagline, Paul Begala, as we end this segment.

It's good to see you, guys. Thank you both. I really, really appreciate it.

BEGALA: (Audio gap).

BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys -- John.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning Home Depot posted higher sales in the second quarter despite economic uncertainty from the president's tariffs. The retailer saw reported sales of $45.3 billion. They did miss expectations a bit. Home Depot's CEO said customers are taking on small home improvement projects but delaying larger projects.

Also new this morning Japanese investment group SoftBank set to invest $2 billion into the American chipmaker Intel. This is the latest move made by Intel's new CEO in a bid to catch up to his competitors. He did meet with President Trump after reports the White House expressed interest in taking a stake in the company.

A Florida grandmother accused of masterminding a murder-for-hire plot. And then, did someone order the ribeye well done -- 40,000 pounds of it? The aftermath of the great steak fire.

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[07:55:35]

BOLDUAN: A Colombian TikToker who posts about immigration issues was detained by ICE in the middle of a livestream. It happened in Los Angeles. Tatiana Martinez -- is her name -- was sitting in a car when the officers showed up. You can -- she -- you can be -- she can -- you can hear her in the video pleading with them to wait but they pull her out of the vehicle, put her on the ground, and then arrest her.

A DHS official tells CNN that she was undocumented and had a prior conviction for driving while under the influence, and records show that she pleaded no contest to a DUI arrest in 2023. We're told she will now be held in ICE custody "pending removal proceedings."

New video also shows the shattered windows at multiple Chicago condo buildings after an Air Force flyover. People living there said that the windows just burst as the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds were flying overhead during a practice for Chicago's Air and Water Show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out of nowhere, just boom. And the glass actually flexed right next to my face. I was about a foot from the window.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a group of white jets going by at the time and one split off, as they usually do, and flew directly over our building. Immediately afterward I heard a colossal kaboom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Some also described it as just feeling the building shaking from the force of it. The Air Force, though, insists that the jets never went supersonic.

Forty thousand pounds of ribeye steaks went up in flames Monday, literally. Investigators in Missouri are now looking into what caused a tractor-trailer to crash and catch on fire. It happened in a town about 100 miles southwest of St. Louis. Firefighters say all of the meat was destroyed but thankfully, no one was hurt -- John.

BERMAN: Everyone here groaned. Like, every dude in this studio let out this huge groan when you said 40,000 pounds of ribeye steak burned.

BOLDUAN: Everybody is, like, no!

BERMAN: Oh, all right. Thank you very much.

All right. Jury selection begins today in the trial of a Florida woman accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire of her former son-in-law. Law professor Dan Markel was shot and killed in 2014. In 2023, this former brother-in-law was convicted of first-degree murder. The brother-in-law's girlfriend and two other men were also convicted. Now family matriarch Donna Adelson is on trial.

CNN's Jean Casarez is here. It's a little bit of a complicated web here but it's caught a lot of people's interest in Florida over the last few years.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN REPORTER: It's real life and the evidence shows the mother-in-law is Donna Adelson. The two men that were hired -- they were hitmen.

And so Donna Adelson and her husband Harvey lived a very good life. They were very wealthy and lived on South Beach in Miami. They had three children, but the children you're going to hear about primarily in the trial are Charles, her son, and Wendi, her daughter.

Wendi was an attorney. Wendi was married to Dan Markel, and Dan was a professor -- law professor at Florida State University -- Harvard educated. They were married. They lived in Tallahassee. Two little boys.

All of a sudden, the marriage started going south. It was bad -- arguing. And so they filed for divorce, and it was a contentious divorce. It was -- there was so much acrimony. And Wendi -- the whole family got involved in the divorce.

And Wendi and the two boys -- because their family wanted them back in Miami, they were going to move back up there but Dan Markel said no -- I love my little boys, and I want to be near them. I want to be part of their life. A judge ruled that Wendi and the two little boys had to stay in Tallahassee.

The family is so upset, so Charles, the son of Donna, starts joking -- you know, I can get some hitmen. I know some people. And so one thing leads to another, and he has a girlfriend who knows and is very close to the -- one of the leaders of the Latin Kings in Miami. So he is hired, along with a friend.

They go to Miami. As Dan Markel is going up his driveway into his garage the passenger, Sigfredo Garcia gets out, goes up, two shots to the head, he's dead.

Well, law enforcement has to figure this out so all of a sudden, they're looking at phones, and internets, and communications. And this is where Donna Adelson gets involved because they got to be paid. So she pulls up to her son's house the night of the murder with $100,000 in cash, according to the legal documents, and gives it to her son. Her son gives it to his girlfriend. The hitmen get the money.

A couple of years later an undercover FBI sting operation goes up to Donna and says you know, I'm with the Latin Kings and we need a little bit more money here.