Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Meeting With Zelenskyy at White House; Talks Happening Day After Trump & Putin Agree to Meet. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 17, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: He said it was amazing because we -- but the big one that he was surprised that we were able to settle was the Middle East. He thought it was incredible. He was very generous in that sense. This should be something we are able to settle, and I think we will be able to settle.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On that note, you will go down as the peacemaker, no doubt, and you will resolve this war.

TRUMP: Well, you know, we resolved eight others. It's funny how people say that. If you get this one -- every time I do one, they forget about that one. I solved eight wars. Go to Rwanda and the Congo. Talk about India and Pakistan. Look at Thailand. Look at all of the wars that we solved. And every time I solved one, they say, if you solved the next one, you're going to get the Nobel Prize. I didn't get a Nobel Prize. Somebody got it, who's a very nice woman, very nice. I don't know who she is, but she was very generous.

So I don't care about all that stuff. I just care about saving lives. But this will be number nine. But every time I solve one, they said, sir, if you solve one more, you're going to be known as a peacekeeper. So to the best of my knowledge, we've never had a president that solved one war, not one war. Bush, started a war. A lot of them start wars, but they don't solve the wars. They don't settle them. And especially when they're not -- when they have nothing to do with us. I solved almost, I guess just about all of these wars had nothing to do with us. But I saved tens of millions of lives.

The prime minister of Pakistan said, I saved millions of lives in interceding on Pakistan and you look at Pakistan and India as an example. That would've been a bad one, two nuclear nations, right? So I say this, this is pretty much the last one. Although I do understand that Pakistan attacked or there is an attack going on with Afghanistan. That's an easy one for me to solve if I have to solve it. In the meantime, I have to run the USA. But I love solving wars. You know why? I like stopping people from being killed. And I've saved millions and millions of lives, and I think we're going to have success with this war.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Zelenskyy, this is your third -- All right, over here. And by the way, you look excellent.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir. Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) by the way. This is your third time here. How different sitting across from the president is this time versus the two previous times here at the White House? And how confident are you hearing this success rate of solving these prior wars that you think he can get this war solved?

ZELENSKYY: First of all, about suit, the same suit because the same president. It is very simple. The next president will have another suit, yes. About our relations with President Trump, I think we have important dialogue and I think we began to understand each other. Yes. And I know that president is briefed very well about situation, the battlefield. And he knows a lot what's going on the battlefield in Ukraine. And I think it really helps when you know a lot of things, a lot of details about one or another war. It helps a lot. But, we're still in war and we can manage --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, NATO (inaudible) there are some countries that are not meeting their commitment. You pointed out Spain, they said that like, it's impossible.

TRUMP: No, Spain has not come through. No, Spain has not been loyal to NATO. Spain has been -- they're the only one. Everyone went up to, as you know -- I mean, you were 2 percent and they all went up to 5 percent. But Spain disagreed with that. I think Spain should be reprimanded for that. I think it's very bad that they did that. But that's up to them. That's up to NATO and Spain.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They cannot be expelled from NATO.

TRUMP: Can they or not?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They cannot according to the treaty. But they also claim that they are protected by the European Union umbrella for trade.

TRUMP: Well, the other people, many of the other countries are in the European Union too. They're not complaining, right?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yeah, please go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, can you -- do you think you can carry the momentum from the Middle East deal over to this deal?

TRUMP: I do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if so, how does that move the needle? TRUMP: Yeah, I do. I think we carry a lot of momentum, a lot of credibility. Getting Middle East done was very important. Nobody thought it could be done. That was one nobody thought it could be done, and we got it done. And a lot of that was the big hit that we put on Iran with respect to the nuclear they took. That was a -- that was an unbelievable military maneuver, the B-2s and many other planes involved by the way, but the B-2s.

[14:05:00]

Yeah, I think nobody expected that to happen. And we had 59 countries involved and these were countries very diverse. You had Arab, Muslim, Jewish, you had every kind of -- you had every country, Christian, you had every country, many countries involved. And we got that done and we got it done pretty swiftly after we set the table properly. We had to set the table properly. This should be one that we get done, and I think the table is set properly here now too. And it'll be a great honor -- It'll be a great honor to get it done. And the Ukrainian people are great and the Russian people are great. And obviously, they have much in common as we understand. They have a lot in common. So it'll be a great honor to get it done.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On Venezuela, there are survivors from your latest boat strike. What happens to those survivors?

TRUMP: Well, I'll ask Marco to discuss that.

MARCO RUBIO, (R) UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: Yeah, it's well known there's an ongoing narco terrorist operation in the United States has been conducting. As far as details of any recent strikes, we're not prepared here to announce all those details, but you'll get that information here very shortly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And how are there survivors when these are meant to be lethal attacks?

RUBIO: Yeah, again, I mean, we're undertaking these operations against narco terrorists. That's what these are, these are terrorists, let's be clear. And -- but as far as the details of any recent operations, when they -- when we are prepared to announce those, we will, as the president has consistently done. So, you may get something on that later today.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Let me ask you. That was in a submarine, right? It was -- we attacked a submarine and that was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs. Just so you understand, this was not an innocent group of people. I don't know too many people that have submarines. And that was an attack on a drug-carrying, loaded up submarine. Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Putin, is it your belief, as Mr. Zelenskyy said ,yesterday that the threat of Tomahawks and costs as secretary has put it, is that bringing him to the table, the fact that it's kind of a carrot and stick?

TRUMP: I don't know what's bringing him to -- I think he wants to make a deal. That's all. I can't tell you what's bringing him. Sure. That's -- the threat of that is good, but the threat of that is always there. Tomahawks are very dangerous weapons. They're incredible weapons. If you like warfare, it's one of the most accurate. We used -- we hit 30 Tomahawks in Iran after the B-2s did their damage. We sort of gave it a little capper with 30 Tomahawks from a submarine, quite far away actually. But they're an amazing weapon. They're a very powerful weapon, but they're a very dangerous weapon. And it could mean big escalation.

It could mean -- a lot of bad things can happen. Tomahawks are a big deal. But one thing I have to say, we want Tomahawks also. We don't want to be giving away things that we need to protect our country. We have a very strong country right now. We have a strong military. We have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. I want to get this war over. OK?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Putin-Trump tunnel to connect Russia and Alaska. Are you interested?

TRUMP: I just heard about it. A tunnel from Russia to Alaska, I just heard about that one. That's an interesting one. We'll have to think about that. I hadn't heard that. We just did a nice road in Alaska that's going to get us to a lot of minerals and we have a piece of it, a good piece of the ownership because of the fact we made it possible. But, this came up yesterday, a tunnel from Russia to Alaska. That's an interesting -- what do you think of that, Mr. President? Do you have any ideas? How do you like that idea?

ZELENSKYY: I'm not happy with this.

TRUMP: I don't think you're going to like it.

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: I don't think he liked it. I don't think he liked it.

(LAUGH)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump, do you think that Vladimir Putin -- do you think that Putin, you've got (ph) in sync?

TRUMP: Well, we had a Senator that wanted, remember from Hawaii, she wanted a tunnel from the mainland to Hawaii. Then she said, well, we can't do that, so we're going to build a railroad to Hawaii. Do you remember? She's a current sitting Senator, a Democrat. She wants a railroad to go to Hawaii. Right? You know who that is, right? She's another -- she's another --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yeah, please. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On your meeting with Putin, aren't you concerned that maybe the Russian president is trying to buy himself more time?

TRUMP: Yeah, I am. But you know, I've been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well. So it's possible. Yeah, a little time. It's all right.

[14:10:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is your gut instinct --

TRUMP: But I think that I'm pretty good at this stuff. I think that he wants to make a deal. I made eight of them. I'm going to make a ninth. I think he wants to make a deal.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) be a paper tiger. Do you think, judging by the state of the communist --

TRUMP: Well, I think -- I think that he should have won the war in a week. Yeah. I do think, and if we didn't -- if we didn't give the anti-tank missiles, as you know, the Javelins, they call them, they got stuck in the mud. They would've been in Kyiv very quickly. They were heading to Kyiv. So, you know, in war, you have a lot of luck too. You know? People, weather has won war, and the cold and the heat and all things take place in war.

But that was a very interesting moment when the tanks started rolling. And some brilliant said, let's go through the mud instead of going down the highway. Right? So they -- they got a little bit lucky. But you know where they really got lucky? I gave Javelins. That wasn't given by Barack Hussein Obama. He gave them sheets. You know there's a statement, Obama gave them sheets and I gave them the Javelins. And the Javelins are a devastating weapon and that wasn't given by Obama.

That was given by (inaudible) because at the time, it was Obama. That was given by -- that was given by me. So it was like one of those things. And you had hundreds of them, hundreds of them. They're a devastating weapon. We have a lot of devastating weapons. I'd rather not use them. But that was a big moment. When the tanks -- when the tanks got stuck, they got stuck and call it luck or call it talent, I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it was a big moment in time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think Democrats will give you credit? Do you think Democrats will give you credit when you finally end this war like they did with the war in the Middle East? And second --

TRUMP: I think right now, the Democrats are really damaged, mentally damaged. They want to take $1.5 trillion and give it to people that invaded our country. They came into our country illegally from prisons, from mental institutions, gang members. They want to give them healthcare and take it away from our citizens. We're not going to do that. $1.5 trillion, they want to destroy -- they want to destroy our healthcare system. We're not going to let that happen.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you authorized CIA operations in Venezuela?

TRUMP: Well, I wouldn't say that, but some interesting things are happening around the world. I'd say that.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president, it has been reported that Maduro offered everything in his country, all the natural resources. He even recorded a message to you in English recently offering mediation. What should we do in order to stop that?

TRUMP: He has offered everything. He's offered everything. You're right. You know why? Because he doesn't want to fuck around with the United States. Thank you, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you, Press. Thank you everybody. Thank you guys. Let's go, start moving. Thanks you, guys. Let's go, let's go.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right. President Trump there with a sharp message for the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro. I say that in an understated way there. But back to the matter at hand, largely in this cabinet meeting, you have Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. And Trump was asked about giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, if his administration would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia. And he said it's an escalation, but we'll be talking about that.

And Zelenskyy was also asked what he would give up in negotiations. Would he give up joining NATO? He said security guarantees are the most important thing. He didn't spell out NATO specifically, but he said security guarantees are the most important thing.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": There also appear to be a fundamental disagreement between the two leaders. And that is the question of whether Vladimir Putin actually wants peace. You had Donald Trump there saying that he believes that Putin wants peace, otherwise he wouldn't be calling him. Of course, that call came after President Trump threatened to send Tomahawks --

KEILAR: Exactly.

SANCHEZ: -- to Ukraine, which is apparently of great concern to the Kremlin. Though during this meeting, Putin, rather Donald Trump specifically said of Putin that he could be just dragging him along. Again, Trump saying that he's been played all his life, but I'm good at these things. He believes it's possible that Putin is trying to buy time. And notably, he said, hopefully we can get the war done without sending Tomahawks. So it's far from official, far from imminent that he's willing to supply Kyiv with these weapons.

And then notably, as you said, he made a lot of news there on Venezuela with a message directly to Nicolas Maduro. Let's discuss all of it, starting with former Ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor. Ambassador, what did you think?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: So Boris, I thought that President Trump left his options open.

[14:15:00]

The question of Tomahawks, I think you're exactly right. This is why Putin called yesterday. It was Putin's idea for the phone call. He was worried about Tomahawks. Same thing happened on the Alaska meeting. Putin was worried about sanctions, because Trump had put sanctions on India for buying Russian oil. Putin got spooked. He asked for a meeting. He got the meeting in Alaska. Nothing came of it, as we know.

Putin also got spooked when Trump started talking about Tomahawks. Asked for the phone call, got the phone call, we'll see if it was effective. We'll see if President Trump learned from the previous, from Alaska, to apply it to this phone call.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: The thing is, it doesn't seem that he learned, right? Because two months ago they were in Alaska, went to the summit, and by Trump's own definition of success from that summit, which was we're going to have a ceasefire, it was a failed summit. He left without the ceasefire, and it was Zach Cohen and I reporting yesterday that following that summit, the U.S. began sharing intelligence with Ukraine to strike, to help strike targets deeper inside Russia, a shift because he didn't get what he wanted from the summit in Alaska and wanted to apply more pressure.

So, I lost count of how many times Trump just said there that Putin wants to make peace now. It was a lot, at least a half a dozen times based on what? Because nothing has changed from Russia's side in the last two months. In fact, the war has expanded, more and more aerial strikes. So, what gives President Trump confidence that now Putin wants peace when two months ago, it was quite clear even to Trump himself that he didn't want peace. And by the way, to your point, a clear difference between Zelenskyy and Trump on that point. Zelenskyy said, we want peace, Putin doesn't. Trump said the opposite.

KEILAR: Yeah. We understand Putin is not ready. But we're confident with your help, he said of Trump, that we can end this war. I wonder, Jeff, as you were listening to this, how seriously you really think Trump is considering allowing Ukraine to have Tomahawk missiles?

JEFFREY EDMONDS, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR RUSSIA, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I think it's pretty clear that he's going to delay this decision at least until after he meets with Putin, because he doesn't want, in his mind, he thinks he can get a deal from Putin. I don't think he can. But if he thinks that, then he is certainly not going to provide Tomahawks until after he meets with Putin.

SANCHEZ: We have retired Major Mike Lyons with us as well. Major, what did you make of what you just heard from the Cabinet Room in the White House? MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, I guess, I didn't really hear any details. I don't think the situation has changed on the ground from Russia's perspective. I don't think that there's any pressure on them to stop what they're doing. They're recalling soldiers from their reserves, moving forward. I think Vladimir Putin knows that the Tomahawks are really not going to be the silver bullet either. They're technically sea-based, or sea launched type of vehicles that would have to be modified to be launched on lands. There's lot of logistics that would go with that.

But Trump knows he's got to package some kind of leverage here, with that, with sanctions as well, to take, let's say, that hard power with the diplomacy to get something done. But I'm afraid right now, this is turning into the Warsaw talks of the 1950s with U.S. and China, because this, we just keep talking and talking and nothing really changes. And until the president really brings this leverage, this New York City real estate leverage mentality to this negotiation, I don't think Russia's going to change their behavior. There's no incentive for them right now to stop.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: I wonder, Jeff, if you think Trump is maybe starting to realize that because Alaska has now been looked at and assessed to have been, I mean, you said he didn't get anything. Putin did. He kind of got like a stay of execution a little bit, right, on sanctions. But Trump seems to realize that the assessment is that Alaska didn't really pay off. And so, we heard him talking about like Alaska being a start, right? So if he can get somewhere now, well then maybe Alaska wasn't so silly. It wasn't so such a photo op that achieved nothing. What do you think?

EDMONDS: Right. And I think he still holds out hope that he can achieve some kind of deal. Right? And on the other side of this, Putin's very good at sounding like something constructive is just around the corner, just to delay the whole process. And I think he's really playing to Trump's overarching desire to be this peacemaker. And so, I think that's why you've seen this kind of shift back by President Trump to being more open to talking with Russia.

SCIUTTO: There's a precedent if you think of the first administration because, remember, he met not once, not twice, but three times with Kim Jong-un thinking that he could make a deal happen, the deal maker in New York real estate tactics, et cetera. And while you got those big moments, pomp and circumstance, Kim Jong-un did not move an inch off his nuclear program. In fact, expanded the nuclear program during that time period. Are we going to be back to three meetings with no progress? It's possible.

SANCHEZ: Despite a fascinating series of letters that were exchanged.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Between the two leaders.

SCIUTTO: Yes, love letters. SANCHEZ: Yeah. Ambassador, I'm curious to get your thoughts about the position that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in and the progression that we've seen from the Ukrainian leader. Notably, it's a small detail, but it's something that the president said early on in this meeting, his attire. We knew from our reporting that White House officials, specifically the president, didn't love the fact that in that meeting in February, Zelenskyy went in wearing a t-shirt, something that he has worn frequently to show solidarity, to show that his country is under invasion.

[14:20:00]

He wore a suit. I believe it's the same suit that he wore the last time he was at the White House. So clearly, his posture, his approach has been shifting over time.

TAYLOR: Boris, President Zelenskyy needs President Trump and he needs the United States, for the weapons that we talked about, for the economic pressure that he could put on Putin. So, President Zelenskyy is happy to put on at least a coat and a dark shirt, if that's what it takes. President Zelenskyy and frankly, the Europeans as well, are looking to keep President Trump on side, keep his support, keep the American support, even while they're building up their own capabilities. They need to do both.

They know that the Americans won't be there forever, but they also know that they need them for now. And while they build up, they can take advantage of what we have now.

SCIUTTO: I feel like Zelenskyy should teach a seminar in repairing leader to leader relationships. Right? Because if you think of that low, that midyear (ph) in February when you had folks saying, the guy's gone, right? I mean, folks inside Ukraine saying we can't survive this war if he's still based on that relationship. But he has really turned -- the meeting in St. Peter's, these repeated meetings in the White House and his quite careful language there speaking in front of the president, saying Mr. President, it was you who brought peace to the Middle East. Right? Good way to get into Trump's graces, good graces.

KEILAR: Yeah. He took a lot of moments to try to compliment him on his ceasefire.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: Now, there was a question teed up where he could have taken a whack at Joe Biden, which is sort of Trump's love language in a way, and he didn't take it. So we'll have to see how that -- how he fares after that.

We have much more to discuss. Thank you guys so much. If you can stand by for us, so we can talk a little more after a quick break. Historic day with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine visiting with President Trump at the White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:26:36]

SANCHEZ: We're continuing to follow the Breaking News out of the White House where President Donald Trump is meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside the Cabinet Room. Let's go live at the White House now with CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, what did you take away from that press availability and what are you hearing about where these talks might be headed?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, Boris and Brianna, it seems even less clear now what President Trump or President Zelenskyy is going to get out of a second meeting between President Trump and President Putin. However, it seems very clear that Putin is going to get something out of this, which is likely the U.S. not giving these Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.

President Trump was asked every which way about whether or not he was going to give these Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, these long-range missiles. And he danced around the issue multiple times, saying at one point they want the war to end without using these Tomahawk missiles, that the U.S. themselves needed these Tomahawk missiles, but no assurances there. And even at one point, Zelenskyy started kind of negotiating with him at the table saying, we have everything else. We just need these Tomahawks. We're willing to give you Ukrainian drones, which we have a lot of.

President Trump seemed intrigued by that idea, but of course, did not agree right there at the table in front of all of those cameras. And I asked President Trump yesterday, why he thought a second meeting with Putin would yield different results? And he said the same thing that Alaska was kind of the starting point. But just a reminder, Jim Sciutto just mentioned this on your air, that President Trump wanted a ceasefire out of that, but that's not all he wanted. He also wanted a meeting with Zelenskyy and Putin one-on-one, which never came to be. So, almost nothing was yielded out of that meeting in Alaska.

And now, we know that it seems very unlikely that Ukraine is going to get these Tomahawk missiles and it seems unlikely there is going to be any sanctions against Russia after this phone call, two-and-a-half hours, that Putin had with Trump just a day ago. So now, another lengthy period of time before this meeting with Putin and Trump, and then we have to see what if anything comes out of that.

I mean, the one thing I thought was most striking was this kind of moment or several moments in which Zelenskyy seemed to correct President Trump. President Trump would say, I spoke to Putin. I think Putin wants peace. I think Putin wants an end to the war, and Zelenskyy would say he doesn't want an end to the war. Russia doesn't want an end to the war. We want an end to the war, pushing back on this notion. The reason why that was interesting to me was because last time we saw a different Zelenskyy, one who had had a bad run in with the vice president and with President Trump, and had been very aggressive.

So, we saw a much more docile Zelenskyy who nodded along to many of the things that President Trump said. You saw a little bit more pushback here from him. But of course, at the end of the day, he still needs President Trump. He still needs the United States, and it's just unclear right now, what is going to come out of this meeting since it seems as though what he came here for, he's likely not to get.

KEILAR: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much, live for us at the White House. And I'm joined now by Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State. He is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. What did you think as you were watching this Cabinet Room meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy?

REP. ADAM SMITH, (D-WA): Well, we've made a lot of progress. I mean, President Trump and his cabinet are not directly undermining Zelenskyy in Ukraine, which is certainly a huge improvement from where we were at, at that first meeting, what, six months ago now. So, that's a step in the right direction. You've seen Secretary Hegseth use rhetoric that holds Russia accountable for the war.