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Trump, Netanyahu Meet In Florida For Talks On Gaza, Iran; Blizzard Conditions, Storms, Tornadoes Slam Parts Of The U.S.; Trump Speaks With Putin After Meeting Zelensky On Sunday; Trump Refuses To Say More About Operation He Says Took Out "Big Facility" In Venezuela. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 29, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can give you a little thing.

CHEVY CHASE: I'll bet you can't. Now -- okay, never mind. Oh, they really are pretty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, these -- these are particularly special. We -- we don't have these in regularly. You can't always get those.

CHASE: Peonies?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, those are actually tulips.

CHASE: I know. I know. I was kidding you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) ...

CHASE: By the way --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not" premieres New Year's Day at 8 P.M. Eastern and the next day on the CNN app.

And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Day two of critical diplomacy at Mar-a-Lago. President Trump sitting down right now with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What the two leaders are hoping to get from this meeting and what their main concerns are going in.

Plus, did the U.S. strike inside Venezuelan territory? President Trump offering few details on how an operation he claims took out a big facility for processing drugs.

KEILAR: And more than 20 million people are under winter weather alerts as powerful storms sweep across much of the U.S. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Happening now, President Trump is meeting behind closed doors at Mar- a-Lago in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And ahead of today's talks, the President said the two leaders have, quote, "a few very thorny issues to discuss."

SANCHEZ: That includes getting to phase two of the stalled Gaza ceasefire deal. Despite the lack of progress on that front, the President says he believes reconstruction in the enclave will begin soon. Let's bring in CNN's Alayna Treene.

And Alayna, as we stand by to see if the President is going to speak to reporters again following this meeting with Netanyahu, he said a lot before the meeting even started.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: He did. And there are a couple of things that really stood out to me. One is that overall, both leaders were kind of heaping praise on one another, something that's very important, particularly for the Israeli prime minister right now, especially as one of the key things we know that he's looking to do during this meeting is make sure he's shoring up that support with President Trump today, because he needs that support as he faces elections going into next year to try and hang on to his role as prime minister.

But one of the key things, of course, that is really the big focus, particularly on the U.S. side, is making sure that they can get Netanyahu to commit to that phase two part of that ceasefire agreement that was initially struck back in October. It's actually something that, in my conversations with Trump administration officials, they had expected would be underway at this point, you know, seeing the disarmament of Hamas, beginning that reconstruction of the enclave, and then also, you know, postwar governance, trying to set up a technocratic government in Gaza, at least temporarily until they can figure it out for the long term.

All of those things are so crucial. But a lot of people are also worried, and I say a lot of people, people in the Trump administration worried that perhaps Netanyahu is slow walking those talks and that he's not as committed and invested in the broader peace plan than he had initially let on. Because I should say, initially, he got a lot of what he wanted out of this ceasefire proposal. You know, the return of the hostages, one thing he's been complaining about and criticizing is that Hamas has refused so far to turn over the last living -- or excuse me, the last remains of the final deceased hostage.

And so, it's really going to be, I think, a key question of what happens behind closed doors when they emerge from this. And if the President's optimism, saying that he thinks phase two will happen very quickly, is actually the case after these talks.

KEILAR: Yes, very important to look for there.

Alayna, thank you so much for that.

Let's talk about this more now with Joel Rubin. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs during the Obama administration.

Joel, as you see it, is Netanyahu slow walking phase two of the peace deal here? JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, Brianna,

it's great to be with you. And he is certainly moving at a snail's pace, and he does need to step it up. I think that President Trump is right to bring him in, to pressure him, and to, of course, also pressure our other allies in the region like Qatar and Turkey and Egypt to provide more support to get Hamas disarmed.

That's crucial. That will get us through this -- this moment. But the Prime Minister, he -- he's really not anxious to see a political reality settle into Gaza that creates the foundation for a Palestinian state. And so, he's -- he's kind of in a bind on this about not going too fast to get to that end point, but also not wanting to disappoint President Trump. And I think that's where they're -- they're hitting their moment right now today.

SANCHEZ: How do you get to disarmament, Joel, if Hamas' military wing is coming out today saying that is not going to happen?

RUBIN: Well, what you do is you make it clear that it is going to happen, and that as the United States, that's what we're committed to, and that all of our allies in the region need to hear this.

[15:05:08]

And, of course, the Israelis will also argue, and I think it's credible, that they could potentially resume military operations if Hamas does not live up to that disarmament. But, you know, we -- we have to get some movement from the prime minister to make the argument as well to the region that they need to lean in on Hamas.

Hamas is a bad actor. Hamas started the war on October 7th, 2023, and Hamas is oppressing its own people. It's in no one's interest to have Hamas still be militarily empowered in this process. They do need to be disarmed.

KEILAR: So, Netanyahu's domestic political situation, Joel, is -- it's something you can't ignore here when you're looking at this summit at Mar-a-Lago.

RUBIN: No.

KEILAR: And Netanyahu arrived, you had Trump claiming Israeli President Herzog had told him that a pardon for Netanyahu is, quote, "on its way." Herzog's office quickly denying that that's the case. How are you looking at all that?

RUBIN: Yes. Look, Brianna, the Prime Minister understands that, A, he is most popular when he hugs Donald Trump, and he can't have any daylight between him and Donald Trump because Trump is very popular in Israel. But related to the -- the pardon and the call for a pardon, that's really offensive to the Israeli people at the same time. And so, if the Prime Minister pushes too hard, many Israelis who support Trump are going to feel that he's meddling in their democracy. And this is a pardon request related to an ongoing criminal case for corruption. So, I think the President, he -- he should stay out of this, but if

Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to take advantage of that push, it may very well cost him at the polls. And so, this -- this is seen as meddling. And for the Prime Minister, he also needs to stay close to Trump. But the Israeli people understand that there is a case, and they don't want to see it upended by foreign interference.

SANCHEZ: Notably this afternoon, President Trump sort of gave the green light to Israel to find information about whether Iran was restarting its nuclear capabilities, restarting its nuclear program following strikes earlier this year. The President saying that he would be supportive of an Israeli strike if Tehran were to be found to be accelerating its nuclear program. Do we know at this point what the Iranian capacities are? What they're capable of?

RUBIN: We don't. We -- we have estimates that are based upon previous inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency and, of course, our intelligence apparatus as well. It's understood that Iran is reconstituting at some level, potentially through -- through oversight surveillance. We see them potentially digging into new sites to rebuild a nuclear bunker of some sort.

But we really don't. And this is why we do need a diplomatic arrangement ultimately with Iran that locks in the gains that were made from those military strikes. Continual strikes again and again are going to be less effective going forward than they were previously because of the intelligence that we had before due to all of -- of what I described in inspections. So, it's a very tenuous situation.

I think the administration should try its best to lock in the gains from last June and get a diplomatic deal with Iran that prevents them from ever accelerating their nuclear program.

SANCHEZ: Joe Rubin, appreciate the analysis. Thanks so much for joining us.

RUBIN: Thanks so much.

SANCHEZ: We're also tracking this afternoon a powerful winter storm that's turned deadly in Iowa. Officials there confirming one person passed away in a car crash after ports of Interstate 35 were closed because of poor roadway conditions and near zero visibility. You see it there on -- on that windshield.

States like Michigan also battling several inches of snow and powerful wind gusts as the conditions now barrel eastward.

KEILAR: Meteorologist Chris Warren is tracking the forecast. So, Chris, how long is this storm going to last?

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we've got a couple more days depending on where you are. But this -- the -- the scene you were just showing us and what we saw in Iowa yesterday is still possible right now across parts of the Great Lakes with a variety of different weather conditions that we are currently tracking right now. Winter weather, the snow is still coming down and coming down in a big way, either being enhanced by the Great Lakes or seeing just some straight lake effect snow.

So, getting some big-time snowfall anywhere you see purple in here. This is where you can get the conditions like we saw in Iowa where it can be whiteout conditions. Snow squall warnings up for a few areas with the winds at times blowing to 71 miles an hour here in Buffalo at the airport. A gust reported at 79 miles an hour. Haven't seen winds that strong in about 45 years. Here's where there are still active warnings and notice where these are.

The pink, the winter storm warnings where we're seeing some of the heavier snow coming off of the lakes. Ice as well, a concern throughout parts of New England.

[15:10:03]

The amount of snow that we're going to be seeing in some areas around a foot, maybe even a foot and a half. So, this is why it could last beyond today. The ongoing behind the cold front kind of snow. Then bad news for some of the airports here in the Great Lakes in the northeast would be the wind. And with these winds gusting strong can see and expect to see more delays at some of the airports in the northeast.

Then, imagine this, 24 hours ago in St. Louis, it was 54 degrees warmer than what it is right now. And when you go outside and you feel these temperatures that are in the teens and feels like 25 degrees in Nashville, feels like five in Indianapolis. And St. Louis yesterday, it was almost 80 degrees. It was 79 degrees. So, this is a massive shock to the system here. And this is what we're looking at in the days to come.

These are high temperatures in Chicago, barely getting above freezing, won't get above freezing until Wednesday. But on Wednesday, the high only 33 degrees.

KEILAR: Minneapolis, chilly weather there.

Chris Warren, thank you so much for taking us through that.

Still to come, President Trump speaking on the phone with Vladimir Putin just hours after face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. What we're learning about that call.

SANCHEZ: Plus, new details on what could be a big escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuela. President Trump saying the U.S. knocked out a quote big drug facility.

And later, a look at the top entertainment stories of 2025. It was an era, wasn't it? That and much more, coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:45]

SANCHEZ: We have new developments to share with you in Russia's war on Ukraine. Today, President Trump held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin just one day after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Mar-a-Lago.

KEILAR: The administration is still trying to broker a peace deal between the two countries. President Trump had this to say about his discussion with Putin a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... and it was a very productive talk. I mean, we have a -- a few very thorny issues, as you can imagine. We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully, and if we get them resolved, you're going to have peace, you're going to have Ukraine losing 26,000 soldiers a month. Can you believe it? A month, 26,000 young, beautiful soldiers and plus some people in Kyiv and relatively small but a lot, you know, still people and it's a lot of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Fred Pleitgen is monitoring developments from Berlin. And Fred, the U.S. remains deeply involved in these negotiations, but are the two sides really any closer to a deal?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they certainly believe that they're inching closer to a deal. It was quite interesting yesterday when the President met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine. Both sides said that over 90 percent of the issues that were outstanding had been dealt with.

But as President Trump said there earlier today, there are still some pretty thorny issues that remain. The Ukrainians say that one of them is the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is one of the biggest in the world, currently controlled by the Russians. But the question is, who does that -- who is that going to belong to in the future and where is the electricity of that going to go.

But by far, the most difficult issue is possible territorial concessions by the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have showed themselves more open to possibly ceding territory to the Russians. But Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, says that he's going to have to have a referendum to be able to do that, to let the Ukrainian people decide on that issue. And for that he needs a ceasefire. But the Russians say a temporary ceasefire is not going to happen.

Now on top of that, the Russians are now alleging that there was a major drone attack by the Ukrainians overnight targeting one of Vladimir Putin's residences in the northwest of Russia. And he also mentioned that in a call, in that call with President Trump. Here's what President Trump had to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I heard about it this morning. Do you know who told me about it? President Putin told me about it. Early in the morning, he said he was attacked. That's no good. It's no good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Russian officials (INAUDIBLE) ... TRUMP: Don't forget, you know, the tomahawks. I stopped the tomahawks. I didn't want that, because we're talking about -- you know, it's a delicate period of time. This is not the right time. It's one thing to be offensive because they're offensive. It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that and can't do it. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So, as President Trump speaking just a couple of moments ago, the Ukrainians for their part, by the way, have unequivocally denied being behind any sort of drone attack on a residence of Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he came out and saying that the Russians are using this or will try to use this as a pretext for further attacks on Ukraine.

As you can see, as there is momentum apparently in the diplomatic process, still a lot of hurdles remain and some very difficult times as well. Nevertheless, both the Russians and the Ukrainians have acknowledged that there has been some progress. And certainly, the chief negotiators of the President, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, definitely have been working very hard at this, especially over the past couple of weeks, guys.

KEILAR: And Fred, thank you so much for the very latest on that. Let's talk a little bit more now about the implications of all of this. We have former American ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, with us now. He's a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Ambassador, Zelenskyy met with Trump yesterday. This morning, Zelenskyy said two of the plan's 20 points remain unresolved. But I think we can probably agree that those are some pretty hefty of the two here. Who will control the future operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the issue of territory, that's a huge one. Crucial issue of territory.

[15:20:00]

That's consistently been the sticking point. How does this get resolved?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: It gets resolved, Brianna, when President Trump puts pressure on Putin to agree. President Putin has given no indication that he's close to an agreement. What we've seen, the momentum that you described -- Fred described -- is between the Americans and the Ukrainians and the Europeans. There's a lot of work going on, on this 20-point plan that the Ukrainians and the Europeans and the Americans agree on. And that's got Putin worried.

Putin needs to understand that that's the kind of work that's going on, that's moving in the direction that the Ukrainians are -- and the -- and the Europeans are pleased with and that makes Putin worried. So, you start to see these diversions. KEILAR: I wonder, Ambassador, if you think the 15 years that Zelensky

says the plan has in it for U.S. security guarantees as a proposal is enough, given that Putin's aspirations are and remain to take all of Ukraine?

TAYLOR: Boris, you're absolutely right. That's the -- and -- and Putin has been clear about that. He's been very explicit up front that he wants to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign nation. And for that, you don't get a 15-year security guarantee. You need a longer one than that. So, that's -- that's going to be important to -- to -- for people to realize. The other interesting thing about the security guarantee, it sounds like they've agreed that the security guarantee between the Americans and the Ukrainians would be submitted to the Senate or the full -- full Congress to be put into law as legally binding.

KEILAR: And we -- we don't have this official readout yet of the Trump call with Putin that already took place. But we did hear Trump say that it was productive. He also said that Putin told him about an alleged Ukrainian drone attack that Putin says targeted one of his residences. Ukraine has, as Fred was reporting there, denied responsibility for that. Trump indicated that it was, you know, Putin who informed him of this, and he was really taking Putin at his -- at his word about it. And -- and I just wonder what you thought about that, the sort of, I guess, acceptance that Trump has of what Putin tells him. It's not the first time, and Putin is on the record many times not being honest about a number of things.

TAYLOR: Brianna, you're exactly right. We can think of a couple right off the bat. When the Russians invaded, when Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, he said, no, they're not -- they're -- they're not Russian soldiers. I don't know whose soldiers they are. An outright lie, a clear lie. When -- when Putin was getting ready to invade Ukraine in 2022, he said, we will never invade Ukraine. This is, you know, (INAUDIBLE), a clear lie. So, you can't -- you can't take anything that President Putin says as the truth.

SANCHEZ: So, we know that after the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting on Sunday, they hopped on a call with European leaders. As you noted, there was a lot of work done during those calls. How much actual input do you think the Europeans will have here, not just in terms of what a final peace plan might look like, but their actual involvement with a zone, perhaps, in the Donbas where non-Ukrainian, non-Russian troops are stationed?

TAYLOR: Boris, you're exactly right, a large role. The Ukrainians are -- the -- the Ukrainians very pleased that the -- the Europeans are stepping up. Europeans are making commitments, making plans to put troops, military troops, on the ground in Ukraine after a ceasefire.

The Brits and the French have led this effort, Coalition of the Willing, they call it. There's some 30 nations, some outside -- some outside of Europe, you know, with Japan, you have South Korea who are proposing to work with this. There are -- there are several nations who are willing, as I say, to put troops on the ground, with the French and the Brits and the Latvians and the Estonians, maybe even the Turks.

So, there's a lot of work going on that the Europeans are responsible for, and this security guarantee with troops on the ground will be the deterrent necessary to keep Russia from invading again and violating a new ceasefire.

SANCHEZ: Ambassador William Taylor, thanks so much for joining us.

TAYLOR: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, the White House is not offering any new details after President Trump said the U.S. took out a big facility as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela. The details we're learning when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:40]

SANCHEZ: Now for the latest on President Trump's pressure campaign on Venezuela. For the first time, the President appears to have revealed a U.S. attack on land. Listen to what he told WNBC Radio on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And we just knocked out -- I don't know if you read or you saw they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the -- you know, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out, so we hit them very hard."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Since September, the U.S. has launched dozens of strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, killing at least 100 people. This afternoon, when pressed about a strike on Venezuelan soil, President Trump said no comment.

CNN's Zach Cohen has details on this.

What are you learning about this and also the President kind of changing tacks on how he's explaining it?

ZACH COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, guys, it's interesting. The President seemed to reveal this significant escalation in the ongoing military campaign against Venezuela -- and the pressure campaign against Venezuela, as well as those alleged drug boat strikes that have been happening in the eastern Pacific and in the Caribbean. Saying in -- in this radio interview that the U.S. has apparently carried out an operation against targets inside Venezuela itself. That's something we know Donald Trump has been threatening to do for weeks now, but sort of haphazardly mentioning it offhand in this interview. And again, talking a little bit more about it today when pressed by our Kevin Liptak on what exactly was the nature of this, quote, big facility that he said that was taken out.

[15:30:08]