Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Addresses Department Amid Immigration Raids; Freeze On Federal Grants And Loans Takes Effect At 5PM Tonight; China Celebrates Success Of AI Startup DeepSeek; North Korean Soldiers Use Near-Suicidal Tactics In Battle. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired January 28, 2025 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:38]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM. And let's get right to the news.
It has been only eight days. President Trump continues to disrupt and shake up the government, just as he promised on the campaign trail. New Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who is tasked with overseeing the president's immigration plans, will shortly address her new department for the first time.
In two hours, the Trump administration will put a freeze on trillions of dollars in federal spending, impacting a wide range of things from food assistance and disaster aid in the U.S., as well as foreign assistance. In the first press conference, press briefing rather, of the second Trump administration, the new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, addressed the immediate impact of that move.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump administration. Individual assistance that includes, I'm not naming everything that's included, but just to give you a few examples, Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Trump administration officials have given agencies ten days to answer questions about their federal programs, including whether they receive funding related to undocumented immigrants, climate policy, diversity programs or abortion. You get a sense of the goals, the target.
CNN's Stephen Collinsons -- Collinson joins me now.
I want to begin first with Kristi Noem, new DHS secretary, long a supporter, quite a public supporter of Donald Trump, but specifically her getting involved in these raids. How unusual is that for a cabinet level secretary? And what's the intention here? STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPOTER: I think there's a lot of
theater here, right? The Trump administration is trying to show that the president is living up to one of his core campaign promises. So you have Kristi Noem going out on raids. You have FBI agents or ICE agents wearing uniforms so they can get picked up by the cameras.
You know, Kristi Noem is a past master at getting President Trump's attention. She once presented him with a replica of Mount Rushmore, with his with his face on it.
SCIUTTO: That again.
COLLINSON: So --
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
COLLINSON: And this is a serious point because there is some question inside the administration about who is actually running the immigration push, that is the thing the president cares most about. And so she is making herself very visible.
More broadly, though, to step back, this is, I think, a policy that the voters wanted. This is one of the reasons why Trump got elected. So it's easy for us to sit here and mock and say its theater and it's all a stunt, but the voters will respond if they believe that, you know, the president is getting done what he said he would do.
The question is, does it cross a line? If you see scenes of inhumanity of families being separated, how does the wider country react to that?
SCIUTTO: Well, for instance, there's public polling that shows that even Republicans don't support those agents say going into schools or places of worship, during which, as I understand it, there has been permission granted to do that.
COLLINSON: Sure, they -- they have said, okay, that's not their main attention intention, but if there are what they call a criminal harbored in one of these places, that's what they will go in because they say its vital to national security. But in practice, if that starts happening, that creates a climate of fear.
And of course, one of the other issues here is they're trying to send a message to would be migrants, that there is no life for you here in the United States. You should not come.
The downside to this, of course, is it's causing great fear among the migrant community already. And I think that's something that's going to ramp up, because this is just the start. They're using the resources they have now. One of the reasons Noem is being so visible is because the administration needs to get a lot of cash out of Congress to keep this going, and urgently.
SCIUTTO: And there are questions about military involvement as well. We'll get to that when we get there.
But first, as another question today is exactly how broad this freeze on federal aid goes, because you found the White House, including filing that press conference, having to clarify that no, if you're receiving Social Security benefits, et cetera, you will not be impacted.
It sounds like what at least what they claim they're targeting, anything involving immigration, foreign aid, climate and energy, what they call the green new hoax. Or you heard that from the White House podium.
COLLINSON: New scam.
[15:05:00]
SCIUTTO: New scam, rather, DEI initiatives, do we -- I mean, is this -- is this how it's playing out right now?
COLLINSON: It doesn't seem to be. It seems to be that there's a great deal of concern across the country about what actually has been shut down. Now, the only things they've really been able to say that aren't shut down are Social Security payments and Medicare.
They couldn't really, you know, quantify whether were talking about Medicaid as well. She didn't -- Karoline Leavitt didn't seem to have the answers there.
You've got plenty of social programs, people who rely on federal funding for -- that goes through NGOs for food, Meals on Wheels, for example.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
COLLINSON: I've heard, you know, firsthand from two different places today, real concern in public universities, they rely on, you know, the regular flow of federal funds every single day to keep going. Are there funds being stopped? So there's real confusion.
I think part of that is by design from the White House. They want to show that Trump is now in charge and what he's trying to do.
Let's -- let's not forget -- he's -- although they're talking about DEI and climate and everything else. This is money that was appropriated from the previous Congress under the previous administration, and a Democratic senate. They're trying to stop that being paid.
And that's the constitutional question. Can the president now stop money being dispersed? That's already --
SCIUTTO: Approved by Congress, right. Congress has the power of the purse.
COLLINSON: And we have this in the Nixon administration. And, you know, they're trying to push the boundaries of presidential power all the time as far as they can, and to see how far they can get.
SCIUTTO: Constitutional question yet one more. Stephen Collinson, thanks so much.
Well, to that point on immigration, 2,000 arrests in two days. President Trump is following through on his campaign pledge of cracking down on undocumented migrants. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, ICE, as its known, says nearly 1,200 people were arrested on Monday alone, more continuing today.
CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us now with more.
Are those numbers higher to date than we saw? Is it is it a higher pace than we saw in the previous administration?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a really important question, Jim, because we have seen these enforcement operations in previous administrations, especially when you look at the deportation numbers. In terms of the enforcement action, one of the latest one that's been conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it happened here in America's largest city in New York.
New information now from sources now indicating to CNN that that operation is largely concluded for the day, and in all, roughly 24 individuals were detained. It took about 200 federal agents to make that happen, according to sources. So 200 agents actually split up and about to in about 30 teams, and they visited various sites in Manhattan, in the Bronx, looking at one of the videos that was shared by newly sworn DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
I will say, Jim, as we see this -- this picture that is really quite unique is the number of images, PR images, really, that have been published by DHS officials during the last several days because, again, this latest operation is not the first. It certainly won't be the last.
But these images that we've seen certainly are quite unique here, with the Trump administration making a very deliberate effort to capture the newly sworn secretary wearing police gear, interacting with those officers before they head out on these on these raids.
Now, we should mention the Trump administration has made it a point to send out their top officials out into the field so that they can be seen effectively carrying out those hard line immigration mandates. But again, in terms of the latest operation that we've seen here in New York, roughly 24 arrested, among them, one individual that was wanted for homicide in another country, another individual that was wanted on weapons charges. But that is still very much a question, Jim, is how many of those total numbers are individuals with an actual violent crime conviction, and how many of those are simply in the United States illegally, which would be a civil -- a civil case here.
We did hear from the White House just a few hours ago what they did. They basically reaffirmed that just because an individual does not have an actual violent crime warrant on them, does not mean that they might be spared deportation. The White House press secretary making it very clear that if you are in the country, or at least in the United States illegally, then you do stand to potentially be at risk for deportation. SCIUTTO: Polo Sandoval, thanks so much.
SANDOVAL: Thanks, Jim.
SCIUTTO: We should note that Kristi Noem, the new DHS secretary, is speaking now, addressing her department for the first time. You see her there.
Joining us now is Chad Wolf. He actually served as acting homeland security secretary during the first Trump administration.
Thanks so much, Chad, for taking the time.
CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Yeah, thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: So first to that question that Polo raised, and it was pressed during the White House press briefing, the question of what qualifies as criminal. Should it be or should the focus be on those who committed violent crimes, et cetera? Or should the standard simply be if you're in the country illegally, that's criminal enough, and therefore you should be subject to these raids and immediate deportation?
[15:10:09]
WOLF: Well, I think, you've heard Trump administration officials like Tom Homan, the president himself and others say that they're going to target those violent criminals, and they'll certainly do that. But what they've also said is that no one is exempt from the law, meaning that if you did come into the country illegally, you broke the law. It's a federal crime that that they're not going to exempt you from that, that if you come to their attention and they do pick you up, then you will be deported.
We saw that the last administration, the Biden administration, actually put out a policy memo that said, if you simply enter the country illegally, that enough was not grounds for you to be removed. And unfortunately, what we saw because of that, in a number of other decisions was the worst border crisis that we have ever experienced in the United States.
So it's important that the rule of law is enforced here. And if -- if Congress doesn't want those individuals to be removed, then they need to change the law.
SCIUTTO: Right. Well, as you know, there was a bipartisan effort to do that last year with the agreement among Republican and Democratic senators. But then candidate Trump scuttled that effort.
I do want to ask you, because the Trump administration seems to be extended this or lifting the welcome mat, as it were, not just for criminal migrants to this country, but a DHS moment has directed officials to stop the parole program intended for Ukrainians and Afghan evacuees, including many who served alongside U.S. forces during the war there. Why target them in particular? And do you think that that is the
correct move?
WOLF: Well, I think they're stopping all programs. Obviously, there's one that's very controversial, such as the CHNV, which is from four countries and in the Caribbean and South America that have been paroled in.
But we've also seen right after the fall of Kabul, almost 600,000 to 700,000 Afghans come into the country that were not properly vetted. And the DHS inspector general has a report that says they were not properly vetted.
So I think in part here is trying to understand who is coming into the country and how are they being vetted, whether they're an asylum seeker who shows up at the border or they're an actual refugee as they pause that, that refuge --
SCIUTTO: But as you know, there's a program, a special immigrant visa program. I know this personally because I helped someone who served alongside U.S. forces get out of the country that is quite rigorous in terms of proving that service alongside the U.S. military, checking your background, et cetera. And a lot of Afghans who've already passed through that standards and were basically just about to get on flights to this country from places such as Qatar, they're also being stopped.
Is this -- do you see that as a case of extending the net too broadly, as it were?
WOLF: I don't think so. Not necessarily, in the first few days of the administration, because that program is also we've also seen reports where they -- they weren't properly vetted. I know you just indicated there is a rigorous process to vet those individuals, but we have report after report that, you know, corners have been cut to get these individuals into the country quicker.
So I think it's prudent for the incoming administration to put a pause on that, to say, lets take a look and see how these individuals are actually being vetted. And if we come to -- if we are satisfied with that, then I'm sure they'll resume at the appropriate time.
SCIUTTO: With these ICE arrests underway now, no massive detention facilities in place as of yet. What happens to these people in the meantime? Are they released from custody, in a short period of time, told to reappear for deportation proceedings? Are they going to be put on a plane right away out of the country?
WOLF: Yeah. So they will -- in order to be deported, you're going to have to find them a bed. You're going to have to find them a place in a facility somewhere around the country.
Look, just because there's not a big one housed somewhere in Texas or Florida or somewhere, doesn't mean that there aren't detention beds across this country. And state and local officials, sheriffs and others can house them in their facilities as well before they're deported. So as they pick up individuals, this will be the challenge for the
Trump administration is as they pick up individuals, they've got to put them in a bed for 24 to 48 hours before they -- they move them.
Now, as they become more efficient in there, perhaps they can shrink that time frame down and they can pick them up and then remove them in a in a quicker fashion, which requires less detention facilities and capabilities.
SCIUTTO: The Trump administration is surging DHS and law enforcement resources toward finding and arresting undocumented immigrants. That does mean diverting resources from combating fentanyl trafficking, for instance, even from some terrorism cases. Are you concerned about other priorities that won't get the attention they deserve?
WOLF: I'm not overly concerned. Look, there is a concern about the number of individuals coming across the border and making sure that we remove those individuals. I think we saw and I believe it was in New York City where they actually picked up someone who is a known or suspected terrorist who was on a watch list today and has been in the country for some time.
[15:15:07]
So you've got to balance, you know, the threats that you mentioned versus the threats that are here in the United States as well, and making sure that -- now, look, DHS can do all of the above. There are limited resources. They have to prioritize that, but they can remove individuals as well as look at the other threats coming into the country as well.
SCIUTTO: Chad Wolf, thanks so much for joining. We appreciate you taking the time.
WOLF: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Coming up next, another story we're following closely. The Chinese A.I. startup DeepSeek is sending shock waves through the industry here in the U.S. caused related stocks to plummet yesterday. At the closing bell in less than a half an hour, we're going to see how they're reacting today, but also, more importantly, break down what these developments means and do so in layman's terms. It's a big change in A.I.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: China is celebrating the success of startup DeepSeek after the new artificial intelligence model stunned Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
Nvidia, the company powering American A.I. systems, went into a tailspin on the stock market, losing $600 billion in value as investors question the company's leadership, America's leadership on A.I. and the massive investments which they believed were necessary to fuel U.S. models such as OpenAI and Gemini.
CNN's Richard Quest has been following this closely.
You know, a lot of money has been going into the market. Nvidia stock and others basically betting they got a lock on the chips you need to do A.I. well, and in volume. This seems to -- I don't want to say blow up that idea but certainly punctured the bubble a little bit. Should it?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Absolutely. I -- totally because what this does is suggest, have they got it right, the OpenAI and all the Nvidias which have spent tens if not hundreds of millions in billions in total.
[15:20:04]
And suddenly this upstart comes along from China that doesn't have access to the most advanced chips, does it with a few old Nvidia chips and lots of Huawei chips, which are banned elsewhere and comes up with something which could be arguably as good for a fraction of the price. Which begs the question have the rest of us all been sort of led down the garden path?
But not so fast, Jim. Remember, we're talking here about China. We're talking here about an entire range of research that has not been independently verified, nor do we have the true numbers of costings. So there's a certain amount of touch and push and, and sort of what do you believe. But yes, it does prove Chinas in the game.
SCIUTTO: Okay. Fair enough. So have you had a chance to check it out? DeepSeek how it works.
QUEST: Right. So better than that. Better than that. Because everybody's downloading DeepSeek. It's the number one download.
I asked chat. I asked chat, I said, hey, chat, because I like to talk to chat conversationally, what's the advantage of DeepSeek over you? And it says DeepSeek is a specialized A.I. designed for web first advantages, may include direct access to direct to web content, customized research, enhanced data, real time API, but then chat being chat says, however, I excel at conversational adaptability.
DeepSeek might be better for data retrieval. I focus on insight and dialogue. Now, this is true because, you know, sometimes I will have whole conversations with chat as I sort of ask it a question, then challenge it, then push further. It could be research for something I'm looking at or whatever. I now need to see if DeepSeek will give me the same satisfaction.
SCIUTTO: It seems like ChatGPT has learned the human art of the backhanded compliment, you know?
QUEST: Oh, by the way --
SCIUTTO: It's really good at these things but here's why I'm much better.
QUEST: By the way, if you get chat telling you that it said something, it's giving you a false fact.
If you say to chat, you're wrong, it will do a massive mea culpa. I am awful, I'm terrible. I'm the worst thing ever. How could I have got that wrong? Please forgive me, as it flagellates itself. It's amazing. Try it and see.
SCIUTTO: They're getting more human by the day. Richard Quest, thanks so much.
QUEST: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: All right. So for more on what this means for the A.I. industry, let's ask Max Tegmark. He's the president of the Future of Life Institute and a professor of physics at MIT.
Max, thanks so much for joining.
MAX TEGMARK, PRESIDENT, FUTURE OF LIFE INSTITUTE: Pleasure.
SCIUTTO: So you probably heard Richard and I talking there. So somehow they used a smaller number of chips, not the latest chips. And all the talk had been you need the most advanced, particularly Nvidia chips, to do this, even through some Huawei chips in there and come out with something seemingly really good.
How did they pull it off and did they pull it off?
TEGMARK: Oh, they totally did. Since its all open source and we can check it. It's been pretty obvious for a long time that you don't really need as much chips as people were using, and they were overcompensating for our very lousy algorithms with way more hardware. So I think this is a pretty natural next step.
And it really shows that the -- that the -- well, first of all, if you really want exciting A.I. tools to improve your business or get stuff done, you know, then you should be very excited about how you can now do it sooner than you thought and cheaper than you thought, because the technology is going faster than you thought.
But at the same time, the whole power dynamics with U.S. and China, of course, gets much more interesting now.
SCIUTTO: Yeah. Tell me about that. Should we -- now OpenAI, it, of course, is aware of this. I'm sure it's digging -- digging just as deep into this as you and others are.
It says, hey, wait a second. They did a good job here, but before you know it, we're going to have this our own 0.3 model, kind of next generation model. They say that will be, quote, another major step up in the A.I. race.
Despite what they say, does this show that China and the U.S. are closer than we thought, or even possibly that China is ahead of where the U.S. stands right now?
TEGMARK: I would say we've gone from the U.S. being clearly ahead by a couple of years to being fairly tied right now.
SCIUTTO: Wow.
TEGMARK: And I think, I think as we look to the future, its becoming more and more obvious that regardless of the -- that many countries, many players are going to have this technology. The bigger question isn't, I think, whether us is going to get it a little bit before China or we all get it at the same time.
The bigger question is, are we going to get all these wonderful A.I. tools that do things we want under our control, or are we going to ultimately just lose control over this technology so that nobody wins?
[15:25:06]
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
TEGMARK: We all -- obviously the Chinese government really likes to be in control, and I think they will be terrified that some Chinese company will build A.I. that has self-awareness and autonomy to the point that they can lose control over it. So I don't think they're going to want to allow that.
And my -- my optimistic view is that the Trump government will see it the same way. Now, the U.S. military wants really powerful A.I. tools. Do they want A.I. tool stuff that they can lose control over, and not so much, right? And if you're -- if you have a -- if you're if you have a powerful car, you know, do you want to have an uncontrollable car? Of course not.
So I think what I'm hoping for is that the -- both Chinese, the Chinese and the American government will just make sure we don't go crazy with this stuff and that the goal for the whole community is to build ever better tools that are controllable and then we all win. Otherwise, the only winner is the machines.
SCIUTTO: I'm with you on that, I certainly am. The trouble is, the way the Chinese and U.S. governments see it has been as a very competitive thing and a strategically competitive thing, to the point where a key part of U.S. policy right is to is export controls to keep China from getting its hands on the most advanced chips. I wonder if this shows you the holes, at least in that policy, or maybe the failure of that policy, because if you can use less advanced chips and still make a big leap, do those export controls just not work?
TEGMARK: Yeah, I think -- I think they've been less effective certainly than it was hoped. But for the control part, it's really interesting. You know, you listen to the leaders of our American tech companies and they will tell us that we're going to get things that are as self-aware and agentic and autonomous and smart that they'll be able to outsmart humans, maybe this year and maybe next year, maybe in five years, depending on who you ask.
And they're also warned, though pretty recently in a statement that they all signed saying, oh, this could cause human extinction if we lose control over it. So if you ask them when you have them on your show, what's your plan for?
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
TEGMARK: Can you get can you prove that you can keep these under control? The sad answer is they're going to hem and haw, because we're closer now to figuring out how to build smarter than human A.I., than to figuring out how to control it. And I think this is actually good for the U.S.-China geopolitics in that, in that, when they both start to realize that the bigger threat is we just lose control of our own creations. There's a common enemy.
You know, the -- our good friends in the national security establishment and in the defense sector here in the U.S., they are very mindful of how many different threats we have. You know, were concerned that we keep an eye on China. We keep an eye on Russia, et cetera. And here's another one to keep an eye on now, these smarter machines and for that, China is actually an ally, not an enemy, right?
SCIUTTO: Well --
TEGMARK: They have no interest in.
SCIUTTO: It'd be nice if we thought that. I mean, because you think, I suppose I mean, climate change, similar kind of case, right? But, you know, are you working together or are you working against each other?
Well, Max, I support your -- I support your ambition, right, and your hope. Let's see how these guys handle it.
TEGMARK: But that's a great, great thing you said about climate change there. Because just like we know, CO2 doesn't stop at borders. You know, this here with DeepSeek shows that tech doesn't either. Yeah, but this is a much more threatening thing for China than global warming, because they really like to be in control over there. So I'm -- I'm quite optimistic that the U.S. and China can make a deal here.
SCIUTTO: Thank you, Max. I'll take that hope to the bank and look forward to talking to you about A.I. again. Thanks for joining.
TEGMARK: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Coming up, a rare up close look at North Korea's near- suicidal tactics as the country's forces join Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:32:37]
SCIUTTO: Unwavering in their allegiance to their leader Kim Jong-un, scores of North Korean troops have lost their lives fighting for Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine. Kyiv's special forces say the soldiers from Pyongyang may appear to be young, trained, even hardy fighters, but they are not prepared for the realities of modern combat.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh sent us this report from the front lines in Ukraine. And we should warn you, many images are graphic throughout.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the first images on the ground of the capture of North Korean troops by Ukraine. The soldier is injured, can hardly walk but they spirit him away. Russian shelling intensifies to prevent capture.
A wild prize pulled through their wires here from brutal fighting in Russia's Kursk region against a radicalized, near suicidal enemy but one who'd never seen drones in war before. The special operations forces who fought them told us.
"POKEMON", GROUP COMMANDER, UKRAINIAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES (from captions): They are all young, fresh and hardy. But they're only prepared for the realities of an Eighties war. Despite all attempts to call them to surrender they continue to fight.
WALSH: There's a unique challenge here. Ukraine wants to take captives but the North Koreans seem to prefer to die. They shoot one here in caution. In the distressing images that follow, they pull one injured Korean's leg, then realize he has a grenade he detonates under his chin.
His last words were to scream North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's name, South Korean officials say.
We meet the Ukrainians who show us the faked Russian military papers he was carrying, suggesting he was from Russia's Far East and his military radio codes. Another paper, handwritten pledges of brainwashed courage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): The hammer of death to the unknown and the puppet trash is not far off. We wield the powerful force that makes them tremble in fear. World, watch closely.
WALSH: These notes from a soldier killed, really a snapshot of the mindset inside the hermit kingdom.
[15:35:07]
Declarations of loyalty, even tactics on how to fight Ukrainian drones. And also the suggestion that their presence here is about helping North Korea prepare for war.
It's a remarkable insight but also a reminder of how this biggest land war in Europe since the '40s is becoming more global.
But also a glimpse of the fear they live under, how they inform on each other. Notes from an officer writing a critique of his fellow soldiers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): He engaged in a unimaginable disgraceful act by stealing supplies. (Another soldier) failed to uphold the Supreme Commander's dignity and placed his personal interest above all. WALSH: Ukrainians film themselves taking DNA samples from the dead, which they say proved these were Korean. Ukraine says up to a third of the 12,000 here are already dead or injured and more are coming.
Amur shows us the newish AK-12 rifle and backpack Russia gave the North Koreans. They are over-laden with ammo, he says but sometimes nobody armor or warm clothes and minimal water.
AMUR, COMPANY COMMANDER, UKRAINIAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES (from captions): We have seen cases when fighters from North Korea ran without body armor. They often don't wear helmets which we find strange as well. They're very maneuverable, they run and move very quickly. They're hard to catch, especially with a drone.
WALSH: This thermal drone video shows that speed of attack. Below are seven Ukrainians in a trench facing 130 North Koreans above, who race at them and then try to flank them. Many died here but they seem to be learning.
BANDIT, BATTALLION COMMANDER, UKRAINIAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES (from captions): They have a plan of what to do if they are attacked by a drone. It's one person who takes the hit. Two or three people stand on the side and shoot directly. It is worth noting that they shoot quite well. This suggests that they were trained.
WALSH: Ready to die, everybody checked for grenades. But not ready for this modern warfare. On a training mission, many won't survive, for a future war not even glimpsed yet.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Sumy, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: Remarkable events there. Well, one of President Trump's many campaign promises was to end the war in Ukraine before he even took office. Of course, it's been eight days since that self-imposed deadline. The end still nowhere in sight.
Putin says there is, however, a way to organize negotiations to end the war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): In principle, if they want to do this, there is a legal way. Let the chairman of Rada handle it in accordance with the constitution. If there is a desire, an illegal issue can be resolved. But so far, we simply do not see such a desire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: President Trump has repeatedly said he plans to speak with the Russian president, a meeting yet to be scheduled.
Joining me now, Kurt Volker, distinguished fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, as well as a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. Ambassador, thanks so much for taking the time.
KURT VOLKER, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW AT THE CENTER FOR EUROPEAN POLICY ANALYSIS, AS WELL AS A FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Yeah. Jim, it's great to be with you. Thank you.
SCIUTTO: So, we're still waiting for that phone call and for the possibility of some sort of negotiation. In the meantime, Trump is threatening to add more sanctions on Russia unless it ends the war in Ukraine.
I wonder, as you know, Russia is already extreme sanctions from the U.S., E.U., other allies. It is found a fair amount of ways around them, despite the economic costs. Will additional sanctions have any additional impact on the Russian economy, on Russia itself?
VOLKER: Yeah, it depends.
In its final days, the administration imposed some very serious sanctions on Russia's energy sector. This is something they had not done for the preceding three years. But on the final Friday, they sanctioned the vessels that carry Russian oil, this dark fleet, as people call it. They threatened to go after the intermediaries, the secondary sanctions that would apply to banks or others that are engaging in selling Russian oil or gas.
So these are much more significant than it had been in place before. And Trump has not lifted them. And indeed, Trump has threatened to extend them. So I think this could, in fact, have a serious impact.
SCIUTTO: The pressure that Trump is removing is continuing U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. The Trump administrations complete halt on foreign aid includes this aid to Ukraine, though there were exceptions for Israel and Egypt.
[15:40:06]
Why do you believe? And does that -- wouldn't that logically remove pressure from Russia to remove military assistance to Ukraine?
VOLKER: Well, I think there are several different issues here. One of them is the Trump administration's halt of foreign assistance, and that is particularly through USAID, a different category is military assistance. Indeed, all of the $61 billion approved by Congress last year has now been allocated and assigned by the (AUDIO GAP) way. So I don't think that that is going to stop. There's no new funds there.
The Trump administration has not yet said anything about future military support for Ukraine. Trump has said repeatedly he doesn't want taxpayer money to be used to support Ukraine. But there are other sources. One of them is the frozen assets, the frozen Russian central bank assets. If you were to seize those and spend it on military procurement, that would be one source of funds. And then the other one is the possibility of a lend lease program for Ukraine, as we did for the UK and World War Two. So instead of taxpayer aid, these would be loans to Ukraine. Ukraine
can borrow the money, buy American weapons and then pay us back decades from now, which is what the UK did.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
VOLKER: So I think that it is too soon to say that there's a cutoff of military aid to Ukraine.
SCIUTTO: As you know, there are opposing views of the Ukraine war inside the Trump administration and among Republicans. You have a number of Republicans, arguably a majority of them, who are steadfastly behind supporting Ukraine. Some -- Mike Waltz, his current national security advisor, Marco Rubio secretary of state. But you have others. I mean, as vice president and Trump himself who have expressed questions, even doubts about it, and have time at times equated Ukraine and Russia in terms of responsibility for this war, when we know, of course, it's Russia that invaded.
Like who, in your view, wins out in this administration? Those who support Ukraine or those who don't support it?
VOLKER: Well, in this administration, president Trump is the one who wins out. He is the ultimate decider. Everybody else has an opinion. He likes to have many opinions around.
But President Trump is really calling this. What was interesting this past week is that in his first press engagement from the oval office, he addressed this issue and he really disparaged Vladimir Putin, said he's not doing very well. He's really damaged Russia. He would do well to stop this war.
And then a day later, he put out a tweet on Truth Social, where he went even further and said that the Russian economy is failing. But we'll do Russia a favor by helping them end this war.
So Putin is really being packaged by Trump, if you will, as the subordinate person in this relationship, someone who is presiding over a weak military effort and a weak economy, and Trump is threatening more sanctions or more tariffs if Putin doesn't end the war. And he's really holding Putin accountable.
So these early steps by Trump, I think, have been psychologically for Putin, exactly the right message, casting this the right way to try to get Putin to realize he has no way forward.
SCIUTTO: Well, we'll see how that pressure is applied in coming weeks and months.
Ambassador Volker, we appreciate you joining this afternoon.
VOLKER: Pleasure, Jim. Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Still ahead, with an emergency meeting set for later this week. How Latin American leaders plan to begin tackling President Trump's order of mass deportations from the U.S. to their countries. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:47:25]
SCIUTTO: Latin American and Caribbean leaders are set to hold an emergency regional bloc meeting Thursday to discuss migration in the region, among other issues. In Guatemala, the vice president was on the tarmac to greet a deportation flight as it arrived from the U.S. Of course, enormous tension in the region as many more flights are coming.
CNN's David Culver was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Stepping off a commercial charter and onto Guatemala City's military tarmac, 124 migrants deported for illegally entering the U.S. now back home. They processed past officials, including the country's vice president, and into a reception hall. Cookies and coffee await.
One by one, they're called up to be officially documented. Now, that's a change from their status in the U.S.
She lived ten years in the U.S. in Alabama. She did roofing, construction and car repair while in the U.S.
Here we meet Sara Tot-Botoz. At 43, she says she carries a criminal record related to child endangerment.
She was shopping at Walmart -- with her grandson, and she said he didn't have a car seat, and she was pulled over as she was leaving the Walmart by a police officer in Alabama.
She went to jail for two months and was detained for five more months, she says, by immigration officials in Louisiana before being sent back here.
She's actually grateful, thanking God for being back.
Do you want to go back to the U.S.?
SARA TOT-BOTOZ, DEPORTED FROM U.S. BACK TO GUATEMALA: No. Yeah. No.
CULVER: No?
TOT-BOTOZ: Yeah. No.
CULVER: Sara seemingly uncomfortable though, speaking with us in what she's wearing. She's eager to get to her bag, which sits in a pile of plastic sacks and stapled shut. And as she heads into the bathroom to change, we meet Fidel Ambrocio.
So how many years altogether did you live in the U.S.?
FIDEL AMBROCIO, DEPORTED FROM U.S. BACK TO GUATEMALA: Almost 19 years. CULVER: Nineteen years?
AMBROCIO: Yes. And I'm scared. Because now the Trump, they say they have to go, you know, go with the criminal. But we're not a criminal, you know.
CULVER: But you have a trespassing conviction.
AMBROCIO: Yes.
CULVER: Are you going to try to stay here or do you think you'll go back?
AMBROCIO: I have to go back, for sure.
CULVER: You'll find a way back.
AMBROCIO: Yes.
CULVER: While Fidel walks freely here, others are pulled aside by Guatemalan police as soon as they arrive, accused of crimes not only in the U.S., but also here in their homeland. They require a lot of resources so as to reintegrate the returnees.
[15:50:04]
Guatemala's vice president, tells me. Its about the same number, though, that have been arriving in recent years under President Biden, though she says the use of U.S. military planes, which Guatemala is permitting, is new under President Trump.
Back in the reception hall, we almost don't recognize Sara. She's changed into her indigenous wardrobe and feels more at home now, ready to step out.
To reunite with her daughter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CULVER (on camera): Obviously, there's a lot of emotion in that moment between Sara and her daughter. And I asked both of them if they have any interest for Sara to go back to the U.S., or for her daughter to go for the first time. And they were adamant. They do not want to go.
And it seems that in many ways it tends to echo what the Trump administration is hoping to put out there, and their messaging from these deportations in part, and that is a deterrence factor to keep people from wanting to go into the U.S. in the first place.
However, then you meet others like Fidel, who said it doesn't stop him. He's going to try as many times as possible to get back to the U.S., be it legal or illegal.
David Culver, CNN, Guatemala City.
SCIUTTO: Our thanks to David. Coming soon to a Google Map near you, the Gulf of America?
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Goodbye, Gulf of Mexico. So long, Denali?
President Trump signed the order on inauguration day. Now it looks like Google is about to make it official by relabeling Google Maps with the Gulf of America, and Denali will soon become Mount McKinley again, reversing a change President Obama made in 2015.
In a post on X, Google explains it has a, quote, long standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources. So for those of us here in the U.S., you should see the new maps as soon as the federal government's geographic names information system is updated.
Since official names vary, though, between countries, the rest of the world would still see their versions along with the new names -- if that's not confusing.
And finally, if you plan on hosting friends and family for the Super Bowl, it will not cost much more than it did last year to feed them all. A Wells Fargo analysis of Nelsen data found that food and drinks for a party of ten with popular items like chips, guacamole, buffalo wings, beer will cost just under $140.
[15:55:09]
That's only $0.10 more than last year. Some items, like chicken wings, have gone up in price a bit, as have beer and wine. But if you want to save a little money, frozen pizzas are nearly 4 percent cheaper than last year.
Lots of good options there.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.
"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.