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Rubio Says, U.S. and Russia Discussed Framework for Ending Ukraine War; Concerns Grow Over DOGE's Access to Taxpayer Data; Trump and Musk Making Sweeping Cuts to Federal Agencies. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: High level negotiations, U.S. and Russian delegations say they agree on four principles and talks to end the war in Ukraine. But can these talks be successful without Ukraine even at the table right now? We're going to go live to Riyadh for the very latest there.

Plus, flipped upside down, jaw-dropping new videos show the moment a delta plane crashes in Toronto. How the pilot and crews were able to get everyone off that plane.

And later, stepping down, the acting Social Security head is resigning after DOGE staffers tried to access sensitive information there.

Good morning. You are live at the CNN Newsroom. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

And we begin with high level talks between the U.S. and Russia over the war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sitting directly across from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The U.S. says the initial talks were aimed at laying the groundwork for ending the war, even though Ukraine and its European allies were notably absent.

A short time ago, U.S. and Russian officials weighed in on the high stakes meeting and the path going forward.

CNN's Alex Marquardt is in Riyadh, and Nick Paton Walsh has the view from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Nick, let's start with you. You have some strong new reaction from the Ukrainian president.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You mentioned there how Ukraine was not party to these talks, that increasingly from the readout we've got seem to be about the improvement of American and Russian relations, notably the re- improving of diplomatic relations at embassies in Washington and Moscow.

We've had our first reaction to this meeting essentially about Ukraine, we thought, without Ukraine being there from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said in Ankara, Turkey, sort of hovering around the Gulf area over the past few days, saying he would go to Saudi Arabia tomorrow. That, he said, was a bilateral meeting, not related to these talks.

But I think many thought perhaps there was some suggestion in his mind. Maybe he may end up involved somehow. Well, that's now not going to happen. He's just announced that he will be canceling tomorrow's trip to Saudi Arabia, postponing it until the 10th of March. That's a long way down the line in diplomatic terms.

He also says, we want an end to the war. We want it to be fair. And nothing that anyone decides behind our backs. I think that's fair. He goes on to say, we weren't invited to this Russian American meeting. It was a surprise for many people. We got the information from the media. I don't really care who will stay in Riyadh and who's leaving. I don't care if our partners think something unnecessary about us.

Determined, perhaps a little angry there, and certainly deciding that any fallout from this meeting, we do seem to get the impression that the Americans and Russians are not staying on for further talks, doesn't involve Ukraine at this point.

Zelenskyy will receive the American Trump administration envoy to Russia and Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, here likely Thursday, Friday, but this is a stark reaction to talks, which do appear to have been essentially about improving the American-Russian relationship, possibly making a peace deal in Ukraine, part of that wider deal than the focus of that main deal. And perhaps I think this reaction from the Ukrainian president's a sign of how little progress perhaps they feel has been made to their benefit there and really how isolated they've begun to feel over the past weeks.

BROWN: Yes, they clearly feel iced out.

Alex, so what is Secretary Rubio saying about the meeting and any tangible outcome?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, I think that the only tangible from this is essentially a lack of tangibles. I mean, it's clear that the discussions were wide ranging, but they're not walking away from Riyadh with any kind of concrete solutions or conclusions about what's actually going to end up happening in Ukraine.

I think Nick's point is absolutely right. Both the U.S. and Russia were approaching this, not just about the war in Ukraine and how to end it, but looking at the broader set of relations across the board between the U.S. and Russia.

We do have a rather specific list from the State Department of what was agreed to in terms of the conversations that will be going forward. At the top of that list is essentially reestablishing the general functioning of the two embassies in Moscow and Washington. Over the past three years during this war, each embassy has been gutted with diplomats and intelligence officials have been kicked out of each country. [10:05:00]

And then the second point was specifically about Ukraine and naming high level teams to negotiate directly about the war in Ukraine. We don't know who's actually going to be on those teams.

And then the third point was more forward looking, and this gets to that broader conversation, that broader relationship between the two countries. Here, interestingly, you have the U.S. talking about the potential for historic economic and investment opportunities that would follow between the U.S. and Russia after the war ends in Ukraine.

And then, finally, that last point, just generally speaking, that the five principles who sat at the table today in this palace here in Riyadh will continue to talk.

But what was clear, Pamela, is that the way that the U.S. viewed this is that this was talks about more talks. Here's what Secretary Rubio had to say just a short time ago.

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MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: But we have to understand that it's been three and a half years since there's been any sort of regularized contact between the United States and Russia, and in some cases, between any of the participants in this conflict in Russia. So, the goal of today's meeting was to follow up on the phone call the president had a week ago and begin to establish those lines of communication. The work remains. Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey,

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MARQUARDT: And, Pamela, there had also been some thinking that this meeting would lead to a summit between Presidents Putin and Trump, perhaps as early as next week. Both the U.S. and Russian sides making a sound like that is very unlikely. No date we are told has been set for that meeting. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, Alex Marquardt, thank you so much.

Let's continue this conversation. Joining us now are CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kim Dozier and former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Daugherty.

Kim, what do you make of Zelenskyy postponing his trip to Saudi Arabia? That seems like a significant and perhaps negative development in the overarching goal of reaching a peace deal. How do you read it?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it's one way to send a message that he doesn't like how the White House has handled these opening talks with Russia, that he doesn't feel like he's been looped in. And when you widen out to the European community, they all feel gut punched and slapped in the face, that after years of close cooperation, through the Ramstein process under the Biden administration, this time, they didn't even get the courtesy of a heads up that, hey, President Trump is going to follow through with his promise to try to make peace between Ukraine and Russia with this phone call with Vladimir Putin that he had last week. And from there, we're going to see if we can have face-to-face lower level talks.

If anyone had gotten that heads up instead of the way this unfolded with everyone hearing from Trump out of the Oval Office about things, and then the bruising comments from a series of U.S. officials in Brussels and Munich, they feel very differently. So, one of the only things Zelenskyy can do is withdraw his presence and say, you're not going to bully us into this.

BROWN: And, Jill, the Kremlin has framed the meeting as aimed at restoring U.S.-Russian relations. Do you think Putin is using this to regain relevance on the international stage rather than actually achieving a peace deal with Ukraine?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, they eventually will probably get around to trying to establish some type of peace deal or at least a ceasefire. But I think, you know, if you look directly at what the Russian representative, Yuri Ushakov, who is a very experienced diplomat, was saying, you would have known right from the beginning that the primary thing that they wanted to do, the Russians, was to have to restore normal relations with the United States. And then Ukraine is down in second place.

I think it's really important. This is where it gets really complicated. The way the United States looks at it, and it's being defined right now, is we've got to get back in communication. The previous administration, Biden, had no communication with the Russians, ergo we have to get back to talking. The Russians look at this as not just talking. The mere fact that they are meeting, the mere fact that they are going to talk is. hugely important for the Kremlin, because it means Russia's back on the stage. They're already talking about, you know, putting ambassadors back into the embassies, talking, et cetera.

This is exactly what Putin wants, the end of isolation and the beginning of bringing Russia back and bringing Putin back onto the world stage. That's what they want, and they are definitely getting it right now.

BROWN: And to follow up on that, Moscow and Trump himself have talked about meeting in person between, you know, Trump and Putin, potentially a summit between the two.

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President Trump has said that could happen very soon. Why is that so significant and more significant than a phone call?

DOUGHERTY: Well, because summits are a big deal. I mean, really, you can just imagine President Trump, President Putin sitting down after all of this time, you know, a war now may be bringing being brought to an end, restoration of relations. This would be a very big event on the world stage. It would be something that President Trump wants definitely because it's -- I can't imagine a bigger photo op, and then President Putin wants that because it would just kind of put the stamp on his being back.

Now, none of this is necessarily bad. You know, the countries eventually do have to get talking. But the problem is, as we're all looking at this, we're thinking, it is negotiations, beginning of negotiations about Ukraine. But, really, what it is, the United States and Russia, and then Ukraine. And that's why Zelenskyy is having problem and that is why the Europeans are having a huge problems. Because many of the things that the Russians are saying, and they're saying them very precisely are the demands of Vladimir Putin had right before he invaded Ukraine in 2022 and that's where they want. They want to go back to that, which means no NATO, no war, get NATO out of Europe. That's extremely, extremely significant.

BROWN: It certainly is. Jill, Kim, thank you so much.

Joining us now, Republican Congressman Tim Burchett from Tennessee. Hi, Congressman, thanks for coming on.

So, you were on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. President Zelenskyy says Ukraine won't accept any deal made behind its back. You just saw he's postponing his trip to Saudi Arabia. Now, clearly, Ukraine feels iced out. Is it a mistake to not include Ukraine in this meeting about ending the war in Ukraine?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): No, ma'am. The last three and a half years, no one has attempted to negotiate with Russia. All they've done is open up the American taxpayers to $200 billion-plus of investment, and I think the gravy train's about the end. That's the one thing the United States has an incredible brave and patriotic men and women who constantly go into battle and die for our country but also we have an incredible economic might. And that's what I think President Trump understands. And that gravy train's about the end.

You know, under Biden, they never even attempt to negotiate. All they did was, if you remember, is presidential orders of sending more and more of Americans' money over there and then. And, of course, you had politicians on both sides of the aisle that were, frankly, getting rich off of it. They had investments in these, the missile defense system that we sent to Ukraine. We had to replenish ours, which we should, but members of both parties happened to buy stock in that missile defense company weeks prior to that.

BROWN: You made a big claim there. Who is getting rich specifically? Who is getting rich off of it? You're making the claim, but they were doing it to the --

BURCHETT: Okay, it's public record. Go on the Wales website on X and you'll see, you can break it down. It's all public record of who's doing that and who's gotten wealthy. It's, you know -- and when members of Congress make 200 or 300 percent return, ma'am, something's going on and America is fed up with this war. We don't need it. It's not our war. We shouldn't have been involved with it. It should have never happened. In the beginning of that war, if you remember, though, America was on both sides with our gas contracts with Russia and then, of course, our involvement with Ukraine early on with our early investment of America's hard-earned tax dollars.

BROWN: I'm going to read some analysis on the situation by CNN's Stephen Collinson. He writes, quote, Trump's view of every geopolitical crisis as a real estate deal waiting to be clinched suggests he might embrace an agreement that lets Putin keep all the land he's stolen just to stop the killing. And there's a big risk he's being played by Putin. A hurried peace deal that strengthens Russia and weakens European security by validating Putin's expansionism would likely sow the seeds for an even worse future war.

Do you think Putin could be playing Trump?

BURCHETT: No, ma'am. Nobody's playing Trump, ma'am, Russia's GDP is somewhere between Canada's and France's. They're not the world superpower that they once were. And I'm not sure why all these people that are anxious for us to get into this war are not -- why are they not looking at areas like China in other words? I'll tell you why, because they're getting -- once again, they're getting fat off of Chinese investment in our country. That's why they won't -- they take a blind eye to China and everywhere else in the world.

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This is one area where they see they could make some profit. That's all this is about. The war pimps at the Pentagon are getting rich and fat and we need to call it out. And this needs to end today.

BROWN: I want to talk about that. You mentioned China and the claim that, you know, some members of Congress are berating (ph) because they're making money off China. Elon Musk, for his part, as you know, does a lot of business with China. Of course, Tesla and so forth, and other companies, he does business there, and he now, as you know, has been given a lot of power by President Trump.

You are on the DOGE subcommittee, and the White House says, in a court filing, Elon Musk is not overseeing DOGE. Did you know that?

BURCHETT: President Trump is overseeing DOGE, ma'am. That's the bottom line. And everything that is being done has to be done to executive order, and that is through Trump. And oddly enough, Congress better get some guts and start backing this up or the next president could undo everything that's done. And that is really my biggest fear.

I don't care what title you give Elon Musk. It's amazing to me, though, that all of a sudden capitalism and making money in this country is now declared evil. The Democrats, he was their guy for so long, now all they have is Soros and a few others. So, I think that that's why they're disturbed about all this.

BROWN: Right. But, you know, I think that there's a lot of Americans who are supportive of this effort to clear up government waste, including members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. But there's also concern by how much access Musk have to their private, sensitive data.

You're also on the House Oversight Committee. And given what we just talked about, Musk's investments with China, and billions of dollars before the government, and now, you know, potentially having access to all this private, sensitive data, and not having full transparency on what is happening with that, what information do you actually have on what does is doing with that data? What are your questions? What do you want to know? Certainly as a member of the Oversight, you have some questions.

BURCHETT: Well, first of all, Elon Musk, when he owned PayPal, they've never had a breach of security. IRS is a nightmare, ma'am. You have folks still haven't gone back to work three or four years after COVID. As a United States congressman, I can write a letter of concern over a constituent of mine having a problem with the IRS, and it takes up to six months for me to get a response.

BROWN: Look, I'm not saying there's no problem with government agencies or the IRS.

BURCHETT: Hold on. You asked me a question. You asked me a question.

BROWN: But you're not answering it.

BURCHETT: And the IRS has -- well, the IRS has hundreds of different groups that have access to this stuff and yet no one's complained about that. You don't --

BROWN: There's checks and balances in place for the specific system. That's not true. Even the IRS -- even politicals and the former IRS commissioner who was just on the show yesterday said even he didn't go to it, and it's highly unusual for politicals have access to that system. Do you not have questions about what they're doing with the data, why they want access to private tax information from Americans? Do you not have those questions as a member of the Oversight Committee?

BURCHETT: I have questions. Only reason you'd have questions is if you're doing something crooked. And you're going to see a lot of congressmen with red faces when they follow this paper trail back to members of Congress, ma'am. And that's the bottom line. That's the only -- where were they fussing the last three or four years? I mean, we've had -- these groups have, different groups have access, hundreds of different people have access to this that are nowhere in the scope of what needs to be, and yet no one raised one peep about it. Now Elon Musk gets a hold of it, and he's going to do something, he's going to make some changes that need to be made, and you all are pitching a fit.

It's the same old line, and you attack the message carrier, not the message.

BROWN: To be clear. We are not pitching a fit. A lot -- as I said. A lot of people think it's a good thing to weed out waste, but there are fair questions to be asking, Congressman, about these unelected people going in and having access to private information from America. How can you not be asking those questions? Those are very fair questions.

BURCHETT: Ma'am --

BROWN: Well, hold on, let me follow up with you. Hold on, because there's a difference between -- listen --

BURCHETT: Hey, hold on for a second. How many people at the IRS are elected? How many of those are elected, ma'am?

BROWN: Okay.

BURCHETT: You're proving my point. You've got all these people and they're, this is a very porous agency. We know that.

BROWN: There's a difference between civil service and checks and balances in place in a small group and politicals who are going in, many of them young staffers who we know nothing about, really. But why don't you have those questions as a member of the Oversight Committee? If a Democratic administration was doing this, would you not be asking questions?

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BURCHETT: And the questions are being asked, ma'am, but I want you to look at these --

BROWN: I'm not hearing them from you.

BURCHETT: Well, those Japanese rifle that guess what, my dad was 2021 years old when he killed the people that carry that. You all don't question the fact that, you know, we've these 20, 22-year-old people, the ones that fight our dad got worse, but yet when you do something else, you --

BROWN: Okay. There's a difference between members of the greatest generation going to foreign service risking their life to serve our country and young staffers going in with their computers and trying to get access to personal data. There is a big difference.

But I want to follow up here. I just want to follow up because I think this is an important question.

BURCHETT: You won't answer your own questions, ma'am.

BROWN: No, Congressman, hold on. I want to go to this question, because, again, it's not a question of whether waste should be rooted out of the government. So, many people agree with that. But now we're seeing it's the way it's being done. The government is trying to claw back several employees who oversaw nuclear weapons after they were fired. They realized, oh, we made a mistake. We need the staffers who oversee nuclear weapons.

A professor at the University of Maryland, Don Kettle, who specializes in civil service, told The Washington Post that, yes, the government is likely full of wasteful bloat, but said a clumsy fix is worse than no fix at all, saying it's like going to a meat market, getting a piece of steak and trying to cut out the fat with a sledgehammer. That would only make a mess of the meat.

Do you think, Congressman, that is a fair point that the way this is being done is clumsy rather than methodical?

BURCHETT: Again, you're upset about -- you're attacking the message here, not the results. You talk about nuclear secrets. You had a nuclear person who was in charge of nuclear secrets, a man is who dressed up as a woman would go into the airport and steal women's luggage was overseeing those nuclear secrets under the Biden administration, and I never heard you all say a peep about that. Again, ma'am --

BROWN: I don't know anything about that. I'll be transparent.

BURCHETT: Elon Musk -- well, you need to look it up. It's all over the internet. It's all over -- he was uncharged.

BROWN: But the question is -- this is unrelated to the people overseeing nuclear weapons being fired. And Elon Musk himself said, we're moving so fast, of course, there will be mistakes. The question is, you know, some of these mistakes are really high stakes, firing -- accidentally firing people overseeing nuclear weapons. Do you see that point?

BURCHETT: Humans will make mistakes, ma'am. But currently, these are bloated programs. You have no-show employees that are angry that they're having to go back to work, that they've moved, and they're not --

BROWN: No one's disagreeing there's bloat and waste. No one's disagreeing with that.

BURCHETT: Well, then why are you all not exposing it? Have you all even talked about, hey, Mozambique, we sent them 10 million for circumcisions? I mean, goodness gracious, ma'am. Americans are paying over 50 percent of their salaries.

BROWN: We've been covering at length where the money is going to.

BURCHETT: No you haven't. All you all do is run down Elon Musk and Donald Trump and you continuously do this. And that's why your rankings are in the tank, ma'am.

BROWN: All right, Congressman Tim Burchett, we're going to leave it there. I do appreciate your time coming on and having this conversation. Thank you very much.

Coming up, passengers left upside down but alive after a plane crash in Toronto.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We kind of let ourselves go and felt hit the ceiling, which is surreal feeling. And then everybody was just like, get out, get out, get out. We could smell like jet fuel. Even now I smell like jet fuel. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Up next, I'll speak to two aviation experts as new video could give investigators clues into what went wrong.

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BROWN: New video obtained by CNN shows the moment a Delta flight crashed and turned upside down at Toronto Pearson International Airport. This video taken from the cockpit of another plane shows the flight attempting to land. As the wheels touched down, you can see the plane catch fire and then flip as plume of smoke.

Fire crews scramble to put out the flames. Everyone on board survived, but 21 people are injured and 2 are still in the hospital. Passengers describing a scene of chaos. One person captured video of the evacuation on his phone.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything, drop it. Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (BLEEP). Holy (BLEEP).

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BROWN: The plane flying from Minneapolis had 80 people on board.

Let's get more analysis on this crash. Joining us is Steve Wallace, a former director of the FAA's Office of Accident Investigation, and Peter Goelz, a CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director.

Peter, I want to show everyone another video of the plane as it lands. We're going to put it up. As we watch the video, it looks like the right wing touches the ground before the plane flips. What does that video tell you?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, both videos are quite revealing and that it shows the aircraft -- and Steve can comment on this too. It shows the aircraft was not flaring as it was supposed to just before landing. And that may have been because it got caught by a large gust of wind, but it does look like it came down hard, that the right landing gear possibly collapsed, and the right wing certainly touched down, tore off and causing -- caused the plane to flip over.

The good news was that the fire was actually confined to the wing, which was left behind by the fuselage as it went down the runway. But the videos are quite revealing and will be helpful to the investigation.

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BROWN: You know, the passengers who spoke afterwards said, look, it was clear there was like snow on the runway.