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European Leaders Signal Support For 30-Day Ceasefire Plan; Donald Trump Backs Off New Tariff Threat On Canada; Ex-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Put On Plane To The Hague; What Did We Learn From The Coronavirus Pandemic?; Ukraine Agrees to U.S. Proposal; Preliminary Report on Midair Collision; NASA Launches Newest Space Telescope. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired March 12, 2025 - 02:00   ET

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

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[02:00:32]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world, and to everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, new momentum on a peace deal, Ukraine agrees to a U.S. proposal for a temporary cease fire with Russia. Now it's up to Moscow.

On again, off again. Donald Trump backs down on his latest tariff threat.

And former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is set to face charges of crimes against humanity at The Hague.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Good to have you with us. Russia is facing even more pressure to halt the war in Ukraine now that Kyiv has signed on to the 30 day ceasefire proposed by the U.S. Ukraine agreed to the plan during marathon negotiations with the American delegation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Ahead of the talks, the U.S. Secretary of State said he'd be listening for possible concessions Ukraine would make in a peace deal but there's no word on what Ukraine might be willing to give up.

Back in Washington, the U.S. president welcomed the news and said he would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly as early as this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's a big difference between the last visit you saw at the Oval Office and the soap, that's a total cease fire. Ukraine has agreed to it, and hopefully Russia will agree to it. We're going to meet with them later on today and tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to wipe out a deal.

But I think the cease fire is very important. If we can get Russia to do it, that will be great. If we can't, we just keep going on and people are going to get killed.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Ukraine accepts this proposal. We consider it positive. We are ready to take such a step, and the United States of America must convince Russia to do so. That is we agree, and if the Russians agree, the silence will work at that very moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: European leaders also support plans for a temporary truce. The president of the European Parliament called the agreement, "An important breakthrough and a step toward the lasting peace we have all worked for." She adds, quote again, "Europe will keep doing all we can to bring an end to this war in a way that provides for a real, just and lasting peace."

More now from CNN's Alex Marquardt reporting from Jeddah.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This was a remarkable turnaround for the U.S.-Ukraine relationship that has really been on the rocks for the past week and a half since that disastrous meeting in the Oval Office between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy. Here in Jeddah, the U.S. delegation praising Ukrainians, not just for their willingness to talk about a peace settlement with Russia and their commitment to achieving one, but also for the concrete proposals the U.S. said that the Ukrainians brought to the table.

The Ukrainians had been talking about a partial cease fire with Russia. Instead, the U.S. is now proposing an immediate, comprehensive, 30 day cease fire. That's something that the Ukrainians immediately signed on to.

And now, the onus is essentially on Russia to accept this, and this is going to be communicated to the Russians by U.S. officials at several different levels in the coming days.

And because of how well the talks went in Jeddah, the U.S. also immediately lifted the American freeze on military assistance and intelligence sharing that is so crucial to the Ukrainian efforts to defend themselves against the Russians.

So, two very notable outcomes from these talks here in Jeddah, the ball is now very much in Russia's court, as Secretary Rubio said, and it remains to be seen how Moscow is going to respond to this new American pressure.

Alex Marquardt, CNN, Jeddah.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: CNN National Security Analyst Beth Sanner weighed in earlier on whether Vladimir Putin will play ball and if the Kremlin signs onto the cease fire, can they be trusted to honor it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, if Putin agrees, and you know, he might try to drag it out a little bit, it might not happen this week. You know, it might take some time. But even if he agrees, that doesn't mean he won't use the 30 days to reset, refit and get ready to go again. You cannot trust the Russians on this.

[02:05:07]

You know, I still am not very hopeful about this going to a full peace settlement very quickly, if at all, because Putin's demands have not changed and they are fundamentally opposed to everything that would preserve this as a lasting peace, which today, Waltz and Rubio supported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Russian officials are hinting at contact with U.S. representatives in the next few days, but have not said whether the terms of the cease fire would be acceptable to them.

Well, right now, a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. has gone into effect, imposed by the Trump administration, and already there's been swift reaction from the European Union, which announced it would impose duties on $28 billion worth of U.S. goods, following what it called unjustified tariffs.

This all comes just hours after the U.S. president backed off his threat to double the tariff rate on steel and aluminum to 50 percent for Canada, in an escalation of a trade war between the two countries.

That reversal from Donald Trump came after Ontario agreed to suspend a 25 percent surcharge on electricity to U.S. customers in three states. Ontario's premier now says he will meet with the U.S. Commerce Secretary and Canada's finance minister to renegotiate a free trade treaty.

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DOUG FORD, ONTARIO PREMIER: They understand how serious we are about the electricity and the tariffs, and rather than going back and forth and having threats to each other, we have both agreed, let cooler heads prevail. We need to sit down and move this forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Still, all the uncertainty surrounding tariffs and fears of a recession have rattled investors and the U.S. markets, with all three major indices closing another day in the red.

Mr. Trump now says he doesn't see a recession at all this year, just days after refusing to rule out the possibility. His comments though doing little to calm the markets. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is following developments from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: President Trump trying to strike an upbeat message on Tuesday about the economy, saying in no uncertain terms he is not concerned about a looming recession.

Of course, that is at odds what he said just a couple days ago when he left unanswered that question, which really has roiled financial markets for the rest of the week.

Now, the president is simply trying to embrace the market uncertainty, the market chaos. He said, stocks go up. Stocks go down. The economy, he said, is strong.

TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in history. This economy, in my opinion, is going to blow it away. I think this country is going to boom.

ZELENY: But even as the president was speaking in the final hours of trading on Tuesday, it was clear the stock roller coaster continued with more uncertainty about the trade wars. The president threatened a 50 percent tariff on some goods coming from Canada in retaliation for Canada threatening a 25 percent tariffs on electricity for Minnesota, for Michigan and New York.

Once Canada backed off on that, Trump said he too would back off on his tariff, at least in part, but going ahead with more on Wednesday for steel and aluminum.

The bottom line to all of this, it's created a market uncertainty across the board, even as stocks continue to fall.

Now, the president said he does believe the -- you know, there is going to be some short term pain. Acknowledge that will happen, the question how short term and how much pain there actually will be.

But the president made clear there was one stock in particular on his mind on Tuesday when he made the extraordinary step of walking out to the White House south lawn to stroll down the driver with Elon Musk looking at his cars, his Tesla cars.

Of course, the president has talked against electric vehicles. He said there should not be mandates. He's even taking down some charging stations. But he bought a Tesla, he said, at full price with his own money to send the signal that that was a good stock.

So, certainly a very curious split stream message as the stocks were going down, Trump was talking up one stock in particular, Elon Musk's Tesla.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The Trump administration is making the first move in its plan to eliminate the Department of Education, cutting nearly half of its 4100 person workforce Tuesday. Security guards locked the doors to the department as employees were informed that the officers were closing for unspecified, "security reasons." Hundreds will be laid off, in addition to those who took voluntary buyouts, here's Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

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[02:10:01]

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Is this the first step on the road to a total shutdown?

LINDA MCMAHON, U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY: Yes, actually it is, because that was the president's mandate. His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Meantime, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency told his staff he will eliminate all environmental justice offices which protect communities disproportionately affected by pollution. The move is in accordance with Trump's executive order targeting Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

A former Philippine president under arrest. Just ahead, the case against Rodrigo Duterte and why he's headed to The Hague. Back in just a moment.

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[02:15:12]

CHURCH: Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been put on a plane to The Hague after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity.

The fiery populist leader has been investigated by the ICC over his deadly crackdown on drugs. His daughter, Sara, who is the Philippine vice president told the Philippine Star newspaper that this amounts to oppression and persecution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA DUTERTE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: There is no legal basis at all to turn over or endorse the president -- former president to ICC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Duterte critics held a demonstration and vigil to show their support for his arrest and to honor those killed in his war on drugs.

CNN's Mike Valerio takes a closer look at Duterte's time in power, as well as reaction to his arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): As President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte was never far from a cheering crowd. The self-styled strong man remains hugely popular with large parts of the public, despite his willingness to have people killed.

RODRIGO DUTERTE, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: In Davao, I used to do it personally, just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can't you?

VALERIO (voice over): Tuesday night, it was Duterte's detractors who were cheering, sending him off at the airport on his way to The Hague to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

While mayor of Davao City, Duterte boasted of killing suspects himself. When he became president, Duterte took his war on drugs to the entire country, giving police and hired gunmen license to kill those who didn't cooperate.

DUTERTE: Resistance is violent, thereby placing your life in jeopardy, shoot and shoot him dead.

VALERIO (voice over): Police data shows at least 6,000 people were killed like this during his time in office. Rights groups say the toll was much higher.

The victims mostly young men from the country's most impoverished areas, their families told their slain sons deserved to die. Llore Pasco lost her two boys to the frenzy of violence.

LLORE PASCO, VICTIM'S MOTHER (through translator): This is only the start of our fight. Our justice has not yet been achieved because there's still a lot of things that will happen, but we will not stop fighting.

VALERIO (voice over): Tuesday's arrest came as a shock to the former president's supporters, and seemingly to Duterte himself.

DUTERTE: What is the law and what is the crime that I committed?

VALERIO (voice over): Duterte had appeared to enjoy the protection of his successor, Fernando Marcos Jr. and that of the Vice President Sara Duterte, his own daughter, but Marcos allowed Interpol officials to move on Duterte as he returned from a visit to Hong Kong, an act that has empowered the International Criminal Court to prosecute a former president and may give some solace to the families of the thousands killed without so much as a charge against them.

Mike Valerio, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Greenland's pro-business opposition party has won Tuesday's general election, unseating the ruling coalition in Parliament. The election would normally fly under the radar, but it's now in the international spotlight because U.S. President Donald Trump put it there. He is promising that the U.S. will one day own the Danish territory. But what Greenlanders really want is independence.

Denmark controls Greenland's security, defense, foreign affairs and monetary policy, but all the dominant political parties in Greenland want future self-determination. The Democratic Party, which won the election with nearly 30 percent of the vote favors a slower approach.

Well, it's been five years since the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 have reached pandemic status. Since then, there have been seven million deaths worldwide and more than 700 million cases of the virus reported according to nonprofit health news outlet, KFF.

CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta details what we've learned about the virus since then and whether that knowledge has actually made a difference.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's no question that time seems very warped. Hard to believe that five years have now gone by. That's one of the things I hear the most, I think, from people, that sense of distortion of time, feeling like they're in a fog sometimes, sometimes that's due to the virus itself, and sometimes that's just due to the impact of all that we have been through.

[02:20:06]

As you look at some of these images, you know, paramedics going to someone's house to try and save them from COVID, people being reunited after being apart for some time, a granddaughter and a grandmother there being reunited. And just the distancing that people did even outside for a while, which we then realized was not as necessary as the distancing inside from people.

But all of that, I think, is left a real impression on people, the idea that that there are some who still have this post-traumatic stress from everything they've been through, and a significant chunk of the world that has sort of moved on at the same time, I think that's sort of what we're experiencing at the five year mark.

If you look at the number of cases overall in the world of COVID. These are diagnosed cases. Look at those cases versus the United States, close to 800 million. 778 million people around the world, again diagnosed. There may have been a lot of other people who were never officially diagnosed in the United States, which is four percent of the world's population, 103 million people who contracted COVID.

If you look at confirmed deaths, confirmed deaths around the world, seven million, and again, about a seventh of those, 1.2 million in the United States.

The vaccine was heralded as something that could make a big difference in terms of curbing the trends that we were seeing at the end of 2020 and the evidence shows that that was the case, that probably close to 80 percent of overall global burden of death due to COVID was averted because of vaccines.

And if you just look more recently at October 23rd through April 24th in the United States, you can see the numbers there, 5,300 in hospital deaths probably averted due to the vaccines and 68,000 hospitalizations.

So, there's going to be a lot of ways that people reflect on what has happened, the tragedy of it, the tragedy of all those cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

For me, I think one of the big concerns really, is what happens next. There's clearly been an increasing lack of trust in the public health system, which was already suffering even before the pandemic. There wasn't enough money being invested in public health in the United States.

Now, you've had over 500 people from the Centers for Disease Control, let go over a thousand people from the National Institutes of Health, let go. We are dealing with measles outbreaks, certainly in West Texas, but other places around the country, and also concerns about new pathogens out there, H5N1.

So, we have to basically sort of consider at the five year mark, where are we, where are we going, and what did the COVID pandemic really do to our public health system overall? These are unanswered questions, but things we're going to be grappling with for some time to come.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Dr. Sanjay Gupta there and we'll be right back.

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[02:27:44]

CHURCH: European leaders are applauding early efforts to hammer out a temporary truce in Ukraine. After hours of negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30 day cease fire. And the U.S. has vowed to immediately resume intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine.

The truce would halt fighting by land, air and sea, and the onus is now on Russia to decide whether it will comply.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We'll take this offer now to the Russians, and we hope that they'll say yes, that they'll say yes to peace. The ball is now in their court, and but again, the president's objective here is number one, above everything else, he wants the war to end, and I think today, Ukraine has taken a concrete step in that regard. We hope the Russians will reciprocate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Joining me now from London is Carl Bildt, former Swedish Prime Minister and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Appreciate you being with us, sir.

CARL BILDT, CO-CHAIR, EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good morning.

CHURCH: So, Ukraine has accepted this 30 day ceasefire proposal, and now the pause in U.S. military aid and inter Intel will be lifted. So, now we wait to see if Russia's President Putin agrees to the terms, and President Trump says he will call him soon. How likely is it do you think that President Putin will accept this cease fire and uphold his end of the deal?

BILDT: Well, I don't think Putin is particularly happy with this, because now Ukraine has showed that it is committed to some sort of peace negotiation, whatever that's going to result in.

Putin's inclination is to increase the military pressure on Ukraine in this particular situation. He doesn't want to cease fire, but I guess that he will not have much of a choice. My guess is that he will try to put some further conditions on an acceptance of this particular proposal. So, I think we'll have some days of diplomatic drama ahead of us in that respect.

CHURCH: And of course, it has to be said that Russia hasn't had a great track record of sticking to the terms of cease fires in the past, has it?

So, how can the U.S. be sure this time will be any different?

BILDT: No, we can't be certain of that. I think the intention here is more that Ukraine demonstrates that it is committed to a ceasefire and to some sort of political process.

[02:30:00]

But the question is, is Putin ready to accept that? And I think it is a logical step to try to have a ceasefire, 30 days. Well, 30 days could be feasible. If there's got to be a longer ceasefire, I think it's got to be more complicated, because then you need some more arrangements to really monitor compliance with it as well.

But let's see how Putin reacts to this. I think -- I was trying to look at the Moscow media this morning, and they are very neutral. They haven't got any guidance from the Kremlin, evidently, how to treat this particular situation.

CHURCH: Interesting. And by agreeing to this 30-day ceasefire, of course, Ukraine is showing that it's not the obstacle to peace, while also getting its relationship with the U.S. back on track. But is the U.S. still expecting more from the victim in this war than from the aggressor?

BILDT: So far, that has distinctly been the case. I mean, the American position has been to, sort of, Ukraine should give up on its territorial integrity. Ukraine should give up on NATO membership. So, the U.S. has made fairly significant concession, even before the start of any talks. And that's been remarkable. That's sort of playing Moscow's hand so far.

Now, it's a slightly different game. We'll see. But the critical thing is, of course, when the real talk starts. When Putin is going to put his conditions on the table, and then we'll see how Washington reacts to that.

CHURCH: And what do you think Ukraine will end up giving up? Given that Kursk was its own territorial bargaining chip, that was the only one, and now, of course we're seeing Russia slowly take that land away.

BILDT: Yes, but that is a minor aspect of it. I mean what the Russians are demanding is, of course, very significant territorial concessions of Ukraine. I doubt that Ukraine would be ready to do that unless there is some dramatic development that we are not yet aware of. Then, of course, what Moscow also wants, perhaps even more important, is to have very significant limits on the sovereignty of Ukraine, in military -- primarily military, but also in political terms, and that's got to be the critical thing to see if the Americans are ready to even talk with the Russians about that. I don't think they should. But we have learned that sort of Washington is a slightly unpredictable place these days.

CHURCH: And what is your overall sense of where this is all going?

BILDT: Well, I think we are heading into a fairly prolonged phase, whether this ceasefire -- whether there will be a ceasefire first, whether it will hold is one question. Then it will be a question if the Americans, the White House team, is ready to accept the Russian demands on limits to the sovereignty of Ukraine.

I don't think they should even talk with the Russians about that, because that should be talks between Russia and Ukraine, and Ukraine is likely to say no to that. But we'll see. There's much to come.

CHURCH: Carl Bildt, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

BILDT: Thank you.

CHURCH: New safety recommendations for the skies after a deadly midair collision in January over one of the busiest airspaces in the United States. Details of that report after the break.

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[02:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am here. I am here.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CHURCH: A woman in Florida was trapped inside her car during a destructive tornado and lived to tell the tale. She captured this video showing tree limbs flying through the air and debris slamming into her windshield. Weather officials say the storm carried winds of up to 185 kilometers per hour, the strongest tornado to hit the county in more than 25 years.

An update on the deadly midair collision between a passenger plane and a military helicopter in January. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is recommending major safety changes for the skies above Washington, D.C. as part of its preliminary report, including that helicopter traffic should be banned over the Potomac River when flights are landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: The existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on Route 4 and aircraft landing on Runway 33 are insufficient and pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a midair collision at DCA. Let me repeat that. They pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The U.S. transportation secretary has agreed to adopt the recommendation. The report has not yet identified the probable cause of the incident, in which 67 people were killed.

[02:40:00]

Well, two missions are on their way to space after blasting off on one rocket on Tuesday.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three, two, one. Mission.

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CHURCH: Both missions lifted off aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The SPHEREx telescope will spend over two years orbiting Earth and focus on how the universe has evolved, and the so-called PUNCH mission will study how the sun affects the solar system. The launch comes after weather and other issues caused a series of delays since the launch window opened on February 28th.

I want to thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. World Sport is coming up next. Then I'll be back in about 15 minutes with more CNN Newsroom. Do stick around.

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[02:45:00]

(WORLD SPORT)