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Trump to Meet with Zelenskyy, European Leaders on Monday; Israelis Hold Nationwide Strike to Demand a Hostage Deal; Spain Battles at Least 14 Wildfires Over the Weekend; U.S. Farmers Aim to Compete as Tariffs Target Coffee Imports. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired August 18, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Polo Sandoval, live in New York. Wherever you may be watching from around the world, welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. And here's what's coming your way in the next 45 minutes.

[00:00:33]

President Trump says Ukraine must make major concessions to secure peace, as the White House is set to host key European leaders for a peace summit.

And hundreds of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets to demand the return of hostages. This as the Israeli military says that they will be moving forward with their plan to take over Gaza City.

And Trump's steep tariffs already brewing higher prices for our coffee. Meet the farmers who hope their made-in-America alternative may actually become a cash crop.

ANNOUNCER: Live from New York, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: It is midnight on the East Coast, officially Monday in Washington.

That means Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now gearing up for a consequential meeting at the White House today, where he will be meeting with Donald Trump amid renewed pushes to find, really, a path to peace, as well as the end of the war with Russia.

The two leaders will be sitting down for talks in the Oval Office. This just days after the U.S. president met with Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia's demands on land concessions will be among the key topics.

Trump appearing to preview the message that he'll be delivering on Monday in a social media post. He said Zelenskyy can, quote, "end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight" before making clear that the Ukrainian president will have to give up Crimea and also agree to never join NATO.

Zelenskyy, with this message. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Of course, we have to stop the killings. Putin has many demands, but we do not know all of them. And if there are really as many as we heard, then it will take time to go through them all.

It's impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons, so it's necessary to cease fire and work quickly on a final deal. We'll talk about it in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Zelenskyy will be flanked by these key European allies when he visits Washington, including the leaders of France, Germany, the U.K., Finland, and Italy, as well.

America's top diplomat says that European leaders are not coming to the White House just to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This is such a stupid media narrative, that they're coming here tomorrow because the -- Trump is going to bully Zelenskyy into a bad deal.

We've been working with these people for weeks. For weeks on this stuff. They're coming here tomorrow, because they chose to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: We'll get to some live analysis of this upcoming meeting in a moment.

But first, let's go to CNN's Kevin Liptak, who's got more of the high- stakes meeting scheduled for Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This meeting at the White House tomorrow between President Trump, President Zelenskyy, and this whole host of European leaders is shaping up to be quite a consequential moment.

LIPTAK (voice-over): I don't remember a time previously when so many top leaders came to this building on such short notice to convene with the American president, which I think gives you a sense, one, of the urgency that these European officials feel in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, but also the urgency and even alarm they feel about being sidelined in how this conflict comes to a conclusion.

Now, the way we understand it is that the president, Trump, and President Zelenskyy will meet individually with their delegations first before moving on to this larger format, meeting with the European officials. One of the objectives, I think, they feel coming into this meeting is

to learn more from President Trump --

LIPTAK: -- about this idea of U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine once a peace agreement was reached.

And we did hear --

LIPTAK (voice-over): -- from the special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who was in that meeting with President Trump on Friday in Alaska with Vladimir Putin, about this idea of what he called Article V type security guarantees for Ukraine.

Listen to what Witkoff said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY: We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing. We didn't think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to Article V protection from the United States and legislative enshrinement within the Russian federation not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is -- is, you know, codified.

[00:05:04]

Legislative enshrinement in the Russian federation not to go after any other European countries and violate their -- their sovereignty.

LIPTAK: Now, Article V is the collective defense clause of the NATO charter, essentially saying that an attack against one is an attack against all.

The way Witkoff described it is that an Article V-type security guarantee would be a workaround, that because Russia has said Ukraine can never join NATO, this would be a way for the U.S. and European countries --

LIPTAK (voice-over): -- to guarantee Ukraine's security, so that once this peace deal is in place, Putin does not use the time to regroup and go after other parts of Ukraine in a few years.

But there are a lot of questions about how this would work: namely, what the U.S. role in that would be. President Trump has been pretty explicit that he doesn't foresee U.S. troops going into Ukraine. And so, it doesn't --

LIPTAK: -- seem exactly clear how the U.S. would back up this guarantee going forward.

And that will be, of course, a big question that a number of these European leaders will have when this meeting convenes on Monday.

They also, I think, want to know why President Trump --

LIPTAK (voice-over): -- walked away from his goal of achieving an immediate ceasefire when he was in that meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Remember, as he was flying to Alaska, he said he would be very disappointed if that's not how the meeting ended and that there would be severe consequences for Moscow if there wasn't a ceasefire in place.

Heading back from the meeting, he essentially walked away from that, saying that his goal was no longer an immediate ceasefire and saying that --

LIPTAK: -- sanctions were no longer on his mind. And I think that shocked a lot of European leaders. You know, they thought that they had entered that -- those talks on the same page as the president. Now they want to know why the president has abandoned that.

And when you listen to Witkoff and also the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, today, they did try and explain what the president was talking about.

Witkoff said that, in the president's view, the concessions that Putin made in that meeting brought them so close to a peace agreement that he thought an immediate ceasefire was no longer necessary.

Rubio was much more guarded in his optimism. He said that Putin just wasn't going to agree to a ceasefire and that, in his view, we are not --

LIPTAK: -- at the precipice of a peace agreement.

Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And back with us is Robert English. He's the director of Central European Studies at the University of Southern California.

Robert, it is great to see you again. Thank you for joining us.

ROBERT ENGLISH, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You're welcome.

SANDOVAL: So, let's dive right in here. Clearly, it is not in the Ukrainian people's best interest to have a repeat of the last meeting that took place between Trump and Zelenskyy in Washington.

So, from your -- from your perspective, just how firm does President Zelenskyy need to be this time, while also obviously avoiding a contentious scenario of the past?

ENGLISH: Yes, I'm afraid this is going to be a very difficult meeting for Zelenskyy. And he's been told, in no uncertain terms, by Trump publicly on social media that he is going to have to accept that the territory that's been lost is mostly lost for the long term.

There will be some swaps. Russia has territory of Ukraine in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. That could be given back in exchange for Russia taking even more in the Donbas, some switching there.

But any illusions of getting back Crimea and much of the Donbas are over, and he's going to hear that from his European backers, as well.

There's, behind the scenes, a clear understanding that that bitter pill, Zelenskyy will have to swallow. And now we need to focus on security guarantees for Ukraine going forward and make those robust.

SANDOVAL: Yes, it goes along with what you told me yesterday. It is the end of illusions at this point.

Now, in terms of the list of European leaders, it is really quite impressive. Among them, those who will be in Washington will be French president Emmanuel Macron.

Listen to some of his latest remarks as he really lays out why he thinks European involvement is more than just about supporting Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): If we are weak today with Russia, we will be preparing for tomorrow's conflicts, and they will affect the Ukrainians.

And let's not kid ourselves: they can also affect us at the very moment when our country continues to be regularly attacked on the cyber front, on the information front, or in contested areas, from maritime to space.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So, the presence of these European leaders, including the French president, can you break down, Robert, just how this may actually be potentially conducive towards a positive result this week?

ENGLISH: Yes. The -- the very fact that they're all there together and trying to reach a common understanding is critical. Trump and the European Union, Trump and the NATO allies have been on different pages, wildly different pages, as you know, for some time.

[00:10:04]

So, if they can hash out an agreement among themselves, that's -- that's vital.

And of course, the center of that agreement is, again, the security guarantees. This is going to be very difficult.

Back earlier this year, when Trump suspended aid, and it looked like there was this extreme hostility after the White House showdown with Zelenskyy, the Europeans formed what they called the Coalition of the Willing to step in and make up for what the U.S. was no longer providing.

And they discovered they couldn't make up, not even close, for the weapons that come from the U.S.

And they also had a severe problem in ponying up the troops that would be needed for those security guarantees. If memory serves, they only got contributions, pledges for about 25 to 30,000 troops to man the front lines and support Ukraine, and they'll need three times as many.

The U.S. will provide logistics, intelligence and surveillance, supply support but no troops on the ground. And the Europeans have to come up with those troops.

So, discussing all of that, dividing up the responsibility among the Western allies is part of what's going to go on in that meeting. And it's vital.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Assuming that financial burden is something Europe would have to do.

Now, as you know, Russia is certainly no stranger to breaking agreements. So, looking ahead, Robert, what kind of guarantees should President Zelenskyy and his European backers really make a point to bring up during the meeting at the White House, do you think?

ENGLISH: This is a really interesting point, because Witkoff spoke about Article V-like guarantees for Ukraine. And of course, Article V is that part of the NATO charter that says an attack on one will be responded to as if an attack on all.

Now, it's very unlikely that Trump, that the United States would sign on to any commitment that it must engage Russia militarily.

But the European allies can do that separately, individually, as part of a peacekeeping force. Again, a Coalition of the Willing to bolster Ukraine's confidence.

And again, as long as they are providing troops and promises to come to Ukraine's aid, and the U.S. is providing supplies, intelligence, logistics, that all together, especially if there's a kind of an agreement, a treaty that could last years and be renewed indefinitely, that's pretty close to NATO-like protection and gives Ukraine what it hasn't had up until now.

SANDOVAL: We will certainly be watching together. Robert English, thank you so much for coming back to share more of your perspective. Always appreciate you.

ENGLISH: You're quite welcome. You're welcome.

SANDOVAL: Well, Israeli protesters held widespread rallies across the country on Sunday. They were blocking major roads and also closing some of the businesses in that country.

They called on Israel's government to secure the release of 50 hostages still held in Gaza. Organizers say that hundreds of thousands of people actually joined in in this nationwide strike.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TAMAR MERIN, ISRAELI PROTESTOR: I'm here today, because this is our last chance to stop the insanity, stop the war, stop the government from sacrificing our hostages, sacrificing many more soldiers, sacrificing basically us and the Palestinian people for its own political gain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: One of -- one of many vocal demonstrators there.

Polls have repeatedly shown that a large majority of Israelis, that they support a deal to free the hostages in exchange for an end to the war. But some Israeli officials, including the prime minister himself, blasted Sunday's demonstrations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (voice-over): Those who are calling today for an end to the war without defeating Hamas, not only hardened Hamas's position and delay the release of our hostages. They also ensure that the horrors of October 7th will be repeated and that we will be forced to fight an endless war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: CNN's Oren Liebermann has more from Tel Aviv.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF : It's clear as we stand here, near Hostages Square on Sunday evening in Tel Aviv, that this is one of the largest, if not the absolutely largest anti-war protests and pro-hostage release protests that we have seen since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago.

You can take a look behind me here. Even at this late hour on Sunday evening, people are still on their way in, making their way to Hostages Square. Thousands behind us, easily. Organizers say overall, in the square itself and on the surrounding streets, 300 or 400,000, according to their estimates.

The streets are packed in both directions" towards the square, away from the square. And that was the whole point of this.

This was all arranged only one week ago by bereaved families of soldiers, as well as the hostage families, who said this was a grassroots, nationwide strike to send a loud, unified message to the government to come to a deal to bring the remaining hostages home, 20 of whom are still expected to be alive.

[00:15:10]

They are the priority here on the streets, and that is the call that we heard from protester after protester we have spoken with.

And it isn't just on Sunday evening that this event took place. It began early on Sunday morning at 6:29. That's the time that the Hamas- led attack on October 7th began. And that's the time the demonstrations began.

Road closures at major intersections across the country. From there, it spread, and it grew to demonstrations, marches. Many of those we have seen are wearing the -- the yellow pins that symbolize the hostages or wearing shirts that say, "Bring them home now," carrying not only Israeli flags, but the yellow flags for the hostages.

The call here, its -- its amplification across the country is the entire point here for the government to get the message they're sending, to get to a deal to bring the hostages home, they say, without any excuses and without any delay.

ANAT ANGREST, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE MATAN ANGREST (through translator): Today, an entire country hit the emergency brake. Today we stop everything to save the lives of 50 hostages and soldiers. Today we stop everything to remember the supreme value of the sanctity of life. Today we stop everything so we can live here together for hundreds more years.

LIEBERMAN: That's not an argument here that people here are buying, many of them angry at the government, especially after the announcement that the security cabinet has approved the occupation and takeover of Gaza City.

Those here see that as a death sentence for the hostages, and that's why they say it's so important to be out on the streets tonight, on Sunday night, and moving forward.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, in Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And while that happens, the U.S. is suspending visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza.

In a social media post, the State Department said that it would be reviewing the process that allows them to temporarily enter the U.S. for medical and humanitarian reasons.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the move, saying that he has seen evidence linking visa recipients to terrorist groups in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: There is evidence been presented to us by numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.

And so, we are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: The group Heal Palestine, an American nonprofit that provides critical aid to Palestinian families and children from Gaza, it criticized the visa move, saying this is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program.

Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, the Spanish government deploying military troops to help contain more than a dozen wildfires. We'll have the very latest on the fight against the disastrous summer fires.

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[00:22:22]

SANDOVAL: Hurricane Erin, once again, a Category 4 storm. This thing really has been changing constantly. Erin currently has sustained winds of about 130 mph, or about 215 kilometers per hour.

It isn't expected to make landfall, but tropical storm warnings, they are currently in effect for Turks and Caicos, as well as the Bahamas.

The storm has undergone a -- just remarkable changes in a short amount of time. It rapidly intensified between Friday and Saturday, making history as one of the fastest strengthening Atlantic storms on record.

On Saturday, a hurricane hunter team, they actually flew through Erin's eye, gathering these just incredible images you see there as it looks up towards the eye.

The National Hurricane Center, they estimate that Erin's intensity will fluctuate in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the storm's outer bands hit Puerto Rico with heavy rain, also causing some flooding there, and the island is expected to get up to two more inches of rain -- of rain.

Puerto Rico's governor saying that 100,000 people have lost power.

And Spain battling at least 14 major fires over the weekend, according to officials there. And this comes amid a rise in blistering heat waves across Europe.

At least seven people have been killed and -- and the -- what authorities there expect is that they will likely be even more fires to break out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Armed with garden hoses and buckets of water, residents in Northwestern Spain are fighting to save their homes from wildfires.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's insurmountable. It couldn't be worse. It's devastating.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): It's one of the worst wildfire seasons in Southern Europe in two decades. And Spain has been hit particularly hard.

The Spanish government says that it's sending in more reinforcements to help firefighters, deploying 500 additional soldiers from a military emergency unit. Purpose is to assist the more than 1,400 troops already fighting the fires.

But some neighbors say they can't wait for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I was supposed to be working, but my home is here. I can't abandon my family or my village. And we've been working nonstop. We haven't slept in four days, helping all the surrounding villages.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Several countries are sending equipment and personnel in to help battle the wildfires. And what the Spanish prime minister calls the largest deployment of the European Union firefighting force.

But the blazes are getting their own boost with temperatures in some parts of the country nearing 45 Celsius, or 113 Fahrenheit. That's making conditions ripe for even more fires.

PEDRO SANCHEZ, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): There are still some difficult days ahead. Unfortunately, the weather is not on our side. So, I would ask citizens to pay close attention to what the institutions, professionals, and experts tell us.

[00:25:08]

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Wildfires have already scorched an estimated 160,000 hectares of land this year in Spain, an area roughly the size of London.

But even with reinforcements on the way, the orange skies over some parts of Spain are an ominous sign of the challenges ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Still on the way, the United States, as we all know, has an insatiable thirst for coffee. But President Trump's tariffs, they're targeting its largest supplier, Brazil, and U.S. producers are struggling to keep up with demand. We'll show you why.

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SANDOVAL: welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he is now in Washington ahead of his high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump. He will be sitting down for talks with the U.S. president on Monday. Key European leaders, they will also be in Washington for that meeting.

Zelenskyy says that he is confident that Ukraine can obtain security guarantees with the support of his European allies.

And the families of Israeli hostages led a nationwide strike demanding Israel's government reach a deal to bring their loved ones home.

Massive protests on Sunday drawing hundreds of thousands of Israelis, according to organizers there. It's one of the largest demonstrations since the war in Gaza started nearly two years ago.

And British actor Terence Stamp has died at the age of 87. The London- born film star was nominated for an Academy Award for his first movie, "Billy Budd," in 1963. He went on to become a prominent face of the swinging '60s in London, and he starred in plenty of films.

He was perhaps best known for playing General Zod in "Superman" with the late Christopher Reeve.

Well, Air Canada flight attendants, they are defying their governments back to work order. More than 10,000 will continue their strike for higher wages and pay for the time that they spend while their planes are on the ground.

Canada's jobs minister, who issued that order for arbitration, says that the two sides, they are at an impasse and need to -- they need some help to try to resolve it.

More than 99 percent of the airline's flight attendants, they voted for this strike. They say the government is giving Air Canada exactly what it wants.

Well, the United States is the world's largest importer of coffee, but that could change, thanks to President Donald Trump's trade war.

You see, last month he slapped a whopping 50-percent tariff on goods from Brazil. Thing is, that's the U.S.'s main coffee supplier.

Prices, they are already rising in parts of the country. Some U.S. farmers, they are hoping to try to fill in those gaps, but they face some significant challenges, as CNN's Julia Vargas Jones reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Against all odds, 100 percent American-grown coffee.

JONES: It's like a cherry.

DAVID ARMSTRONG, FARMER: Mm-hmm.

I believe we're the largest farm in California. Coffee farm. And you know, if -- if the experiment works, I'd love to expand.

JONES (voice-over): David Armstrong is part of a group of farmers trying to make California a synonym for specialty coffee.

ARMSTRONG: We're in Ventura County, so we're going to go up to the foothills. We have multiple canyons where we grow coffee. JONES (voice-over): This is part of the only 1 percent of coffee

consumed in the U.S., grown domestically. Thirty-five percent of what coffee is imported comes from Brazil, now slapped with tariffs of up to 50 percent on some goods, including coffee.

You would think it would be a great opportunity for all American beans, but other nations can deliver a product just as good for a fraction of the cost.

ARMSTRONG: Brazil has been hit very hard with tariffs. But they're looking at somewhere around $4 a pound for coffee. And we're in the hundreds of dollars a pound.

JONES: You want Ventura County to be the next Napa Valley but for coffee?

ARMSTRONG: Correct. That's a great way to put it.

JONES: And could California ever produce a product that could be competitive with Brazil, with Colombia, Ethiopia?

ARMSTRONG: I think that our costs of production -- our labor, our water, everything else -- mean that we could never get to that point where we could be a worldwide competitor.

JONES (voice-over): For 23 years, Jay Rusk has been challenging the norm of where coffee could be grown by championing California. All of this was his vision.

JAY RUSK, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, FRINJ COFFEE: In terms of growing locations, wherever avocados can grow, we have a good chance of growing coffee, and so there's over 45,000 acres of avocados, last I heard, in California.

But even if we planted all that, that would just be a drop in the bucket in the whole coffee industry globally.

Julia Vargas Jones, CNN, Ventura, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Bolivia's presidential election is headed for a runoff. For the first time ever, dark-horse centrist candidate Senator Rodrigo Paz drew more votes than the right-wing frontrunners on Sunday.

[00:35:08]

But Paz did not secure enough for an outright victory, according to some of the early results that are coming in.

The former mayor will be facing off against conservative former president Jorge Tuto Quiroga in October's runoff.

The results are a major blow to Bolivia's movement towards socialism, really marking an end to the party's almost two decades of dominance.

We'll be right back with much more news. Stay with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

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[00:40:16]

SANDOVAL: We want to leave you with a reminder that not all heroes wear capes. But in Buenos Aires, thousands of motorcyclists, they donned their superhero best on Sunday to help support sick children.

They dressed up as heroes, villains, a few princesses there in the crowd. Their goal was to deliver toys and candy to hospitalized kids.

This was all part of Argentina's Children's Day holiday. A great cause in South America.

Thank you so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. I will be right back with you at the top of the hour with more news. For now, though, we'll leave you with WORLD SPORT.

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(WORLD SPORT)

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