Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Donald Trump Meets With European Leaders And Volodymyr Zelenskyy At White House; Mourners Gather In Kyiv For Soldier's Funeral; Hamas Says It Has Agreed To A New Cease fire Proposal; Leaders Of Denmark And New Zealand Critical Of Benjamin Netanyahu; Zelenskyy Pushes for Unconditional Meeting With Putin; European Leaders Want Ceasefire First, Then Peace Talks; Zelenskyy and Trump Discuss Russian-occupied Lands; Hurricane Erin to Bring Tropical Storm Conditions; Ketamine Queen Agrees to Guilty Plea for Drug Supply; Cambridge Dictionary Adds Skibidi, Dell and Tradwife. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired August 19, 2025 - 02:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:54]

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:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: A White House summit unlike any other. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is backed by European leaders all working towards an end to Russia's war in Ukraine, and now a possible face to face meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents could be coming.

Lives forever lost. We'll look at the staggering human toll of the conflict in Ukraine more than three years on.

Also, Hamas says it has agreed to a new cease fire proposal, just as Israel vows a military assault on Gaza City.

Plus, we're tracking the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, which could bring life threatening floods to parts of the U.S.

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

CHURCH: Good to have you with us, and we begin with an extraordinary summit at the White House where Donald Trump says he held a very good meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and key European allies just three days after sitting down with Vladimir Putin.

Now, the U.S. president has taken to social media to say he's working to arrange another meeting, this time between Putin and Zelenskyy. Trump says he called Putin amid meetings with European leaders to begin making arrangements. The German chancellor says the Russian leader agreed to hold such a meeting within the next few weeks, but whether Putin actually follows through remains unclear.

Zelenskyy, though, says he's ready to talk with Putin under any format, and said he had a good conversation with Trump, a far different outcome than the last Oval Office meeting back in February.

On Monday, the leaders appeared to share a mostly united front and a push to end the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I believe a peace agreement at the end of all of this is something that's very attainable, and it can be done in the near future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think if we play this well, we could end this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now, the path is open. You opened it last Friday.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I think that we had very good conversation with President Trump.

TRUMP: Very good.

ZELENSKYY: And it really was the best one or, sorry, maybe the best one will be in the future, but it was really good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Zelenskyy says security guarantees were discussed on Monday, and that included plans for Ukraine to purchase $90 billion in U.S. weapons through European funding.

Leaders did not discuss redrawing Ukrainian boundaries, according to the NATO chief, who said any talks about territory would need to involve Zelenskyy and Putin, a sentiment shared by the Ukrainian leader. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translator): The question of territories is a question that we will save for me and Putin to decide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Ahead of Monday's meeting, a hot mic caught the U.S. president speaking with his French counterpart about Putin's intentions. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I thinks he want to make a feal. I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Jeff Zeleny is following all the developments from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So, at the end of a long day of meetings here at the White House, the bottom line is there could be more meetings, this time, potentially, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That is what President Trump announced on his Truth Social media account at the end of the day. He said, is working to arrange a meeting.

Less clear, however, is if Putin is interested in what the time frame is and what conditions this meeting would take place, that would Zelenskyy agree to that as well.

[02:05:03]

So, after meeting one on one with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon. Really a much warmer meeting than the one that six months ago ended with the Zelenskyy effectively being thrown out of the White House.

The leaders then went on to meet in the East Room here, where all European leaders visiting here, some seven of them sat down with President Trump and talked about some specifics.

But it was clear divisions also exist, like on a cease fire for example, the German chancellor said he believes a cease fire must be in place before any peace discussions can begin. French President Emmanuel Macron also echoed that, saying a truce must happen first.

So, it's an open question here, actually, how much progress was made that is going to be determined in the hours and days, perhaps the weeks to come. But what we do know is that President Trump is trying to drive toward a process, trying to accelerate a process, if you will. It is less clear how fast President Putin would like to operate on this. Because even as the Ukrainian president was here in Washington, bombs were still falling in Ukraine.

So, now the ball is in Putin's court, Zelenskyy's court. But President Trump said after they meet one on one, if that happens, he would join them for a trilateral meeting.

So, clearly, he signaled some progress to come, but we will certainly see how all parties see it, and if that Putin-Zelenskyy meeting ever takes place.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joining me now from London is CNN European Affairs commentator Dominic Thomas, good to have you with us.

DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Thank you, Rosemary. It's great to see you.

CHURCH: So, Monday's high stakes meeting between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents, along with a united and coordinated group of European leaders, ended with a plan for future bilateral and trilateral meetings at an unknown time and place.

The other big issue was security guarantees for Ukraine, modeled on NATO's Article 5, an attack on one is an attack on all backed up by a security force on the ground from Europe and possibly even the U.S. with President Trump not ruling that out. How would all this work, though, and how much progress do you think was made at these talks Monday?

THOMAS: Well, I think ultimately this is very much about a kind of an incremental move forward towards achieving what every leader underscored yesterday, which is some kind of peace agreement.

President Trump has a tendency. He did this after the Alaska meeting with President Putin to talk about outcomes before allowing the process to move forward. And that meeting yesterday was highly transactional in so many ways, the delegations that arrived from Europe were very much there to sort of bolster President Trump's kind of credentials in this peace discussion negotiating process by underscoring unity, by underscoring their desire to move things forward.

But for them, the absolute priorities and the end games here involve the security questions. First of all, an umbrella security for the European space in the broadest context. And I think having the Finnish Prime Minister, there was a strong indication as to how key those border states, Baltic States as well, are in this particular process, and that moving forward a security guarantee and a sustainable outcome, and possibly even a deterrent to future Russian incursions, involve United States military commitment moving forward to that space and to NATO.

And I think that those dimensions, those aspects, were highlighted during that particular meeting yesterday, in which all sides moved forward and got something out of it, Rosemary.

CHURCH: And Dominic, the more divisive issue of a cease fire was discussed with all the European leaders agreeing with Zelenskyy that an immediate cease fire was necessary before any future talks take place, and Trump appeared more inclined to a cease fire compared to his total rejection of the idea after Friday's Alaska summit with Putin.

What did you make of Trump's sudden shift on the cease fire issue? THOMAS: Well, I think that there's, there's always a tendency that President Trump has a pattern of moving with the general consensus in the room. And I think that we saw a move towards that yesterday.

Though, having said that, not all leaders in their individual publicly screened, kind of praise of Trump drew attention to that particular aspect. I mean, Prime Minister Meloni of Italy was talking about deterrence and the sort of the root causes.

So, I think that there are some gray areas. There's, on the one hand, obviously a realization that the public reception of this, the sort of fatigue around this concerns the killings, the death toll, the impact that this is having on morale, regionally, the way in which it's sort of eroding trust in leaders in their capacity to solve this.

[02:10:13]

So, you saw some sort of cracks in that, which was in a meeting, which ultimately was overwhelmingly moving towards a kind of coordinated presence, a coordinated action, and trying to enlist President Trump in achieving a sustainable solution with the full understanding that public opinion wants a cease fire before this happens.

Of course, President Putin, at the time being, certainly does not seem inclined to move in that particular direction. And we'll have to see when this trilateral meeting is organized, what position we're at at that point, Rosemary.

CHURCH: Indeed, and of course, the other sticky issue is land concessions. Trump had earlier posted on truth social that the onus was on Zelenskyy to end the war by giving up Crimea.

But by Monday, the U.S. president added that it was also up to Vladimir Putin to make land concessions too. How significant was that shift by Trump, particularly after appearing to align with Putin's goals after Friday's Alaska Summit, and with Russia already occupying 20 percent of Ukraine. What might that land swap look like in the end anyway?

THOMAS: Yes, well, I think that the word land is absolutely key, and has been from the very beginning, central to this process, and it is unambiguously blurred by President Trump's return to the White House, because the whole security agreement, ultimately with the United States involves access to Ukrainian land.

So, there's something deeply paradoxical to that capacity to access resources in exchange for security guarantees.

I think what was key was that ultimately, what we're trying to get to a situation here is there is a deep realization. And it's also ironic, because for the last two plus years, the question of giving up land has been front and center.

The hope is that when President Zelenskyy and President Putin sit down, that there is a realization that the only path forward is going to involve land concessions to allow both leaders to be able to walk away from the table, particularly the Russian leader, escaping the broader scrutiny. And that is that the ultimately this conflict is all about the illegal occupation of Ukrainian land.

The question is, can President Zelenskyy sell that to his people in exchange for peace? But I think it is clear that that is going to be the cornerstone to some kind of agreement here, and it's going to involve both sides conceding and giving up some space in order to move the process forward, which I think both areas geographically are tired of, Rosemary.

CHURCH: We'll see what happens there. Of course. Dominic Thomas, many thanks for joining us and sharing your perspective and analysis. Appreciate it.

THOMAS: Thank you.

CHURCH: Whatever a peace deal may look like, the stakes are not arbitrary lines on a map, what the U.S. president calls a swapping of territories would mean a grave loss of Ukrainian homes and histories. And it's important to remember that Ukrainians have already paid a horrific price in the war, they neither asked for nor started.

The United Nations Office of Human Rights has recorded nearly 50,000 civilian casualties since Russia's full scale invasion in February 2022. Those include nearly 14,000 innocent men, women and children who have been killed in Vladimir Putin's war.

And the toll on the battlefield is much higher. A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Ukrainian forces have suffered nearly 400,000 casualties, with up to 100,000 people killed, and Russian forces have suffered nearly one million casualties, with as many as 250,000 soldiers killed.

Ukraine's wartime grief on full display in Kyiv, where mourners honored a soldier who died defending his country. CNN's Ben Wedeman was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The young widow tries to keep a brave face at a funeral like so many funerals before. Friends and loved ones come to mourn yet another life cut down in its prime. David Chichkan, a popular Kyiv artist, joined the army last year. Earlier this month, he was killed by a Russian drone on the eastern front. His mother gets one last look at her son. Dmytro (ph) was in David's unit.

"He always wanted Ukraine to have agency", he tells me. "For it to be free, independent, for it to choose its own path, to decide where to go and what to be." This funeral comes on the day when Zelenskyy goes to the White House under pressure from Trump, who overnight posted on social media that the Ukrainian leader can end the war almost immediately if he wants to.

[02:15:24] It's just some kind of fatal coincidence, Oleksandra says. That today, there is this great farewell and at the same time, our President is clearly being pressured into something in Washington. The very land David died defending may now be on the negotiating table. A cold reality not lost on filmmaker, Sashko.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't trade, you know, lives of Ukrainian people, our lands and our values just for the Donald Trump's desire to make business as usual with the Russians.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): For now, the business as usual is more death and destruction. Overnight drone and missile strikes killed at least ten people.

WEDEMAN (on camera): And so, yet, another funeral comes to an end. And despite all the diplomacy that is perhaps going on, there is no end in sight to this war.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Kyiv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And in another war, Hamas says it has agreed to a new Gaza cease fire plan, what's involved and how Israel is responding. Plus, exclusive reaction from Egypt's foreign minister. That's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:21:09]

CHURCH: Hamas says it has agreed to a new cease fire proposal in the war in Gaza. It's similar to the plan that was on the table when negotiations fell apart last month, a senior Hamas official says it calls for the release of 10 living and 18 deceased hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

A regional source says Hamas also wants written American guarantees for a cease fire after 60 days. An Israeli official says the government wants all hostages released, the disarming of Hamas and security control over Gaza.

CNN's Becky Anderson spoke exclusively with Egypt's Foreign Minister about the difficult negotiations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: Help me out here, what or who is holding up a cease fire today?

BADR ABDELATTY, EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: To be frank with you, the lack of political will, especially from the Israeli side. We are pushing the Hamas side in order to show more flexibility.

ANDERSON: What does that mean show more flexibility? I mean, Israel says it wants to defeat Hamas and clearly feels it is close to doing that. Will Hamas surrender at this point? ABDELATTY: I mean, again, we have to be practical. We have to be reasonable. What we have to do now is to implement the proposal of Steve Witkoff of the U.S. especially.

ANDERSON: Which is a phased partial agreement, a temporary truce.

ABDELATTY: At least, to have a cooling off period to allow more trucks to enter into Gaza and during this 60 days of the cease fire to engage in serious negotiations to make this cease fire sustainable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Leaked audio from the former head of Israeli military intelligence is drawing sharp criticism. He says mass death in Gaza is necessary for future generations, and it doesn't matter if children are among the dead. CNN's Oren Liebermann has more now from Jerusalem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: These are striking remarks coming from the former head of Israel's military Intelligence, Major General Aharon Haliva was the first senior Israeli officer to resign over his responsibility for the failures that led to and allowed October 7th. But in these lengthy audio recordings published by Israel's "Channel 12" news, he also cast blame on others, saying it wasn't only the military, it was other Intelligence and security agencies that were responsible for the failures that led to October 7th.

But in these lengthy audio recordings, he makes, frankly, stunning remarks about the number of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli military throughout nearly two years of war in Gaza. He says in these recordings, "for everything that happened on October 7th, for every one person on October 7th, 50 Palestinians must die. It doesn't matter now if they are children.

The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations." And these leaked recordings are published as Israel faces increased condemnation and accusations over the conduct of the war in Gaza. The Israeli military facing accusations of intentional starvation, war crimes and genocide, accusations that Israel has vehemently denied.

Now, it's unclear exactly when these recordings were made. He refers to 50,000 dead in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, that milestone was passed some months ago. The Ministry says there are more than 61,000 Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since the war began.

Still, though, that number indicates these are fairly recent recordings. And we have seen the condemnation of the war in Gaza come even within the last few days. The Danish Prime Minister saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a problem within himself. And the New Zealand Prime Minister saying just days ago that Israel has lost the plot in Gaza and calling the planned escalation with the takeover and occupation of Gaza city utterly unacceptable. [02:25:11]

Hamas also condemned the remarks, saying it confirms that crimes against our people are high level decisions and official policy from the enemy's political and security leadership.

Oren Liebermann, CNN in Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Still to come, a look at the key regions in Ukraine that Russia wants, back with that and more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:30:00]

CHURCH: The Ukrainian president is pushing for an unconditional meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia suggested two-way talks with Ukraine, followed by a trilateral meeting with Donald Trump. But President Zelenskyy says he's ready for any format of talks with President Putin and the question of territory is between them alone. This comes as seven European leaders met with President Trump in the Oval Office, insisting that a ceasefire must still precede talks with the Kremlin.

The U.S. and Russian leaders spoke by phone earlier before President Trump returned to his meeting with President Zelenskyy. The top U.S. diplomat said all this points to progress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, (R) UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The president suggested that Zelenskyy and Putin meet. So we're working on that now to try to set that up for them to meet somewhere, which again would be unprecedented. Just the fact that Putin is saying, sure, I'll meet with Zelenskyy. That's a big deal. I mean, I'm not saying they're going to leave that room best friends. I'm not saying they're going to leave that room with a peace deal. But I think the fact that people are now talking to each other, this wasn't happening for three-and-a- half years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Meanwhile, President Zelenskyy says he had a long discussion with President Trump over a map showing Russian-occupied territories. CNN Military Analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton looks at the land in question.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Here's basically what we're looking at. When you look at the map of Ukraine, you see these four regions right here: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk. These areas are the ones that are really in contention. This is what Russia has occupied for the most part. They've occupied some other little areas up here, but basically what you're looking at is here, in the Donetsk region. This is the area that they really want to get. The Russians really want to get this, the area around Kramatorsk.

The other thing to note about this is that there's a ring of fortifications right in through this area that if the Russians get to control this, which they have not been able to do, they would then be able to basically threaten all the other areas in this part of Ukraine. So all in the center right here, that could come under threat. So these would be the kinds of things that the Ukrainians are looking at to prevent. They want to keep this land even though it's part of the Donbas region, which is what Russia wants.

Now, when you look down in the -- to the northern area right here, the Kharkiv region, there are small areas of territory right in through here and up here that the Russians control. They could potentially swap those for other lands, but it's very, very small compared to what the Russians want in the Donbas region. And basically the same thing with the Kherson region right here, which is the southern part. This is the southern part. This is the Dnipro River right here. This is a natural area that could basically be a boundary between Russian forces here and Ukrainian forces here.

But, what the Russians want to do is they want to keep this. They also want to be able to threaten Odessa, which is the main port that Ukraine ships most of its grain out of. So, these are the areas that are under contention. We expect the line to basically stay this way here, but to change in the Donbas region, and that's the kind of thing that would happen for Ukraine. We got to keep in mind, this is what NATO looks like right here. Ukraine is right here on the doorstep of NATO, and that's why this is so important.

CHURCH: The Atlantic hurricane season is starting to pick up. Just ahead, the latest on Hurricane Erin, the Category 3 storm that's prompted tropical storm watches in The Bahamas and the U.S. Back with that and more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:38:18]

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. In 2023, Friends star Matthew Perry was found dead in Los Angeles home. An overdose of the anesthetic Ketamine was ruled the primary cause of death. Now, the woman accused of selling him the fatal dose of the drug has agreed to a guilty plea. Known as the "Ketamine Queen," Jasveen Sangha becomes the fifth and final defendant to settle with federal prosecutors. She faces up to 45 years in prison. Perry's struggles with addiction dated back as far as his time on Friends. He was using Ketamine as an off-label treatment for depression, but sought more than his doctor would prescribe.

Well, the U.S. National Hurricane Center has issued a tropical storm watch for much of North Carolina's outer banks region, which could continue to see dangerous rip currents in the next several days. Hurricane Erin is not expected to make landfall, but the Category 3 storm has already prompted mandatory evacuations along parts of North Carolina's coast. It's a cause for concern for beachfront homes in the area, which have been prone to crumbling into the ocean even without a hurricane skirting past. Erin is the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, and forecasters already have their eye on another tropical system, which could become the next big storm later this week.

Well, no, you are not delulu, skibidi me (ph) really is in the dictionary. It's one of 6,000 words that the Cambridge Dictionary added to its online edition in the last year.

[02:40:00]

Skibidi, which was coined by a YouTube series, is an intentionally nonsensical word that has no real meaning on its own. Depending on the way it's used, it can have many different meanings like cool or bad. Delulu, of course, is easier to understand. It's a play on the word delusional and means choosing to believe things that aren't real or true. And finally, a word plucked from the headlines, broligarchy, a mashup of bro and oligarchy. It's a reference to the tech leaders who attended President Trump's inauguration in January. There you go, some new words for you.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. "World Sport" is coming up next. Then, I'll be back at the top of the hour with more "CNN Newsroom." Do stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:42]

(WORLD SPORT)