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Trump to Meet Putin in Hungary to Discuss Ukraine; Officials: Aid Levels into Gaza Reach Agreed Levels; South Korean Ship Builders Helping U.S. Strengthen Its Fleet; U.K. Factory Capitalizing on Gold Prices. Aired 12-12:45a ET

Aired October 17, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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

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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome. I'm Lynda Kinkade.

[00:00:34]

Ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, after the Gaza Ceasefire Trump turns his focus to Russia's war in Ukraine. What can we expect when he meets Zelenskyy in Washington on Friday? And what agreement has he made with Putin?

Israel lets hundreds of aid trucks enter Gaza. Hamas still hasn't been able to locate all of the deceased hostages.

And we'll visit the U.K.'s largest gold refinery, which is cashing in on the historic rally.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Lynda Kinkade.

KINKADE: Fresh off his success with the Gaza ceasefire, Donald Trump is now turning his attention to the fighting in Ukraine. The U.S. president will welcome his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House in the next day.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hoping to secure a pledge for Tomahawk cruise missiles that can strike targets deep inside Russia.

Mr. Trump says he will travel to Budapest, Hungary, within two weeks or so to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The announcement follows a 2.5-hour phone call between the two on Thursday.

CNN's chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance reports from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The call, they said it was -- they said it was constructive. They said it was positive.

CHANCE (voice-over): They said it was in an atmosphere of trust, I think is the phrase that was used in one of the -- the Kremlin readouts that I saw.

In terms of the Tomahawks, well, look, I mean, first of all, the timing of this, you can't ignore it. I mean, the fact that this call was initiated by the Russian side, by the Kremlin. They called the White House, in other words, on the eve of that meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, where they were due to talk about and still are due to talk about the merits of giving Ukraine these long-range, powerful Tomahawk missiles.

That would have played in very strongly into the calculus of the Kremlin to make this call right now, to try and get in Trump's ear before he sits in the Oval Office or wherever he's going to meet President Zelenskyy.

CHANCE: Putin told Trump what he's been saying publicly for some time, which is that these missiles, these Tomahawks, even though they've got a long range of more than 1,500 miles, even though they could potentially target Moscow and St. Petersburg, major Russian cities, they could help Ukraine target energy infrastructure locations around the country, at least in the European part of Russia.

Trump -- sorry, Putin saying he does not believe that these will have a significant impact on the battlefield.

But what he does say and what he's stressed to Trump, according to the Kremlin readout, is that these would be considered escalatory, and they would damage the relationship between the United States and Russia. And that's something, obviously, that President Trump apparently cares very deeply about.

CHANCE (voice-over): Budapest was suggested by President Trump initially, and President Putin immediately agreed. And there's a couple of reasons for that.

One of them is that Viktor Orban, who is the -- the leader of Hungary, is seen as a very right-wing figure. He's very close to the MAGA movement, close to President Trump. He's also seen as relatively sort of pro-Putin. So, he's not one of the big critics of -- of -- of Russia and its war in Ukraine inside the European union; it's a European Union country.

CHANCE: But interestingly, Budapest, or Hungary rather, recently started the process of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, which means it wouldn't be necessary for it to arrest Vladimir Putin, if and when he arrives in Budapest for that summit.

They started that withdrawal so they could host Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The fact is that it's now open country, I suppose, for -- for Vladimir Putin to -- to go there, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well, joining me now from Los Angeles is Benjamin Radd, a senior fellow at the UCLA Berkeley Center for International Relations.

Great to have you with us. BENJAMIN RADD, SENIOR FELLOW, UCLA BERKELEY CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS: Thank you.

KINKADE: So, President Zelenskyy is now in Washington preparing to meet with the U.S. president. But just a day before that meeting, Donald Trump had this phone call with Vladimir Putin.

How do you think that could shape the tone or the outcome of the Zelenskyy meeting?

RADD: Well, if President Trump is given the opportunity to play each of these personalities off of the other, specifically getting concessions from Vladimir Putin, maybe that can lead towards an end to the conflict in return for getting Zelenskyy to stand down on his request for Tomahawk missiles, as your correspondent, just reported.

[00:05:17]

There's been reports now, specifically from Ukraine's intelligence chief that those Tomahawk missiles are Ukraine's -- I should say Ukraine's missile attacks against Russian energy infrastructure has done far more damage than the Russians are willing to admit publicly, and that they have done more to impact Russia's energy calculus than sanctions against its oil industry possibly could.

So, the stakes are high, and Putin is very motivated to keep those Tomahawks out of Ukraine's hands. And that puts President Trump in a unique position to really bring both sides together in a way that maybe he hasn't had in recent meetings.

KINKADE: So, do you think the issue over the Tomahawk missiles was what essentially prompted this phone call between Putin and Trump?

RADD: Well, it's -- it's not a coincidence, I think, that we see this issue raised, and then we see a statement by the Ukrainian intelligence minister that these -- that their own homemade missiles, that are not as potent or capable as the Tomahawk missiles, have nevertheless had a severe impact and have been successful for Ukraine with its attack on Russia's energy infrastructure, its oil refineries, in particular, and that it sees that this is a price that Russia is not willing to pay for the continued war against Ukraine.

So, there is a link here to be made. But again, it remains to be seen, really, whether President Trump will use that leverage or really carry that through.

We've seen in prior meetings with Putin where he's had the threat of sanctions and -- and that he has not imposed them. He's not carried them through.

So, it's been a mixed approach of carrots and sticks from the U.S.

KINKADE: And of course, Trump recently helped broker phase one of a ceasefire in Gaza. Do you see any real parallels between his role there and the situation in Ukraine? And can that momentum carry over?

Or are these two conflicts just too different in scale and structure?

RADD: Yes, yes, momentum is the right word. And I think what we're trying to see is building off of the success of one U.S. foreign policy effort at mediating a long-standing conflict and rolling into another one.

But they are disconnected. The relationship that he has with the Arab states that are supporting the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is -- has no parallel with Zelenskyy and Putin.

And in this regard -- and we've seen this before, that regardless of Trump's leverage coming in and the U.S.'s position coming in, and its relative dominance, it's not a dominance that he has exerted and carried out with respect to Putin when it comes to things like issuing sanctions and taking more aggressive measures against Putin.

So, momentum is there. The question remains whether or not it's used in the way that he used it with the Middle East, and that doesn't seem likely, given past experience.

KINKADE: And looking ahead, Trump says he'll meet with Putin face to face again in Hungary. But what's to say this summit will produce anything more than the last one in Alaska, which yielded no real movement? And what could be different now?

RADD: Absolutely. There's nothing to indicate that the story can change, that we'd see a different outcome from what we've seen in his last several meetings with Putin, where a lot of anticipation, a lot of promise had gone into these meetings and a lot of bluster on the part of the president about what he would do or what he intends to do. We see comments on his social media site to that effect.

And the net result is no change in Putin's policy, no change in the U.S. posture; that we've seen him shift away from Putin and more towards Zelenskyy since that infamous Oval Office meeting from earlier this year.

But beyond that, no real net results. And nothing to change the status of the conflict.

KINKADE: So, Russia just launched this massive air assault that knocked out power in at least eight regions in Ukraine. What's the strategic logic behind these energy strikes, and how vulnerable is Ukraine heading into winter?

RADD: Well, absolutely. Winters are brutal there, and it's brutal for both sides but the Ukrainians in particular.

The idea here is to really inflict a degree of misery upon the Ukrainian people and to make the price of ongoing warfare too high, too painful for them to continue, and make them really unable to tend to their domestic needs while they're trying to fight this war beyond their own borders and launch these missiles into Russian territory.

So, it's absolutely really meant to -- this is part of the war of attrition that Russia has been fighting, which is to raise the cost, raise the day-to-day stakes, and again, make it very difficult, make it very painful for ordinary Ukrainians to remain rallied behind this cause.

KINKADE: Benjamin Radd in Los Angeles, appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

RADD: Thank you.

KINKADE: Well, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning Hamas that there will be a price to pay if it doesn't return the remains of the deceased hostages in Gaza.

[00:10:03]

On Thursday, he marked the anniversary of the October 7th attack on Israel under the Hebrew calendar.

Sources say that, in a separate meeting with top security officials, he said he knows how many remains Hamas currently holds. And he said Israel will, quote, "act accordingly" if they're not returned.

Hamas has yet to return 19 sets of remains. The militant group says that it can't access them, partially because of the enormous amount of damage in Gaza, and that it needs special equipment to retrieve them.

Well, Mr. Netanyahu is coming under pressure to use humanitarian aid as leverage to get those remains back. An ultra-Orthodox lawmaker called on him Thursday to stop the peace deal with Hamas, including the flow of aid, until all the deceased hostages are returned.

When it comes to aid deliveries, Israel says it's now living up to its end of the bargain. Our Jeremy Diamond reports.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, U.S. and Israeli officials now tell me that Israel is allowing the quantities of aid into Gaza that are required under the ceasefire agreement, despite this dispute over the number of remains of deceased hostages that Hamas is releasing.

DIAMOND (voice-over): We had been told on Wednesday that Israel was only allowing half the number of aid trucks required into Gaza -- just 300 of the 600 required -- as a retaliation for Hamas releasing too few bodies of these deceased hostages.

But it turns out that Israel on Wednesday actually allowed some 700 trucks of aid into Gaza, according to internal numbers from COGAT obtained by CNN.

Cogat is this Israeli authority that coordinates the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip.

DIAMOND: And so, what we're seeing is that there's a difference between some of the public rhetoric that is coming out about this ceasefire agreement and the disputes that are happening, and the reality that is actually happening on the ground.

That doesn't mean that this ceasefire agreement doesn't remain fragile and quite tenuous. There's no question that there are some real disagreements here over the number of bodies that Hamas has released from the Gaza Strip.

In fact, Israeli officials have submitted information to the United States about the remains of other deceased hostages that they believe Hamas knows about, despite the fact that Hamas has said that they have released all of the remains of deceased hostages that they know about, or that they can access.

It seems that it's clear that one of the issues here is Hamas's ability to actually access those remains of deceased hostages in Gaza. And that's why senior U.S. advisers have told us that they actually believe that Hamas is complying with this ceasefire agreement right now.

DIAMOND (voice-over): And that conditions on the ground are making it harder for them to release additional bodies.

There are Turkish and Egyptian teams that are going to be working in Gaza to try and retrieve some of those additional bodies, which appear to be under the rubble of buildings struck by the Israeli military over the course of this war.

And this is not just an issue for the remains of those deceased hostages. It's also an issue about the bodies of Palestinian civilians, thousands of which are estimated to also be under the rubble in Gaza.

And it underscores the very, very long road ahead for Gaza's recovery and for us to really get a sense of the true death toll of this two- year-long war.

Now, as it relates to those aid quantities, even as Israel is stepping up the amount of aid getting into Gaza, there's no question that the needs are enormous. Everything from food to shelter to medicine.

And it will take weeks, very likely, for the situation in Gaza to stabilize.

DIAMOND: And many hundreds -- thousands, even -- of aid trucks to enter before that happens.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: President Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, is facing criminal charges over his handling of classified information.

He's now the third high-profile Trump critic to be indicted in less than a month.

A federal grand jury in Maryland indicted Bolton on 18 counts of transmitting and retaining national defense information.

Sources tell CNN the investigation is centered around detailed notes Bolton took of his daily activities when he was working for President Trump.

Bolton is accused of sharing that information with his wife and daughter and keeping printouts in his home. President Trump's former White House lawyer told CNN earlier that the indictment has legal merit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TY COBB, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Judge Lamberth five years ago, in the dispute over the book, pointed out that Bolton's unilateral conduct had raised serious national concerns -- national security concerns; that he had gambled with national security. He'd probably harmed his country. And he'd certainly exposed himself to potential criminal liability.

So, this shouldn't come as a news flash that, you know, there's -- there's a potential crime here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Well, Bolton has denied any wrongdoing and claims that the charges are politically motivated.

Well, still to come, tensions continue to mount between President Donald Trump and Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. That story and much more next.

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[00:19:39]

KINKADE: Welcome back.

Sources tell CNN that the U.S. military has carried out another strike on a boat in the Caribbean. There are believed to be crew members who survived, but their status is unclear.

At least six separate strikes have been conducted on boats in the Caribbean, but this is the first time there are reportedly survivors.

The White House has said the strikes are part of an effort to combat drug trafficking.

The Trump administration says drug trafficking is part of the reason the CIA has been authorized to operate inside Venezuela, but it's unclear whether agency operatives would have the authority to remove President Nicolas Maduro.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think President Trump believes that Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate president leading an illegitimate regime that has been trafficking drugs to the United States of America for far too long, and we're not going to tolerate it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Well, this comes as the admiral responsible for U.S. forces in the Caribbean says he is retiring.

Admiral Alvin Lee has been on the job less than a year. Sources say tensions have been growing between Lee and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over those strikes in the Caribbean.

Well, now to the political crisis in France. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu made it through two no-confidence votes in Parliament on Thursday.

He won key support from the Socialist Party after he promised to put the French president's controversial pension reform on hold until after the 2027 presidential election.

Pension reform has been one of Emmanuel Macron's main policy goals, and suspending it comes as France struggles with a debt crisis.

The prime minister still faces weeks of tough negotiations in Parliament over passing a more trimmed-down budget for next year, but he could still be brought down at any point.

Well, it is the end of an era. Ace Frehley, originally the lead guitarist and founding member of the rock band KISS, has passed away.

According to his agent, he died Thursday at his home in New Jersey, surrounded by friends and family after a recent fall.

Frehley was best known for his elaborate makeup and his thrilling guitar skills. He and his KISS bandmates sold tens of millions of albums in the 1970s and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Frehley was 74 years old.

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[00:26:46]

KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Donald Trump will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in the coming hours. On Thursday, the president announced that he will meet with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest, Hungary, within two weeks or so to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Israel's prime minister says his country will act accordingly if Hamas doesn't return the bodies of the deceased hostages from Gaza.

Israeli officials say Netanyahu made the statement during a meeting with top security leaders on Thursday.

Hamas says it cannot easily recover the bodies of the remaining 19 deceased hostages.

Kenyans will say farewell to their former prime minister, Raila Odinga, at a state funeral in just a few hours' time. Local media say at least four people were killed as a public viewing for Odinga descended into chaos after Kenyan police deployed tear gas to disperse a crowd.

The long-time opposition leader died in India on Wednesday at the age of 80.

China is blaming Washington for creating something of a global panic over Beijing's new rare earth restrictions. That's after Beijing announced sanctions against subsidiaries of South Korean ship builder Hanwha Ocean, alleging that it's involved in a U.S. investigation.

Hanwha is one of the South Korean firms helping the U.S. play catch-up with China on the high seas, as Mike Valerio reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE VALERIO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the moment you step inside this cathedral of cranes, the planet's biggest shipbuilding complex operated by H.D. Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, South Korea, and on nearby Geoje Island, a harbor where giants are born, run by the Hanhwah Ocean, you get the feeling you're in a city of ships.

VALERIO: We're here at the world's largest shipyard, and it is wild. Colossal ships everywhere.

VALERIO (voice-over): This single site builds about ten times as many large commercial ocean vessels as the United States builds in a single year.

And South Korea's president, Lee Jae-Myung, says his country can help, quote, "make American shipbuilding great again." President Trump has taken notice.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They build them very well in South Korea. They're also thinking about coming to our country with some shipyards to start us on the process of building ships again.

VALERIO: What we're looking at right now are about 20 vessels that are under construction all at the same time. Hyundai tells us this year, it's expected to deliver 50 ships, all from this colossal facility in Ulsan, South Korea.

VALERIO (voice-over): Why it matters: China now builds warships at a pace the U.S. cannot match. It has a navy that's larger, backed by a network of sprawling shipyards.

The U.S. has just four shipyards left, down from 11 after World War II. Shipyards back in the U.S. are jammed: too few docks, too little

capacity. So now, the U.S. Navy is sending some of its ships here to South Korea for essential repairs.

VALERIO: What's the most difficult part of all of this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The propeller, propeller propulsion system.

VALERIO (voice-over): This is the third Navy cargo ship Hyung (ph) repaired, the USNS Charles Drew. H.D. Hyundai just started work on another Navy ship a few weeks ago.

[00:30:05]

Danny Beeler is the principal engineer on the Charles Drew.

DANNY BEELER, PRINCIPAL ENGINEER, USNS CHARLES DREW: Me as the person that's worried about all the maintenance on the ship and fixing things, I can get a lot more done in a shorter time period in a shipyard like this, as opposed to one back home.

VALERIO (voice-over): The before and after difference: rust to renewal. It's work to keep the U.S. fleet running overseas.

Analysts say South Korea's shipbuilders are known for finishing on time and on budget. One of their secrets: components from nearby supply chains.

LEE JIN, VICE PRESIDENT, H.D. HYUNDAI HEAVY INDUSTRIES: Here in Korea, we can get that in one day or one hour, maximum one weeks.

JEON YU-SU, GENERAL MANAGER, HANWHA OCEAN (through translator): Hanhwa Ocean also has a supply chain established within 50 kilometers of the shipyard, which enables us to get necessary material or manpower from our established relations with companies to quickly repair a ship.

VALERIO (voice-over): A next step in the partnership could be South Korea building, not just repairing, U.S. Navy ships. But U.S. law would need to change. Foreign companies are barred from constructing American warships.

The Navy secretary says he is open to a change.

JOHN PHELAN, U.S. SECRETARY OF NAVY: In the short run, I have got to get hulls in the water, and so that means all options are open. So, we have to look at foreign and domestic.

VALERIO (voice-over): Hanwha already runs a shipyard in Philadelphia and wants to grow.

Hyundai, too, is looking for a bigger U.S. foothold. The question now: could parts of America's warships be built here in South Korea as the U.S. tries to revive a once mighty shipbuilding industry with South Korean help?

VALERIO: What about construction of U.S. Navy ships? Is that the goal? JEON: Yes.

VALERIO: Yes.

VALERIO (voice-over): Mike Valerio, CNN, Ulsan and Geoje, South Korea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well, if you've got some gold jewelry, it may be worth more than you think. As the price of the precious metal hits record highs, we visit a factory where old pieces are melted down into some very expensive bars.

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[00:36:49]

KINKADE: Welcome back.

The price of gold is skyrocketing as the U.S. dollar weakens. The precious metal has now hit a record high for the fourth straight day.

Investors looking for a safe haven drove prices past $4,300 an ounce.

Analysts blame the trade tensions between the U.S. and China, as well as the U.S. government shutdown for the gold spike.

With more demand will come more people selling old gold. CNN's Anna Cooban visited a smelting factory to find out how the metal gets melted into gold bars.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COOBAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hidden away: a warehouse on the edge of London. CNN has Agreed not to reveal the exact location for security reasons. That's because it's the U.K.'s largest gold refinery, capitalizing on a new gold rush.

COOBAN: Don't be fooled. This is not a bucket of dirt. This is a bucket of pure gold, worth about 2 million US dollars, and it could be turned into one of these very heavy gold bars.

COOBAN (voice-over): In times of uncertainty, gold is seen as a safe bet by investors. That's giving gold prices their biggest rally since 1979, meaning that this jewelry is now worth more when thrown into the flames and melted down.

COOBAN: Here we go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there.

COOBAN (voice-over): Baird and Co. buys old jewelry and turns it into pure gold that can be traded by investors.

At this stage, the gold is still only considered around 50 percent pure. COOBAN: Whoa!

COOBAN (voice-over): It is taken into the refinery for further purifying.

COOBAN: So, what are these called?

LEE TULLOW, SENIOR REFINERY TECHNICIAN, BAIRD & CO.: So, these are called corn flakes.

COOBAN: Corn flakes?

TULLOW: Yes.

COOBAN: But you can't eat them.

TULLOW: No.

COOBAN (voice-over): And each of these flakes is around 90 percent pure and will be worth around $1,000. But they're still not ready to be sold.

TULLOW: We do them s corn flakes; o they're all different shapes. So, then there's space in between for when the acid drops, it can get to the whole surface of the corn flake.

COOBAN (voice-over): The gold sand is taken back to the furnace and turned into these 99.99 percent pure gold grains. These are cast into molds, rolled out and weighed, ready to be stamped and sold.

Each of these tiny bars can then be bought direct by investors or even available in retailer Costco for around $7,000.

COOBAN: There we go. A gold bar with a stamp of approval.

COOBAN (voice-over): Twelve months ago, they were selling for less than $5,000, and it's returns like these that are making gold so popular with investors: from the trading floor to the supermarket aisle.

Anna Cooban, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well, the drawings of a master French Impressionist will be spotlighted this weekend for the first time in more than a century.

The traveling exhibition, Renoir Drawings, goes on display on Friday at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. The exhibit features more than 100 delegate works from the Pierre Auguste Renoir.

He was one of the leaders of the Impressionist school of painting, which was founded in 1874, and this will be the first major Renoir exhibit to open since 1921.

It closes in New York in February and then moves to Paris in March. [00:40:04]

Well, actors take on many names. Keanu Reeves, for instance, is neo in the Matrix movies; the hitman John wick; and Ted in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure."

And, if a manager had it his way, the Canadian movie star could have been called Chuck Spadina. Reeves was on the "New Heights" podcast to promote his Broadway debut, "Waiting for Godot."

He told hosts Travis and Jason Delce Spadina was the street where he great up in Toronto.

Reeves was called the manager's request a "welcome to Hollywood moment" and said he thought, "I'm not doing this."

Of course, Keanu Reeves is a much cooler name.

Well, thanks so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade. I'll be back with more news at the top of the hour. WORLD SPORT is next.

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