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CNN This Morning
Trump Escalates Feud With Zelenskyy After Talks With Kremlin; Trump Approval Rating At 47 Percent, Voters Unhappy With High Prices; Vatican: Pope's Tests Show "Slight Improvement". Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 20, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:35]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Thursday, February 20th.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A dictator without elections. Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.
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SCIUTTO: Turning on Ukraine. President Trump calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator and pushing straight up Kremlin talking points that Ukraine, not Russia, started the war.
Plus --
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TRUMP: Inflation is back. And they said, oh, Trump -- and I had nothing to do with it.
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SCIUTTO: It's all about the economy. A new CNN poll reveals how Americans feel about President Trump's campaign promise to address the pain in their wallets.
And -- just a heartbreaking return. Hamas hands over the remains of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two very young children.
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SCIUTTO: Five a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at the Capitol Dome.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Jim Sciutto, in for Kasie Hunt. Great to have you with us. The rift is now very much out in the open. President Donald Trump
stepping up his attacks on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader accused Trump of living in, quote, a disinformation space when it comes to a fact, Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Trump responded by calling Zelenskyy the elected president of Ukraine, a dictator on social media, and then later repeating his attacks.
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TRUMP: A modestly successful comedian, President Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war that basically couldn't be won. The only thing he was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle. He played him like a fiddle.
A dictator without elections. Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. Got to move, got to move fast.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: That sounds, frankly, like a threat. Trump is also vowing to push for a deal for the U.S. to take half of Ukraine's mineral rights, something Zelenskyy rejected.
As President Trump repeats Russian talking points about its invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians who have been living through three years of a brutal and devastating war are reacting with anger and fear.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just -- I have really bad feeling that the future of Ukraine is not really bright right now because of everything we hear in news from Trump, and we are really upset and we a little bit hate him for this war.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would I like to have elections in my country? Of course. But after war ended and ended, not just stopped, but ended with some documents that prove that we are protected. So we can't do elections without protection.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: President Trump's words are getting a very different response in Russia.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen has more.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Breaking news on Kremlin-controlled TV. Even the anchor can hardly believe her eyes. U.S. President Donald Trump calling Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "a dictator" in a social media post.
Attention, this is incredible, the host says. Trump is obviously angry. Having had modest success as a comedian, Zelenskyy, writes the U.S. president, couldn't have won in the Ukraine conflict and the U.S. was giving him money in vain. Zelenskyy is doing his job poorly. Donald Trump now called Zelenskyy a dictator. This is what he wrote.
Many Russians now hoping that Trump induced thaw in U.S.-Russian relations could bring fast sanctions relief. At the Skazka Souvenir Shop in Moscow, boss Alexander is rearranging the Matryoshka dolls according to what many here hope could be the new world order.
ALEXANDER TSUKANOV, OWNER, SKAZKA SOUVENIR SHOP, MOSCOW: Our president and American president, and also we have Mohammed bin Salman also with us, so all friends of Russia.
PLEITGEN: On the street, much praise for President Trump, sometimes maybe a bit too much.
PLEITGEN: What do you think about Donald Trump?
[05:05:02]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think, maybe small Stalin.
(LAUGHTER)
PLEITGEN: You think small Stalin. Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Why, but character.
PLEITGEN: Of course, I like Donald Trump, this man says. He's a positive president. He will change America and make it great again.
Moscow's leaders optimistic saying they believe the Trump Administration understands their view of the Ukraine war. Where Russian troops continue to make modest gains, this Russian defense ministry video purporting to show drone units hitting Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk region.
Russian Leader, Vladimir Putin, visiting a drone factory, also praising Trump, saying a face-to-face meeting is in the works.
We're not in a position where it's enough to meet each other, have tea or coffee, and chat about the future, he says. We need to make our teams prepare issues that are crucial for both Russia and the U.S., including the Ukraine conflict but not only it.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
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SCIUTTO: That is the view from Russia. I want to bring in CNN's Salma Abdelaziz who is live in London, covering the reaction, quite a different reaction in Ukraine.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And I think especially today for General Kellogg, who is on the ground in Ukraine.
He is the special envoy for Russia, Ukraine, for the Trump administration. He set to meet with president Zelenskyy today. But you can imagine that no one is envying his position. After all, these barbs were traded between President Trump and President Zelenskyy. And for President Zelenskyy, who is, of course, trying to seek out what is best for the interests of Ukraine, he increasingly must feel that President Trump is simply not on his side.
In fact, one of the things that President Trump's envoys and his advisers have been working on with President Zelenskyy is, as you mentioned, obtaining half of Ukraine's mineral wealth at a time when it is most vulnerable, most weak and on its knees trying to fight Russian aggression.
And for General Kellogg again, the special envoy who is working on this dual track negotiation, this is about seeing if it works. President Trump keeps repeating that Ukraine is not cut out of the process, that, yes, they were not in Riyadh. They were not in Saudi Arabia when there was direct negotiations were held between Russian officials and American officials earlier this week. But the Ukraine, according to Trump, will be part of the process in the form of this dual track negotiation.
So you have American advisers, American diplomats speaking to Russia while you have General Kellogg and his team speaking to Ukraine.
But there's a catch to that as well. General Keith Kellogg has a huge question mark over him. He wasn't invited to the talks in Riyadh. So there's a serious question for President Zelenskyy. Is he even speaking to the right person? Is President Trump even on side, or is this personal rivalry just going to essentially take him away?
SCIUTTO: That is the question. And it's also a question as to what role Keith Kellogg has in this administration, given that he himself was not at those talks in Riyadh as well.
Salma Abdelaziz, thanks so much.
Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, we are one month into Donald Trump's second term in the White House, just one month, and we have brand new CNN polling showing just how Americans feel about his attacking that key, tackling that key campaign issue of inflation.
Plus, the Senate about to hold a confirmation vote on President Trump's controversial pick, one of many, to take over the FBI and the White House bid to end birthright citizenship rejected by an appeals court now setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.
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TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: I don't think its enshrined in the Constitution at all. Not the way I read it. But then again, I'm not a constitutional scholar. We'll let the courts decide that on the birthright citizenship.
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SCIUTTO: Just in, a brand new CNN poll conducted by SSRS reveals how Americans are feeling now about Trump's first month in office. His approval rating stands at 47 percent, 52 percent disapprove of the job he's doing. That's, of course, underwater, but it is a higher approval rating than Trump had during his first term.
According to the poll, a large majority of Americans do not think the president is doing enough to address the high cost of everyday goods. Of course, central to the most recent election, 62 percent say he has not gone far enough to reduce prices.
As for how Americans feel about his use of executive powers, roughly half of respondents report they think Trump has gone too far, using the power of the presidency. About the same percentage say Trump has gone too far in cutting government programs. But just yesterday, the president addressed those cuts, saying the administration is considering a so-called DOGE dividend check for Americans.
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TRUMP: There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens, and 20 percent goes to paying down debt, because the numbers are incredible. Elon, so many billions of dollars, billions, hundreds of billions.
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SCIUTTO: Joining me now is Kevin Frey, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News New York 1.
Kevin, good to have you this morning. Thanks for coming in.
KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS NY1: Good morning.
SCIUTTO: So listen, he's underwater after an election. He just won. But that is a higher figure than we saw in the first term.
FREY: Right. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, it speaks to we are a divided country. I know that's not a profound observation, but its pretty much straight down the middle. And that's essentially kind of reflective of what we saw in the polling results. Now, one of the things that I thought was interesting that you were just touching on was how much of a focus folks are having on the fact that that he doesn't seem to have done enough to try to bring down the price of goods.
[05:15:06]
And that's an area where Democrats in particular have been hitting him and see is kind of their avenue to try to win. And Democrats have faced a lot of flak, particularly Democratic leadership, over not responding to every single thing that Trump has done every day. They have been honing a message on economics. Well see if that translates into their getting any sort of traction there.
SCIUTTO: And listen, you speak to economists, and their concern is that this is not just a short term issue, right, given that -- well, tariffs, for instance, adding to prices but also tax cuts, the expected tax cuts if they get a budget deal would also in the view of economists be inflationary. So, the trend lines not necessarily go in the opposite direction of what folks are looking for.
It was interesting because there was also a number in here that 35 percent of people said they were afraid about the rest of President Trump's second term. I mean, there's a mix there because you have 26 percent optimistic, enthusiastic. Afraid, it's quite a strong word.
FREY: Yeah. And perhaps this is somewhat of that resistance 2.0. That's kind of in its fledgling sense right now. We've not seen as much of a resistance as we did perhaps the first go around. And I think some of that has to do with people are a little bit more complacent. They're a little exhausted by this whole thing, but you're seeing it start to poke through, particularly as you see these doge initiatives come through and you see the potential for freezes on government services and things that are provided to citizenry, which is something that really happened in the first two weeks of his term.
And on top of that, were seeing more and more of these executive orders that have raised alarm bells amongst parts of the American public.
SCIUTTO: All right, so speaking of those alarm bells, one of which is the idea of how far he is stretching executive power, the White House, rather than running away from that, seems to be leaning into it. Check out this tweet yesterday, leaning into the Trump as king imagery here, specifically related to his effort to end congestion -- congestion pricing in New York, which of course is a local decision. Right, but you had the executive seemingly in a quite unusual way, overruling or attempting to overrule the decision of the local elected leaders.
FREY: Right. And just a little background, congestion pricing essentially imposes a toll. If you go into the lower end of Manhattan, it's basically a very concentrated area, a lot of congestion over time. The goal is, in part to reduce the congestion.
But as the secretary of transportation argued, it seems, because they're trying to raise money for the MTA, there are different motives at play here. The local subway system, for example, at the end of the day, what that seems to be is one speaking to kind of this notion of him being the king of New York and this kind of tenuous relationship that he has had with the city for years now, to go from a person who loved the tabloid culture, cultivated that relationship with them, wanted to be accepted by Manhattan elites because he was from one of the outer boroughs at the same time, juxtaposed with the fact that during his first term he imposed a tax restriction that off a lot of New Yorkers.
And also, of course, it was a jury of his peers in New York that voted to convict him.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
FREY: And so, again, this tenuous relationship and now he's basically stamping his foot into New York. And the governor, Democrat, who has had wobbly approval ratings, came out swinging yesterday, basically saying that Trump is making New Yorkers into roadkill.
SCIUTTO: Yeah. Well, goodness, that's quite -- that's quite a line there, and it'll be interesting to see if the SALT tax deductions makes it into --
FREY: Where they land. And he needs the Republicans in New York in order to remain in control of the house.
SCIUTTO: I want to go back because I want to put up on the screen the proper numbers on one of the questions asked in this polling here, if we could put it up on the screen now, so 52 percent of Americans polled believe he's gone too far in presidential power, 39 percent about right.
So if you do the numbers there, 52-47, its almost similar to his approval disapproval ratings. And let's show another one of the figures. And that's his efforts to cut federal programs, 51 percent say he has gone too far about right. I mean, not gone far enough. Again, that's like you add up those two bottom numbers there, 51-49. I mean, it's like you said.
FREY: It's the -- it's -- it's the political coalitions that exist within the country. And because of both the Electoral College and the math and how engaged certain coalitions within the different the Democratic versus the Republican coalition were during the election. I mean, it kind of just speaks to the ultimate result of all that.
SCIUTTO: Well -- listen, he won the election.
FREY: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: Kevin Frey, thanks so much for coming in this morning.
FREY: Good to be here.
SCIUTTO: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, a heart-wrenching return home. Hamas releases the remains of four slain Israeli hostages, said to include two very young children.
Plus, a midair plane collision leaves two people dead in Arizona. How did this one happen?
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[05:24:35]
SCIUTTO: An update now on the health of Pope Francis. The Vatican says he is showing slight improvement after being diagnosed with pneumonia in both his lungs. The 88-year-old pontiff has been hospitalized since last week following a string of lung related medical struggles. Prayers pouring in from across the globe. In his home country of Argentina, the archdiocese of Buenos Aires is
urging all churches to hold masses and prayers for the pope's swift recovery.
[05:25:04]
CNN's Barbie Nadeau is in Rome, where Pope Francis remains hospitalized.
So, some good news here. In the last 24 hours. Do folks there believe he is out of the woods now, health wise?
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: You know, I mean, I think no one is going to is willing to say that yet. He's 88 years old. He's got mobility problems and he's got pneumonia in both lungs, one of which is compromised. He had half of one of his lungs removed when he was a young man.
But there is optimism. You know, this incremental good news we understand this morning he was able to get out of the hospital bed, sit in a chair and have breakfast there. Yesterday, we understood he only got out of the bed and sat in the chair.
So these are improvements. We also understand from the Vatican press office that he's meeting with his close collaborators. He's making decisions on behalf of the church. He's reading correspondence. He's answering. He's in charge, basically, is what they're trying to say.
Yesterday, he had his first outside visitor. That was the prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who spent 20 minutes there. Her -- after, her reflection was basically that he was reactive and that he still had his sense of humor.
So these are all good signs. But a lot of the information, of course, we get from the Vatican press office is highly curated. They're very they keep, you know, their cards close to their chest, lets say, on these things.
So we don't really know necessarily how long he's going to be here. Next week, of course, is the beginning of lent with Ash Wednesday. That's a hugely important time for -- for any pope, especially this one during a holy jubilee year which started at the end of last year. So all of everybody's hoping he gets back on his feet, hoping that he makes a recovery. But it is with any 88 year old elderly person with compromised health. It is just really, you know, wait and hope. And as most of the world is doing right now, praying for the pontiff -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, it's a good point.
Barbie Latza Nadeau, thank you so much for keeping us up to date.
It is 26 minutes past the hour, and here's your "Morning Roundup".
Two people dead after two small planes collided in mid-air at an Arizona airport on Wednesday. This is just northwest of Tucson. Officials say two people were on each plane. The operator of one of the planes, a commercial flight training school, says its two pilots were not injured. The airport is closed while the investigation there is ongoing.
The Department of Health and Human Services is narrowing its definitions of words related to sex. It now defines the words male and female only by biological characteristics, and the word sex is classified only as male or female, excluding people who are intersex. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. said the move restores biological truths to the U.S. government.
Today, the Senate will vote to break a filibuster on Kash Patel nomination to become FBI director. Patel cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12 to 10, and is set for confirmation by the Republican controlled Senate. That vote, which initially seemed to be a long shot, is expected to go through this afternoon.
Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, a heartbreaking return. Four Israeli hostages who include two children and their mother coming home sadly in caskets.
Plus, Ukraine's future uncertain as a very public rift erupts between President Trump and Zelenskyy.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): It's disgusting to see an American president turn against one of our friends and openly side with a thug.
SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): Zelenskyy ought to have elections and stop lecturing the American president who's trying to bring peace to his country.
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