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Trump Calls Zelenskyy a Dictator; Inflation Hurting Trump's Approval Numbers; Bodies of Four Hostages Cross into Israel from Gaza. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired February 20, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, February 20. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
[06:00:36]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Sounds like a threat. Doubling down. President Trump continuing to repeat Russian talking points, falsely labeling the Ukrainian president now as a dictator.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The heart of an entire nation is torn. My heart is torn. Yours, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Just a somber day in Israel. Hamas handing over the remains of four Israeli hostages, including, it's believed, two youngest victims taken on October 7th.
And this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The president is committed, as he was in the first term, to rebuilding America's military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: An about-face. Secretary Hegseth said the U.S. would be reinvesting in the military. Now, however, he is looking for many billions of dollars to cut.
Then later -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): We do not back down. Not now, not ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Pushing back. New York governor vowing not to back down, as you heard there, after President Trump kills congestion -- congestion pricing in New York City and tweets, "Long live the king."
Six a.m. here on the East Coast. Live look at the Capitol dome there. Good morning, everyone. I'm Jim Sciutto, in again for Kasie Hunt. Great to have you with us.
President Trump doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on criticisms and conspiracy theories about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He refuses to have elections. He's low in the real Ukrainian polls. I mean, how can you be high with -- every city is being demolished? It's hard to be.
Somebody said, oh, no, his polls are good. Give me a break.
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: No elections. Right? Because of an ongoing Russian invasion. The president of the United States calling Democratically elected president of an ally a dictator.
It's true that the elections scheduled for last spring were postponed. But that delay, which has repeatedly been authorized, we should note, by Ukraine's elected Parliament, is due to the ongoing Russian invasion.
President Trump's comments once again echo a key Kremlin talking point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Unfortunately, President Trump, I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for -- the American people who always support us -- unfortunately, lives in this disinformation space.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Just hours after Zelenskyy said that, Trump provided a stark example of just what that disinformation space looks like.
The president posted on Truth Social, quote, "Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is missing" and, quote, "Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the gravy train going."
Of course, that's just not true. Zelenskyy has never said that. He has, however, taken issue with the way aid for Ukraine is often characterized as a blank check or pile of cash.
In reality, aid to Ukraine largely takes the form of contracts given, we should note, to American companies to produce weapons and supplies here in the U.S.
A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that in last year's aid package alone, about 72 percent of this money overall and 86 percent of the military aid will be spent -- where? -- here in the United States.
Hours after calling Zelenskyy a dictator, the president was asked about his comments. And he used the opportunity to once again push for Ukraine and not Russia, which invaded Ukraine, to change its behavior.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's time for elections. They haven't had an election in a long time. It's wonderful to say, you know, we can't have an election, but it's time for elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Again, Ukraine is continuing to be attacked by Russia.
Joining me now to discuss: Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal"; Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter; Meghan Hays, Democratic strategist, former director of message planning for the Biden White House; and Joe Walsh, former Republican representative from Illinois, host of the podcast "The Social Contract."
Good to have you with me.
Joe, I'm going to begin with you, because I know how you feel about this. I just wonder, for your party, what it means for the U.S. president to not just overlap with some Russian talking points on the war, but straight up repeat them.
[06:05:11]
Repeat the Russian rationale for the invasion. Repeat the Russian framing. Repeat the Russian description of the elected Ukrainian president. Straight up. Repeat them. What does it mean?
JOE WALSH (R), FORMER ILLINOIS CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE: Straight up, he's siding with Putin.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
WALSH: The president of the United States is siding with Vladimir Putin. Period. We know, I know privately, this is just pissing off Senate Republicans, especially. But Jim, Trump's hold on this party is a thousand times stronger than
it was before November.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
WALSH: So, I think even among Senate Republicans, you're going to hear just a few grumbles when they should be publicly outraged about this.
SCIUTTO: There are some Republican -- elected Republican members of Congress, in the Senate and the House, who are saying this quite publicly. I want to play one now from Don Bacon, who spoke on CNN just last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Well, the president needs a do-over day and start again. He took a bad turn. I think what he said is wrong, and I -- and it's a shame.
I think many Republicans -- I'm not saying all -- but many Republicans know what the president said today was wrong.
I would ask that our president stand on the side of freedom, the side of democracy, the side of the victim, not the invader. And -- and stick up for what's right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Yes. The trouble is, Meghan Hays, it's not just rhetoric; it's the policy. Trump is signaling he's going to end U.S. Aid for Ukraine. And more broadly, it seems, for Europe as a whole.
What are Democrats doing to prevent that from happening?
MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING FOR BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: I don't know that they're doing a lot. I'm not sure that there is a lot to be done. I think that the way that you solve these things is with elections. This is another thing. Elections have consequences.
He was very clear about this when he met with -- with Zelenskyy during the election. He was very clear that he was not on his side.
And it's just -- it's a shame, because we are -- you know, the Biden administration, agree or disagree. They created a coalition of over 50 allies that supported Ukraine. They've always had their back.
And its, you know, Putin is not just going to go after Ukraine. It's going to be Poland next. There are other people. It's just -- he's going to keep going if we let him. And I just feel very much like the president is giving them carte blanche to do that.
And siding with Putin is not what we believe in as a democracy. And it's really unfortunate to watch this all happen.
SCIUTTO: And listen, to your point, this is not just talk. I -- I speak to -- to leaders, officials in Eastern Europe, and they say quite openly, we're next. The Estonians say, We're next if Ukraine falls.
Molly Ball. Former congressman Tom Malinowski, he tweeted a number of legislative options Congress has to -- to attempt to prevent some of these steps for things like not appropriating money to remove U.S. troops from Europe, things like that.
But we've seen the Republican-controlled Congress bend to pretty much everything Trump wants to do, with a few occasional dissenters. Is there any indication that Congress would stand in the way?
MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": No, I don't think so. I think -- I think what we saw with the Senate debate over Ukraine aid about a year ago, that while there are more senior Republican senators who are quite disturbed by what Trump is doing, the younger generation, which at that time a year ago was led by senator J.D. Vance, takes a very different view of this conflict and a very different view of the U.S. role in the world, and a very different view of the transatlantic relationship.
And so, you know, you have an administration that -- Meghan is exactly right. He was very clear about this during the campaign, that he did not endorse the Biden administration's strategy --
SCIUTTO: Yes.
BALL: -- of being wholly on the side of the Ukrainians in this conflict.
There are people around him who take the view that this -- this is what's needed to end the conflict, is for America not to be so clearly taking sides, in order to be seen as an honest broker by both parties, in order to come to some kind of end to this conflict. I'm not saying that's a correct view, but it is a view.
And we now see the president, you know, pursuing exactly what he said he would do in the campaign. And it is, of course, disruptive and disturbing to people who believed in America's traditional alliances and our traditional, you know, role as advocates of freedom in the world.
SCIUTTO: It's quite a remarkable idea to say honest broker when we're talking about an invasion.
David Frum tweeted a comment about Neville Chamberlain, of course, infamous, right, for attempting to make a deal with Hitler, saying that even -- "Even Neville Chamberlain, to do him justice" -- quoting Frum here -- "never amplified under his own byline Hitler's propaganda against the Czechs."
Trump is amplifying Kremlin -- the Kremlin propaganda here.
Isaac, we have a new CNN poll out today, which we're going to detail later this hour, which does show that his approval rating is underwater. But -- but still one of the highest approval ratings he had going back to his last term.
[06:10:05]
The Afghanistan withdrawal greatly hurt Joe Biden. And, by the way, was a source of enormous Republican criticism of Joe Biden. Does Trump risk an Afghanistan, in effect, if he abandons Ukraine?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Perhaps. I think what happened with Joe Biden was a specific circumstance around Afghanistan, which is his whole thought that he put forward to the American people in 2020, is that he was confident he knew how the world worked. He could do things.
And then the withdrawal from Afghanistan in those couple of days was so messy. The Marines who were killed. It felt like, oh, you're not competent.
It hit at the same time, roughly, as when the Delta variant came back for COVID.
So that was something that he never really recovered from, starting from August of 2021.
This is a bigger question about what kind of world we're going to be coming into, perhaps. And look, there may be withdrawals. Let's see what it looks like if we do have Donald Trump try to withdraw troops from Europe or change what the situation is with the war in Ukraine.
So, it may be that logistically, and it may just be people confronting the idea that what does it mean when America doesn't stand with its allies anymore?
SCIUTTO: Yes.
DOVERE: What does it mean when America is saying, OK, if a powerful country invades another country, then the -- the other country is the one that needs to give in. And how people process that.
Foreign policy is not usually the kind of thing that voters or Americans pay deep, deep attention to. But these are fundamental questions about what America is.
SCIUTTO: Listen, they don't pay attention until it affects their lives.
DOVERE: Right.
SCIUTTO: Right? You know, I mean, look at 9/11 as an example, right? We don't have to worry about what's happening in that part of the world. Of course, it came to touch -- touch Americans' lives, sadly.
Stay with us. Much more to discuss. Coming up, as I just teed up there, President Trump's approval rating. A new CNN poll shows what Americans think of the job he's doing.
Plus, a heartbreaking return home. Israel now has custody of the bodies of four hostages taken on October 7th. It's said, sadly, to include the bodies of the two youngest victims. And how Ukrainians are feeling about the U.S. pushing them out of peace talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the biggest disappointment and fear for me, to understand that these three years was a waste of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[06:16:44]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This. This is the cost of food. This is the cost of your basics. Every single thing is up. Eggs up 48 percent, cookies up 27 percent. Look at what's going on. Butter up 31 percent. And this is just the beginning. It's a disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: That was President Trump on the campaign trail. But now that he's been in office for a month, a new CNN poll shows a large percentage of Americans, 62 percent, in fact, believe he has not done enough to bring prices down.
Roughly half say Trump has gone too far, as well, in cutting government programs. The president addressed those cuts yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: He likes to send checks. We know that. You remember back in COVID relief, early days. He made sure his name was on those checks.
But Joe Walsh, on the numbers there regarding where prices are. And the thing is, economists don't believe prices are coming down anytime soon, nor does the Fed. Is that a political risk for him?
WALSH: Yes. And I apologize, Jim. I can't move past what we just talked about in the last segment.
Donald Trump is saying everything Vladimir Putin would say. and you mentioned the American people generally don't care about what's going on over there.
The American president right now could be a plant, could be a Russian asset. I mean, think about that. Here I am. I know it's early in the morning to say something like
that, but think about that.
And if the American people don't care about that, that Putin might have something on Trump, that he's an asset, that he's a plant, that he's doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin. If the American people don't care about that, well --
SCIUTTO: The thing is, listen --
WALSH: I'm sorry to get off the topic.
SCIUTTO: We don't have evidence of that. I mean, the point about their positions being aligned is a different --
WALSH: Identical.
SCIUTTO: -- is a different one.
WALSH: Everything he's done, everything he's said for 8 or 9 years is exactly what Vladimir Putin would say and want him to do.
SCIUTTO: Now, Trump may very well believe that, right? May believe that that's a better path.
And I wonder, Meghan Hays, do you worry that a lot of Americans agree with him on that, that you know what? I don't care about Ukraine. I don't care about Europe. I don't care about the international order. Does he have, possibly, the politics right?
HAYS: So, I don't necessarily think people don't care about it. I think they care more about their cost of groceries than they care about Ukraine. And I think that's the problem. And I think that was the disconnect during the campaign.
The Democrats did not lay out a message of why both things can be true and why both things are important. And if you're not bringing down their cost of groceries and listening to their kitchen-table issues, they can not worry about the aid that's being spent in Ukraine. That seems outrageous to them. Which -- which I fully understand.
If you can't afford eggs to feed your family, you're not going to be willing to have money going to Ukraine, where a country you probably don't know where it is on a map and never been there.
WALSH: I get that, and I agree with that. But your job as a candidate is to show and explain to the American people.
HAYS: Right. And the Democrats did not do that effectively.
SCIUTTO: And that's -- that's the thing that Democrats and Biden among them did not do sufficiently, right, which is to explain why they believe this is important, rather than say, in effect, take it for granted. Right.
[06:20:10] WALSH: Exactly.
SCIUTTO: This is important. Just trust me.
HAYS: We thought that people would hold onto a democracy message and why democracy is important; really underestimating how bad people we were really hurting in their kitchen table issues.
SCIUTTO: Yes. So, I mean, as -- when you look at these numbers here, do you see the makings of -- beyond their feeling about prices? I mean, Trump's approval rating is still underwater.
DOVERE: Right. And you know, and our poll has language in it that says his numbers are better than they've ever been for him, but they're also worse than any other president.
So, by the Trump standard, Trump is doing a little bit better than he was in his first term. By any other standard, he's doing notably worse.
The question about prices is not just that they haven't gone down or that they have gone up. It's that he has not -- he's been president for a month and three days now. There has not been anything that he's done to address prices.
SCIUTTO: Right.
DOVERE: He's talked about a lot of things, been a lot of executive orders, a lot of press conferences, a lot of this stuff.
But as for actual actions that are directed towards lowering prices, there haven't been any. And that's, again, as prices have gone up and stayed up.
SCIUTTO: And, in fact, his policies upcoming, in the view of economists are inflationary. A tax cut is inflationary, and -- and tariffs are inflationary. So -- so how does he square that circle?
BALL: Now I think that those are the numbers in the poll that pose the most risk to Trump going forward. This idea that he's focused on the wrong things.
Because look, a lot of Americans bought the idea during the election that the reason you're suffering, the reason you're struggling is because were spending all this money on foreign countries, foreign aid, giving away the store, being played for suckers, sending it all to Ukraine.
You know, numerically, that wasn't true in the sense that, you know, the amounts that we're spending -- you know, the amounts that Elon Musk is getting out of this DOGE effort, they're pennies compared to the federal budget. They're not enough to send thousands of dollars to every American.
And -- and what I think people are seeing now is that the idea that, by tearing down this foreign aid structure or by taking away the money we were sending from Ukraine, the idea that that would make everybody's lives better doesn't seem to be --
SCIUTTO: Right.
BALL: -- happening, doesn't seem to be better. And that is --
SCIUTTO: And it's early, we should note. It's a month in, right?
BALL: People are giving him time. People -- people are looking at this, saying he's been president for a month. Let's see how this plays out.
SCIUTTO: Right.
BALL: Let's see if Elon is successful. Let's see if -- if I end up benefiting.
They're going to give him that honeymoon, but they're going to get impatient pretty quickly.
DOVERE: The issue with the checks is not only that it's not clear how much money the DOGE process is actually saving at this point. They've been confused by some of the cuts they've made. They've claimed -- there was one thing they said it was an $8 billion cut. It was an $8 million cut. That's a big difference.
SCIUTTO: That's a big rounding error.
DOVERE: But it's also we're going to go into this budget process next month where it looks like we're going to increase deficit spending. Even if you are going to send checks out to Americans, is it going to be the expense of not actually reducing the deficit?
SCIUTTO: Or -- or they'll just make up the numbers. We've seen it happen before. Congress is good at doing that. Joe Walsh knows that.
Stand by. We will have you back.
In sad news, just a painful day in Israel. The bodies of four slain hostages cross over from Gaza. Their final journey home.
Hamas displaying four black caskets before transferring them over to the Red Cross.
Why is this particularly sad? Because the remains are said to include the youngest of the 250 people kidnaped by Hamas on October 7th. There they are, Kfir Bibas, Ariel Bibas. Kfir, just nine months old at the time of capture. Ariel, 4 years old.
The handoff was also said to include the bodies of their mother, Shiri, as well as 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz.
The remains are now being transferred to a forensic institute in Tel Aviv. You can see the convoy there.
Some Israelis are still holding out hope going forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YITACH COHEN, KIBBUTZ NIR OZ RESIDENT: So, Shiri and -- and the kids became a symbol. I'm sure they are -- doesn't want it. But, yes, I'm still hope that they will be alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: Well, that kibbutz suffered so much on the day, October 7th.
CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is in Jerusalem. Nic, tell us -- I mean, the faces of those two young babies become -- became really powerful faces of October 7th. The youngest victims there, their smiles. You see their pictures everywhere in Israel.
Tell us about the impact of -- of the hope that they might have survived disappearing.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. And I think, as well, another image that sort of seared into the collective memory of this country is that of Shiri trying to protect Kfir and Ariel as -- as she's being hauled off by Hamas.
[06:25:02]
She's got her arms around them. She's covering them in a blanket. She's holding them, carrying her sons here. And that fear, that look on her face.
And then the whole trauma of their captivity, and the Hamas saying that they had died as a result of Israeli bombing, the IDF not able to confirm that in any way.
And the country followed it on a roller coaster, emotionally; all the time, hoping against hope that they would be released, that their names would come up.
And I spoke also last weekend with Sharon Lifshitz, the son -- the daughter, rather, of Oded. And she told me, too, that just hoping against hope that the reports, the rumors were not true; that they would come back.
And I think we're seeing this playing out today. The -- the somber and ceremony as -- as the Red Cross has handed over to the IDF. These caskets, now wrapped in Israeli flags now, as you say, on that convoy.
All along that convoy route, you are seeing people coming out, Israelis at intersections, standing there waving flags, showing their respect.
And in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where, when there's been live hostages released, there's been jubilation. It's been a very, very somber day. And I think that really speaks to the fate of that family, but also the fate of their community, Nir Oz.
Seventy-four hostages taken, 117 people murdered or taken hostage, more than a quarter of the kibbutz. And that kibbutz, among all of them, the IDF didn't get there until after Hamas and the other groups had left.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
ROBERTSON: That sense of that community lost out in so many ways. All of that adds up, Jim.
SCIUTTO: And there still hasn't been a full-scale investigation, right, of the IDF response and the intelligence failures leading up, as well. Just so many threads coming together there.
Nic Robertson in Jerusalem, thanks so much.
Coming up, the largest federal agency of them all, now under the DOGE microscope. The cuts that could be coming to the U.S. military.
Plus, a storied maritime icon, the S.S. United States, prepares for its final chapter. One of the five things you have to see this morning.
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