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Ukraine's Zelenskyy Arrives in DC to Sign Agreement with Trump; Trump & Zelenskyy Meet Face-to-Face; Trump, Zelenskyy Holding Pivotal Talks on Ukraine's Future. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 28, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm Dana Bash in Washington, and we are following breaking news right now as we speak, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are holding critical talks in the Oval Office. We are expecting video of that meeting any minute, and we will bring it directly to you when we get it.

The presidents are expected to sign a deal giving the U.S. a financial stake in the Ukrainian mineral deposits. Zelenskyy is hoping to get some sort of security guarantee from Donald Trump in exchange for that. Of course, this is all about the future of Ukraine, which does hang in the balance.

And one of the many questions right now is, will the U.S. stand by Ukraine, a sovereign democracy, or the strong man who ordered a brutal invasion of Ukraine? CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is live in Kyiv, Ukraine, but we're start here in Washington at the White House. Jeff Zeleny is there for us? Jeff, we are starting to get some notes from inside the meeting give us a sense of what is happening and more importantly, your reporting from your sources surrounding this meeting?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Dana, the central question hanging over this extraordinary meeting with the two presidents is, what type of guarantee, if any security guarantee, will the United States extend to Ukraine? In short, will the U.S. abandon Ukraine?

And we're hearing the questions now coming to the leaders inside the Oval Office. We'll see them later, but Zelenskyy has just said a few moments ago that he believes that Trump is on our side, so that signals the posture going into this meeting that both leaders obviously would like to make a deal, obviously for very different reasons.

But that has been a central question here, as these two men are meeting for the first time since September. It was last September in Trump Tower when Trump was a candidate for president. Again, Zelenskyy met with him at that point, the discussion was about the future of security guarantees, but now it is so much different, because Trump has reset the relations with Russia.

He has opened the door to discussions with Vladimir Putin in this meeting just a few moments ago, we're told, according to reporters in the room, that the Zelenskyy described the Russian leader as a terrorist. Of course, that is something we have not heard Donald Trump say at all.

In fact, just yesterday, he says, I trust him to make a deal. So those are the outlines of this conversation here. But there is no doubt that Zelenskyy wants to leave this meeting with some type of assurances and reassurances that the U.S. will be on their side.

It's notable Dana that just right before he came to the White House, he met with a bipartisan group of Senators, but it was a dwindling number of Republicans at the table, and that underscores how the foreign policy, both here in the U.S. and indeed the posture to the world, has changed remarkably in this new Trump era.

BASH: All right, stand by Jeff. Nick, I want to go to you. Can you give us a sense of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine right now, three years in to this war?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, it's a horrific picture for Ukraine, to be honest, because this key plank of their military and financial support the United States. When you saw Zelenskyy shaking hands with Donald Trump and entering the White House convivial certainly, and apparently a reference towards the black T-shirt that we've seen Zelenskyy wearing for some time from the President of the United States.

But it just reminded me of how common that image was in the past when President Biden was in office, and it seemed to sort of jar with the rarity in the import of this particular moment. Just one thing people should remember since President Donald Trump called Zelenskyy falsely a dictator, a comment that he said yesterday he can't believe he would have said 47 Ukrainians have lost their lives in that 10-day period from Russian strikes.

That's just the civilians hit by the drones that last night came in 200 number most nights come in over 100 numbers from Russia attacking infrastructure and civilian targets across Ukraine. 222 were injured in that 10-day period. That's putting aside the hundreds of troops that we know die daily on the front lines from both sides.

And horrific trench warfare remnant of World War I but one that is pursued, often through swarms of drones that are now causing the armor traditionally used in war like that on land between land armies to be less relevant and roughly transform the war for into something frankly barbaric and horrifying that's often visible through the cameras of these drones in great intimate and gory detail.

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So, the war here is something where Russia is making incremental but important strategic advances, leaving many wonderings quite why Moscow would seek a deal right now. And it's also one where Ukraine is increasingly in doubt about its military supplies. Most think it's got everything OK until the end of this year, the year after significantly in doubt.

And there's a morale question, a recruitment question that comes with the idea of the United States no longer really having Ukraine's backs in the way that it did under President Biden. That's why this meeting is so key. Because yes, Ukraine wants security guarantees, but it's heard again and again from Trump, and it won't get into NATO that was always pretty far-fetched, and it won't have U.S. troops on the ground here. That was also nearly never going to happen in a meaningful public fashion.

What it instead seems to seek is some sort of European security force that might police a piece here, a just peace, and they need the U.S. backs for that. Trump wasn't explicit yesterday when he met Starmer, the U.K. Prime Minister on that, but he said they would have the British backs.

And so, this is a key moment, because really the question Zelenskyy needs answering from Trump is, well, there's two, really. Firstly, do you like me? Can we forge an interpersonal relationship here? And are you willing to continue U.S. aid in the way that the Biden Administration did?

And just what Jeff was saying there, it sounds like Zelenskyy is coming really strong out of the gates here, talking about Putin as a terrorist. He's appealing to an American audience there to get them on his side, talking about what Russia has really done in this big forum. And that's going to be an interesting tone to strike, Dana.

BASH: Yeah, and so Nick. Jeff, I'm going to go back to you. Nick talked a lot about the battlefield and the realities there. And as you were talking, Nick, I should say that you were talking about the trench warfare like World War I. We had video of just this week, of just that. And I was thinking exactly what you said.

It really is reminiscent of the battlefields that we all read about and see pictures of in World War I. It is still going on. But meanwhile, Jeff, what I want to ask you about is this rare mineral deal, because the economics of this is clearly where Donald Trump's advisers, both inside the White House on Capitol Hill, think that they have the best shot at forging that relationship between him and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. So, the question is whether or not the deal is ready and it will be signed today.

ZELENY: Dana, it is extraordinary the degree to which the details do not seem to be complete, certainly not shared with us, which, of course, is not unusual. But even behind the scenes talking to advisors, there is some trepidation about saying exactly what they know to be in the deal. We know it's not in the deal.

We know that the U.S. has made some concessions, and that is basically to limit the amount of money of revenue coming up that they would take from Ukraine. But we did just hear the president, according to reporters in the room say he hopes that there will be a deal signed today. He says there will be a deal signed after they meet separately and then have a press conference later today. So, the question is, what is in that deal?

But that is just one part of this negotiation. The president also saying this would be a great agreement if we can get the war to be stopped, and that is the central question here, if the war will stop, as Nick was just reporting, looking at the images of what's happening day by day by day, the intelligence assessments still coming here to the White House, Russia has not stopped.

So that is the question. But as we're seeing reports coming in from the Oval, it is something that the president says, I want to get it solved. And Dana that underlies all of this, Donald Trump wants to make a deal.

BASH: He said he was going to end the war when he got into office, and that is definitely what he is trying to do here, although forget about the details of the rare minerals economic deal, the question is very still up in the air, how he will stop the bloodshed that Nick was just reporting on. OK, both of you, please stand by as we wait to actually hear from Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy when we see that tape, when it comes as we wait for that.

Here at the table is Susan Glasser of "The New Yorker", CNN's Alex Marquart, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, and CNN's Isaac Dovere. Hello, everybody. Just as we sort of get, us try to get a sense of what's happening in the room, I got a note from one of the Senators in the big bipartisan meeting that they had.

Although Jeff was right, there were fewer Republicans there than there has been in the past, saying that there was an upbeat discussion about the future of the U.S. Ukraine relationship built on investment, security and reconstruction. Also noted that the Ukrainian rather recently passed a resolution supporting Zelenskyy's legitimacy and reaffirming they won't hold elections until sustainable peace is secured.

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And this is a reference to what last week when Donald Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, suggested that there should be elections soon, which, of course, yesterday, he claimed that he didn't remember saying that, which he said in multiple, multiple platforms.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and obviously that the Ukrainian argument against that is that there's martial law in Ukraine because there's a war, and it's very difficult to carry out elections. When you have so many people who have fled the country, you have so many people on the front lines.

And as Nick was just saying, you have cities all across the country that are being bombarded every night. What we're going to see today, I think, is a much softer stance from both men. I mean, we saw Trump walk-back the dictator comment yesterday. A couple weeks ago, Zelenskyy came out essentially swinging in the Munich Security Conference, saying we can't count on America anymore, but he is here expressly to get that American support.

He is giving President Trump a win. Trump gets to walk away saying we've got this deal that's going to give us these billions and billions of dollars back of that we spent on unsecured aid. How that's going to happen? We don't know. Zelenskyy himself gets a win in that. He gets to come here and have this meeting with President Trump before President Putin gets his own meeting.

So, it's going to be a lot of fan-fare, a lot of positive comments about this deal that is on the table, which, by the way, is extremely vague, but the backdrop of all this Dana is those question, that question about security guarantees. Will Zelenskyy be able to build on what President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer did earlier this week and get some kind of assurances from President Trump that the U.S. will not abandon Ukraine. And if there's a peace deal, what that U.S. military backstop, as the Brits have been calling it would look like.

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Yeah. I mean, the problem is, I think we need to pull back and say Donald Trump holding up Ukraine for part of its national wealth, whether it's -- you know something that can be actionable or not in the foreseeable future, doesn't actually get the world one step closer to peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Right now, what's so remarkable to people who have been closely observing this conflict and what Russia is doing is that we're negotiating with our own partner and ally, and you know, we're not asking any concessions of Russia, not only that, but Donald Trump, of course, has conceded on the front end many of the things that someone else might have held out for negotiation with Russia, even without peace talks.

Donald Trump has said major concession, I will never support Ukraine entering NATO, for example, he has ruled out American troops. He has been extremely skeptical, and I think we all should be very skeptical that there will be any additional U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

So again, I would just point out that forcing Ukraine to sign over some portion of its mineral rights the United States actually is not getting us any bit closer to any kind of a peace deal with Russia, and you have the United States and its President amplifying Russian talking points about the war, including these lies about Zelenskyy as an unelected dictator.

BASH: Yeah, that was why I really wanted to kind of separate what Nick Paton Walsh was talking about with regard to the military and this economic deal. Let's just stay on the economic deal, though for a second, noting that the backdrop, if you will, that you are pointing out that it's not really related to whether or not the war will end?

Ukraine's key raw materials. What are we talking about here when we say the raw mineral deal? Titanium could be used for aerospace construction. Lithium could be used for battery, ceramics, glass, graphite, steel production, and would help with the automotive industry. Nickel and cobalt electric vehicle production, et cetera. So that's what it could be used for. The big question, as you alluded

to Susan, is whether or not these raw materials, rare earth materials, are even there. And if they are there --

MARQUARDT: Yeah.

BASH: -- how accessible they are?

MARQUARDT: I mean, there are indications they have some of this stuff. And we have a lot of this stuff. In fact, we have vast deposits of this. And we don't mine it ourselves. We get it from elsewhere. There are a lot of questions about what they actually have.

A lot of these maps that we're seeing show deposits all across the country are based on very outdated surveys, surveys that were done in the Soviet era. So, we don't know what is there. We're talking about rare earths. We've heard President Trump talking about rare earths quite a bit.

The U.S. Geological Survey says that there are zero proven reserves, zero proven reserves of rare earth minerals. There are all kinds of what are called critical minerals. You just listed a bunch of them. Ukraine does have large deposits of these minerals, but they pale in comparison to other countries.

And we get them from other countries. And then Dana, some of the most significant or potential deposits are in the eastern part of the country where so much of this war is being fought, whether it's contested areas where there are all kinds of unexploded ordnance, or in the Russian occupied areas.

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So, in the words of a lot of a number of Biden Administration officials who I spoke with, who, by the way, were offered this deal themselves, it's hugely impractical. It takes years, decades, billions of dollars to extract this stuff. And that's for starters, one Biden Administration official said that that kind of attitude, this approach, is, in fact, colonial.

BASH: Well, yeah, there's, there's that, but I think there's also, we're going to take a break and talk to the two of you about the reality here, which is that it's political.

MARQUARDT: Absolutely.

BASH: This is -- this is all about Donald Trump being able to tell the world and to tell his base, I got something out of Ukraine, whether or not they'll be able to access these minerals, is a big question. Coming up, what is Donald Trump saying to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office as we speak, that video is going to be coming out soon, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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[12:20:00] BASH: Welcome back to "Inside Politics". We are waiting to hear exactly what is going on in the Oval Office meeting which is happening as we speak, that meeting between the U.S. President Trump, and the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And as we wait for that, I want to continue to talk here with our incredibly smart reporters. Isaac, I do want to talk about the politics of this, because it is fascinating, the way that Zelenskyy is trying to say all the things and make all the moves that he knows will appeal to Donald Trump, with the end goal of making sure that he saves his own country in Ukraine.

So, for example, he said this is a report we're getting from in the room that he thinks Donald Trump is on our side as they began their summit.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I mean, this is the game with Donald Trump that all the world leaders are in the middle of is trying to say nice things to him, or things that make him feel good, so that he will act nicely toward them. It is more of a please the emperor kind of approach than we have seen with past presidents.

And Donald Trump clearly likes that. That's the way it goes. But what this is ultimately, I mean, talk about whether there are the rare earth minerals. It's not about an alliance. This is about what can you do for me, what's in it for us? Politically, that is where Donald Trump is.

It's also, I think importantly, where a number of Americans are, millions of Americans who, whether they're on the right or the left, who have said, where is the money going to why don't we have money for schools? Why don't we have money for groceries? Now, the reality of how that all intersects is a little bit more complicated, but Trump is tapping into that, in addition to the fact that he just likes personally, the way that is.

World leaders you see it percolating up. Francois Holland, the Former President of France, said today that Americans may be Europe's friends, but we're not exactly allies anymore. I was last week at the National Governors Association meeting, and Doug Ford, who may be the next Prime Minister of Canada, was there, and he said, we have no problem with Americans, but one person here is what we're dealing with. That's the way this is now.

BASH: I want to go back to Jeff Zeleny. Jeff, you've got some reporting on what's happening inside the Oval Office.

ZELENY: We do. And as this meeting approaches about an hour, according to reports in the room, there are some tense exchanges now with Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now just to explain how we're getting this. This is a closed event where the White House press pool is in there.

Today it's a CNN's time in the rotation. So, hearing from our colleagues and other reporters in the room, we are learning about this tense exchange with Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. All about democracy. I'll read you one line here.

It says, President Zelenskyy interrupts Vice President Vance and said, we signed a deal with Putin. He did not keep it. What kind of democracy are you talking about? The Vice President responds at some point that this is a disrespectful there was a back and forth, we're told, between Zelenskyy and Vice President Vance.

And Trump at what point? President Trump interjections and says, do not tell us what we're going to feel. And goes on to say that you're not in a good position talking to a Zelenskyy. So, as we're sort of taking all of this in real time. We'll, of course, see all of it play out.

But Dana just a flavor of the exchanges going on in here. This is not a photo-op. This is the crux of the meeting playing out right here in real time between Zelenskyy Trump and Vance. And Vance, perhaps more than anyone, signifies the vast change, at least, of domestic foreign policy in the U.S. that at the beginning of this war, there was bipartisan agreement to help Ukraine, to send aid to Ukraine.

That is no longer the case, of course. He represented Ohio in the Senate, many Ukrainian citizens there as well. Everything has changed, politically speaking. But as we are seeing these reports, some tense exchanges, we do not know what that will mean to the ultimate deal today, perhaps nothing.

But we also, since we talked to you last, President Trump said, I'm not aligned with Putin. I'm aligned with the U.S. and what's good for the world. President Trump also saying that he is spoken with Vladimir Putin several times. So, once we get a fuller context of this, we will let you know, but just a flavor of what is happening inside the Oval Office at this hour.

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BASH: Yeah, wow. We were sitting here talking about how Zelenskyy is trying to play Donald Trump, the way that he believes that will be the most helpful to the existential threat that is Russia to Ukraine, and then, you know, in a matter of seconds, things change in that meeting. Thank you, Jeff.

I want to go to Nick Paton Walsh, back in Ukraine to react to what you just heard from Jeff. And as you do, I just want to add to what Jeff said. I'm looking at one of the pool reports, Jeff explained that these are representatives of the U.S. press pool inside the Oval Office. Trump said to Zelenskyy, you don't have the cards.

WALSH: Yeah, he said that before, and he also said in the same interview that he was sick of it. And so, this is obviously a meeting that hasn't gone with the sense of -- that Emmanuel Macron was able to bring, or the charm of Keir Starmer. And this is -- in one of two ways.

We've heard previous observers of President Trump say that he respects strength, that if he sees somebody fears him, then he feels he might be able to exploit that, or that is something which could potentially lead him to feel the person can be given a less good deal.

But does sound like there's elements of not acrimony, but some of the bad blood we've seen over the past week or 10 days may be seeping in to this conversation that could potentially lead to a later robust exchange and respect for the Ukrainian leader's position.

But it does also sound like there's a possibility that this may be opening the wounds of the past 10 days or week ago. We have to get a more contextual read out of all of this, but certainly from some of the notes that Jeff was describing there, if indeed, Zelenskyy has called Putin a terrorist. He is clearly trying to use some of the harshest language he can about the Kremlin head that may leave Trump uncomfortable, who is reticent to speak in a negative way about the Russian President.

And it may also be too the Ukrainian President is playing to an audience here outside of that particular room, to try and put Trump in a position where he's obliged to continue Ukrainian support. But you have to remember too, we've seen how the whiplash of the past week can change things, and we need more detail about what's happening in the room, but it may not be going as smoothly, perhaps, as the European leaders who tried to pave the road at this moment, had hoped.

BASH: And Nick the pool was just escorted out of the Oval Office, which means we will get taped soon. One of the other things that we're told Donald Trump said when asked, what if Putin breaks the deal? What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head?

So doesn't sound like it was warm and fuzzy the whole time, that is for sure. But we are going to be able to hear all of this for ourselves. We're going to sneak in a quick break as we wait for this tape to come back. Don't go anywhere.

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