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WH: Trump Held Positive Call With Putin This Morning On Ukraine; Trump, Netanyahu Set To Meet Amid Rising Middle East Tensions; Rep: MTG On Trump Foreign Meetings: "Can We Just Do America?" Aired 12-12.30p ET

Aired December 29, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump just wrapped up a call with Russia's Vladimir Putin hours after a face to face meeting with the Ukrainian president. Did any of the sticking points get resolved? I'm Phil Mattingly in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines in Inside Politics.

We start things off with President Trump's peace-making efforts at Mar-a-Lago. In the next hour, he will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance the second phase of the Gaza Peace Plan amid rising tensions in the region. But this morning, the focus is on the war still raging in Europe.

Just moments ago, the President got off the phone with Russian President Vladimir -- Vladimir Putin, in what the White House called a quote positive conversation. Yesterday, of course, President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Still, the countries all seem far apart from a peace agreement with a number of critical road blocks remaining.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters who have all of the answers to all of the questions, including the questions that still have been unanswered now multiple years into this war. Which is why (inaudible) you Alayna Treene.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Oh great.

MATTINGLY: So we got the tweet just a short while ago from Karoline Leavitt confirming that the call between Presidents Trump and Putin had occurred. Said it was a positive call. I know we don't have a full readout yet from that call, but what's your sense of where things stand right now this morning?

TREENE: Look, I think -- and yeah, I actually, I talked to Karoline about this. She said that's as far as they're willing to share on this call for the moment. I keep an eye on Truth Social of course, but look, I mean, we didn't really hear much news out of that more than three hour meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump. Yesterday, they emerged from that meeting, didn't announce any major breakthroughs, but there was a lot of optimism, particularly on Trump's side of it.

I mean, he came out saying he thinks that they're closer to a deal than they ever have been. Zelenskyy was a little bit more cautious. He went into the meeting and left also saying the same thing, which is that he believes that the -- at least on the U.S. and Ukrainian side, they believe 90 percent of the terms in this 20-point proposal have been agreed to.

Of course, it's that 10 percent that's remaining that is the thorniest issues that they still need to work out. That's land concessions. We're moving troops from the Donbas region. That's security guarantees. One major thing we did hear was Zelenskyy saying today that he thinks Trump is on board with a 15-year U.S. security guarantee.

Of course, the details of that are still have to be worked through, but that's a major development. And then there's also, you know, this idea of the nuclear facility in Ukraine that Russia has continued to attack, questions over that. So there's still a lot that needs to be worked out.

And I will say the tone that we heard from Zelenskyy yesterday and from Trump saying that they think they're close, more meetings will happen, was a little bit different than what we heard from the tone from Zelenskyy today. He was posting up a storm on X on social media, essentially saying that he doesn't believe that Russia is committed to peace, and so is this -- have there been a major breakthrough?

I don't think so, but I do think talks are still in a good place. And we know that's not always the case after Trump meets with leaders, particularly of people like Zelenskyy.

MATTINGLY: Especially the case with Zelenskyy, and we can go back through all the meetings throughout this kind of roller coaster year. It's also been a bit of a roller coaster year between President Trump and his view of President Putin, which has gone from good to bad to maybe things are terrible, maybe things are great, but he always seems to land in a similar place, as evidenced by this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't.

REPORTER: Do you still believe him when he tells you that he wants peace?

TRUMP: Yeah, no, I believe him. I believe him. I think he wanted the whole country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've said --

TRUMP: And because of me, I do believe that he's willing to stop the fighting.

And I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended.

I had a very good talk yesterday with President Putin. I think he wants to get it done.

REPORTER: Some are saying the recent attacks in the past couple days on that Russia staged against Ukraine, shows that President Putin isn't serious about peace. What is your reaction to that?

TRUMP: No, he's very serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Mario, that's February, March, April, August, October, and yesterday. We have not actually seen that from President Putin or the Russian side yet in terms of tangible, I don't know, deliverables that they're willing to put on the table. What happens next?

MARIO PARKER, NATIONAL POLITICS TEAM LEADER, BLOOMBERG: No, absolutely. We've seen this kind of vacillate throughout the year. I mean, the hallmark moment of this relationship was what we saw in Anchorage right with the fly over, the pageantry that Putin kind of smirking in the back of the beast as well.

And it goes to Alayna's point where, if there is any type of daylight between Trump and Zelenskyy and this new for -- new form of their relationship from what we saw earlier this year, it's the daylight on their views of Putin, right?

That's the one place Zelenskyy refuses to kind of concede is saying that Putin does want his country to succeed, as President Trump mentioned yesterday.

[12:05:00]

MATTINGLY: To that point, and I think that was actually a really interesting moment, one watching Volodymyr Zelenskyy's facial reaction was priceless, in and of itself, but also the kind of progression from that meeting in February, which was kind of the blowout meeting in Oval Office, and I think everybody was stunned by when it happened, to what happened yesterday, when the President made a claim that you could tell Zelenskyy didn't necessarily agree with, and Zelenskyy did not fight back or fire back or counter it in any way. He just kind of reacted facially. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Russia is going to be helping. Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. Once -- it sounds a little strange, but I was explaining to the president, President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: I'm not going to try and explain what Zelenskyy facial expression was, other than to say he seemed a little bit maybe not on board with the idea that the country that invaded him and had been trying to take over his country --

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Invaded twice.

MATTINGLY: -- really wanted them to succeed.

DOVERE: Yeah, it does not seem like Volodymyr Zelenskyy agrees with Donald Trump's assessment of really any of this part, any of what's going on, whether it's Vladimir Putin or the objectives of the war, or how it will be concluded. The question here is, how well has he learned to placate Trump over the course of the year, and it seems like he's gotten better at it, which at least keeps Donald Trump in a stasis, a status quo of this.

But look, it is worth remembering that, in addition to all those comments over the past year, Donald Trump came into office saying that he could finish this war before he even got into the Oval Office, that as recently as Thanksgiving, remember, it was an ultimatum of Zelenskyy has to accept the peace plan or that's it. We're going to pull out from any aid to them.

We keep hearing these promises of it's got to get done, it's about to get done, and then it doesn't get done. And unfortunately, what that means is that in the interim, people are suffering through a war in Ukraine. People are dying, people are getting hurt, people are dealing with hunger and all those things.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, this isn't an abstract diplomatic conversation, there is an ongoing war. Isaac, though, makes a really interesting point Alayna, which is kind of the evolution of Zelenskyy relationship with Trump and how he handles Trump. There's a great New York Times analysis. The headline is for Zelenskyy, just keeping Trump talking counts as a win.

He has kind of learned to work with Trump over the course of this year. What's going on behind the scenes at the White House? How do they feel about Zelenskyy, his team, and that relationship.

TREENE: It's gotten a lot better. I think, I mean, even just looking at the attire that Zelenskyy wore obviously, that was one of the main, you know, frustrations that the President and the Vice President, J.D. Vance had in that first Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy. I think, I do think a lot of it is the rhetoric and the way that and you know, the way that Zelenskyy has been able to work with Trump in person, and he's learned how to flatter him in certain ways, to always say thank you.

Another point that had been, you know, a key point of frustration in the past, the sign of gratitude, and I will say, so much of it, as well as, of course, the conversations that he is having, not just with the President, but also all of his aides. We know that Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, Steve Witkoff, one of his top envoys on all of this, those conversations with Zelenskyy have improved.

And I think a lot of the pressure, even though we keep hearing, you know the president, I will say even though Putin obviously was not getting his own meeting yesterday with Trump in Palm Beach, he very much had his presence felt. He talked to the President, talked to him beforehand, and then they talked again this morning. Despite all that, I do think that the way that Zelenskyy has

approached the White House has changed a lot of their viewpoints on and there are a lot of people that are saying a lot of this is now on Putin's side, and we need to get sincere commitments, substantial concessions from the Russians in order to end this. Trump, not so much saying that himself, but that is more of a feeling behind the scenes. That was not the case a couple of months ago.

DOVERE: He thinks that he is succeeding in working Trump and Putin's --

TREENE: Absolutely.

DOVERE: -- objective here was to keep this war going as long as possible. And like every time Zelenskyy comes to me, Trump, oh Vladimir Putin is on the phone. This time on either end of it sandwich in the meeting. And you would know better than any of us at this table, Donald Trump tends to follow, at least for the immediate, the last conversation that he had about something.

MATTINGLY: So we're -- we'll all keep our eyes on Truth Social for further guidance of the (inaudible) train. Also, we have another pretty big meeting. Coming up, President Trump is just minutes away from hosting another world leader at Mar-a-Lago. A look at how President Trump's relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed since the last time they met. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: In a matter of moments, President Trump will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Mar-a-Lago. This is the first face to face meeting for Trump and Bibi since the President traveled to Israel to celebrate the Gaza Cease-fire, his administration negotiated.

But with the Trump administration eager to move into phase two of that Gaza Cease-fire and Netanyahu's government pushing for harsher treatment of Hamas, that could push a permanent peace further into the future, tensions, they're set to be high when the two leaders meet. My panel is back now, and Alayna, I'm starting with you again as kind of like our ace on the ground.

I'm going to be honest, like you kind of forgot a little bit that this was all still playing out. It was a huge accomplishment in the moment, there's no question about it, and they got tangible results from that Phase One agreement. U.S. said it's ready to move on to Phase Two. Is Israel?

TREENE: It's unclear, and that's why today is such a crucial meeting. And there's also, I will say, a lot of people in my conversations with Trump administration officials that are growing wary of how Netanyahu is approaching this idea that maybe he's taking steps to try and potentially undermine what is a very fragile Cease-fire.

And a lot of people had also thought they'd be in Phase Two already, which is, of course, it's the disarmament of Hamas, it's the reconstruction of the Enclave, it's post-war governance. Those are all very, very important steps to ensuring that this actually lasts.

[12:15:00]

And this is really a long term peace plan, and not just a short term Cease-fire. Now, some of the things that I think people are going to be watching for with Netanyahu is, of course, you know, one of the things that they've said that are preventing them from agreeing to Phase Two is that Hamas needs to return all of the remains of the hostages.

That's something that a lot of people are saying might be, you know, not possible if they are actually able to find them. We've also seen Israel, you know, they took out Hamas' lead commander recently. They also have continued some attacks on Palestinian civilians, all of those, creating a lot of uncertainty for people in the administration.

So this is going to be a huge moment, and I think it's also a huge moment on the Israeli side, because they -- Bibi wants to make sure, Netanyahu wants to make sure that Trump still has, you know, his back in a lot of this, and so it's going to be very fascinating to see what they emerge with. And if there are optimistic signs that Phase Two is actually going to start soon, yeah.

MATTINGLY: And I think that what's really important to point out, as Alayna kind if lays the groundwork of things, is this isn't happening in a vacuum. Prime Minister Netanyahu has his own political issues to deal with back home, has his own domestic pressures and priorities that he's grappling with.

Our colleague Kevin Liptak had this great read this morning. Netanyahu brings a familiar message to Trump, who's grown wary of Israeli actions, and part of that message is the pressure that he's feeling on the home front.

DOVERE: Yeah, as always the case in international politics. The domestic politics matters a lot. Netanyahu is facing a lot of pushback on the ground in Israel. He has in 2026, his own elections to worry about. He is up, and he has survived through many times and many political circumstances when people thought he would be finished. So we'll see what happens.

But he's up against it in Israel. Meanwhile, in America, look, the support in the Republican Party remains strong for Israel. However, you can see in both the Republican and the Democratic Party, a -- we all turn away from Israel from where it was even a couple years ago, and a lot of that is embodied in Netanyahu himself. Certainly among Democrats, there is a deep disdain for him and a hope that he will no longer be in power.

Part of that is because Democrats are trying to navigate through how a good chunk of their left base has really turned anti-Israel, and hoping that they can turn make it all about Netanyahu. But that's going on here. It does not seem like Donald Trump has as much to lose in turning away from Netanyahu, as Netanyahu does in Trump turning away from him.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, and Trump more popular in Israel than Netanyahu is, based on most of the polling that we've seen. It's also, though, comes at a moment where I think the Republican Party is also grappling with their own version of that on some level. And if it's not about Israel specifically, it's just a general apathy towards foreign policy being the only thing that the President has been focused on, at least in some people's minds.

You know, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene posting on X, Zelenskyy today, Netanyahu tomorrow. Can we just do America?

PARKER: Yeah. We've seen the President try to respond to some of that criticism saying that he is the leader of the free world, that he has an obligation to be involved with some of these foreign conflicts, even if they are at odds with the Make America First Again or Make America Great Again doctrine, right?

I think you get, you get some type of leeway, the President does with Ukraine and Russia. He gets some type of leeway also, I think, with Israel, Hamas as well, just these were two fires that were burning that he inherited from the previous administration.

Where, I think some of that patience with his base starts to get strained, is the actions in Venezuela. They don't quite understand that. Even some of the actions in Nigeria as well, and the basing it on the fact that Christians are being persecuted there. It's a more nuanced situation, etc.

I think his voters are more, a little bit more perplexed about those type of foreign actions.

MATTINGLY: And to the point, you know, we're going into a midterm year, right? And you're going to see -- we've seen lawmakers on those issues in particular, over the course of the last couple of weeks say, like, hey, man, like, I'm hearing from my guys who are calling my office and talking to my legislative correspondent, saying we'd like you to focus on prices.

We'd like you to focus on affordability. White House officials hear that, though, right?

TREENE: Yeah, and that's also what they want to be mainly focusing on. I mean, look, I think it is nuanced as you said, Mario. I think that, you know, the President did promise and vow to end some of these wars, to create peace in the Middle East and elsewhere, of course, Ukraine and Russia, and I do think that's important.

I think as we head into the midterm year, what I know White House officials and all of the President's top advisers are telling him is the rhetoric, the messaging, a lot of the attention needs to be on domestic policies and, of course, the economy overall. That's why you saw the President he did a couple of these domestic trips in the league -- in the weeks leading up to the end of the year, before the holidays.

He's going to be ramping up that up a lot come as soon as this month or next month, I should say, early January. They want him doing maybe one trip a week to some part of the country to talk about that. So it's interesting. I mean, it's fascinating also, you showed that Marjorie Taylor Greene's post.

[12:20:00]

This has been her message, but it's fascinating that she's the one coming out on this and what I think she represents. She's obviously a different case. She's had her own personal issues with the President, but there are other Republicans who are starting to feel that strain, and it's going to be a huge deal as we get close to the midterm elections, if Americans, and particularly the President's supporters, Republicans at large, feel like too much attention is happening abroad.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, nothing sparks cracks like self-preservation or concerns about it. So we'll have to keep an eye on all those things, going forward. Well, in 1998 I was wearing cargo pants. They were awesome. Also, though, a group of Americans were asked for predictions for the distant future. The year 2025, what they got right and what they got wrong? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: The year was 1998. It was awesome. It was a really great year. It was the Titanic. It was the movie. You could browse the internet on your TV. Washington's then biggest scandal, the Clinton impeachment. Simpler, simpler times.

Gallup and USA Today called a thousand Americans on their landline phones and got their best predictions for the futuristic year of 2025. Some, believe it or not, were on point. In those 27 years, gay marriages would become commonplace in the United States. Americans would have elected a black president. We're back at the table with our panelists.

I do think that's interesting, that the two that they absolutely kind of got right were gay marriage would become more commonplace. Obviously, gay marriage is legal, and that there would be a black president. There were a few others that they missed on, but the ones that they got right, what do you think about those?

DOVERE: I mean, I think it speaks to how people felt coming to -- at the end of the 90s into the 2000s of oh, the world is changing in a way that people are sort of getting to -- getting along in better ways. You know, 1998 was a tough year in some ways. Seinfeld went off the air. That was hard for me.

But I think that the -- the striking number for me that's in that poll is how people felt positively about what the state of the country. I mean you probably have those numbers there, but it's in the 60s for 1998. Now it's 24 percent people feel good about the state of the country, and that really speaks to so much of what's going on in our culture and our politics, in sort of an amazing way.

Some of the stuff that we take for granted now would have been magic, fantasy for people in 1998 whether it's our phones or easy Amazon deliveries or all that stuff.

MATTINGLY: Like all the things that basically led us to this point wherever --

DOVERE: Indeed and -- but you see that maybe it's the abundance of choice, or maybe it's all the things that -- that come with that choice, that people are really quite frustrated and pretty pessimistic about everything that's going on.

And what I think if you ask people these same polling questions, well, not the same ones about gay marriage, but this similar set of polling questions, you would get a much darker set of responses than came then.

MATTINGLY: What is interesting, though, is like the stratification based on class. In the polling in 1998, the question of life would be a lot harder or better. What Americans in 1998 predicted? 70 percent thought quality of life would improve for the rich. Most expected life to get worse for the poor, higher crime rates, poor environmental quality and lower moral values. A 71 percent majority said it would be harder to raise children to be good people.

PARKER: Yeah. I mean, a couple of things did come to fruition, right, aside from the first black president, gay marriage, et cetera. But also, they mentioned pandemic. They did mention in that poll, also that there was a little bit of doubt as to whether or not the internet would be able to get you deliveries at your home as well. But to Isaac's point, I mean, it was very -- I was struck by how optimistic it was.

And 98 was a good year, I remember that. It was also a sad year, not just for Seinfeld, but it was the breakup of the Bulls dynasty as well back in Chicago.

DOVERE: That's a lot going on.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, but they also won that year. OK.

PARKER: Yeah, well --

MATTINGLY: I just --

PARKER: -- that was premature. We have one more year, I think. We saw Michael Jordan kind of let the follow through hang but we have one more year.

MATTINGLY: We had a great time at the Wizards. Honestly, I feel like the breakup between Mike and Scottie in the recent years has been far more devastating for Bulls fans. One of things interesting is what else happened in 1998 Alayna, and we're not going to do the ageism thing here, because the olds at the table, the three of us, not you will remember that Jesse Ventura was like the shock political story at the time, the wrestler who became the spoiler slash governor of Minnesota.

Jake Tapper wrote a book about this. You should check that out. I'm not just saying that because I'm anchoring his show later today.

DOVERE: Tune in.

MATTINGLY: Five to seven, tune in. But I don't think people maybe realize it like this was a harbinger of what was to come, because there was another celebrity who people kind of scoffed at, mocked at, who now is in his second term as President and has been the dominant figure in American politics for going on a decade.

TREENE: Yeah, it is crazy, just looking back at this entire time, how much Trump has dominated, you know, that time in between that people obviously weren't predicting. Then, look, it was fascinating. I wrote down a lot of it because I was really interested in this, you know, obviously calling everyone up on the landlines.

But some of the things that they said, I actually think some of the things that they got wrong, were really interesting to me. This idea of they believed that there would be a female president by 2025 that obviously did not happen despite Kamala Harris trying her best. They thought that there would be a cure for cancer. They thought that people would routinely live to be 100.

I think that's more likely now than it was, but not at the percentages that people were assuming and one thing that they got correct, but it's just fascinating to me, because social media was obviously not a thing really in 1998 was less personal privacy.