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The Situation Room

Five Years Since COVID-19 Declared Pandemic; Interview With Former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton; President Trump Hosts Irish Leader; Palestinian Protester Appears in Court. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 12, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:31:40]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: In just a few moments, a court hearing for a Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, will be under way.

Khalil's attorney says he's being unconstitutionally detained over his protected free speech and they're fighting against his deportation from the United States. A judge will now decide what comes next.

Let's go live to see the senior crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz, who is outside the courthouse in New York.

Shimon, Khalil is not there, as he is currently being held at an ICE facility, a detention facility, in Louisiana. What more can you tell us about this moment? ''

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, SENIOR CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

So that's what today is all about, his attorneys filing this motion with the court to try and force the government first to get him back to New York City, where he was taken into custody, and also for his release.

We're outside the court out here, Wolf. I just want to show you what's happening. Many of the supporters of Khalil have shown up here, protesters. You can see there are signs here saying "Release Mahmood Khalil." We're seeing other protest signs, people protesting against ICE and what the administration has been doing. And you can hear here the protesters are now starting to chant, Wolf.

So, today, in court, when this hearing gets under way, it will be the first time we really get to hear from the government and their position as to why they feel the need they need to keep detaining Khalil and also perhaps some explanation as to why they believe they have the right to revoke his green card.

That's what's so different about this situation. Yes, Wolf, he was here on a student visa, but also there's the green card. Of course, we know the secretary of state here in this country has decided that he is within right, that he has the legal permission to revoke his green card. And that is why we see government officials, the HSI, the Homeland

Security investigators, here on Saturday in New York City arresting him, meeting him at his home and, as he was coming home from dinner, taking him into custody.

We will see what the judge here decides. The judge could decide that the government has to release Khalil as the process gets under way. An immigration judge will ultimately decide whether or not he should be deported.

So, a lot of unknowns here, a lot of firsts here, Wolf, as we wait for this hearing to get under way.

BLITZER: We will stay in close touch with you, Shimon. Thank you very, very much.

And there's other breaking news we're following right now here in the situation, another volatile day up on Wall Street. U.S. markets are in the red just about two hours after the opening bell.

CNN's Matt Egan is joining us with the latest from New York.

What is the latest, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Wolf, the mood on Wall Street remains one of concern and, frankly, confusion over this trade war.

It's telling that we're seeing the U.S. markets down again today, 200 points are out for the Dow, about half-a-percent. This is coming despite the fact that we actually had some good economic news, learning that the inflation rate cooled off for the first time in months, but that's not the focus. The focus right now...

BLITZER: Hey, Matt, hold on for one second.

I want to just show our viewers these live pictures coming in from the White House. There you see President Trump. He's about to receive the visiting Irish prime minister Micheal Martin. They're going to then go inside the West Wing and the White House, head over to the Oval Office and talk a bit.

[11:35:10]

And then we're told they will both be answering reporters' questions. Let's listen in to see if they say anything now.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Very good news.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

BLITZER: I just heard the president say "Very good news." I assume he was reacting to a question about the Consumer Price Index that came out today with relatively very good numbers.

Jeff Zeleny, give us another little sense, a preview. Normally, on St. Patrick's Day, there's a lot of symbolism and it's a nice meeting. But, today, they have got some substantive issues, the United States and Ireland, that they need to discuss.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, they definitely do.

And against the backdrop of a ceremony, which there will be certainly both now and later in the East Room, there are many things for the president and the Irish taoiseach, as it's called, the prime minister to discuss.

As you see the president greeting him there, we have seen really world leader after world leader coming here to the White House. He's trying to begin a relationship with the president. The president feels strongly about Ireland. His mother has Scottish connections. He talks a lot about his golf courses there, but underlying a lot of this are the tensions over the trade wars, which we are seeing more of from the European Union imposing reciprocal trade wars to what the president has talked about, as well as Ukraine.

So, certainly, this underlies the meeting that is under way right now. And, Wolf, what will happen now is, the president and the prime minister will be meeting in the Oval Office. They will likely take reporter questions. We will not see that live, but we will see that a little bit later on and will certainly get back to you.

BLITZER: And we will share that videotape once we get it with our viewers, hear what they both have to say.

Jeff Zeleny at the White House, thanks very much.

And we will be right back with more news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:41:24]

BLITZER: This morning, the Kremlin is saying it will not comment on the 30 day Ukraine cease-fire proposal brokered by the U.S. until it hears directly from the U.S. side.

But, overnight, Ukraine says 14 people were killed in Russian aerial attacks across the country.

Joining us now is Donald Trump's former national security adviser, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush John Bolton.

Ambassador Bolton, thanks so much for joining us. You have enormous amount of experience in these areas.

Can Russia, first of all, be trusted to even negotiate in good faith over the cease-fire proposal?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I certainly wouldn't trust Russia to negotiate in good faith.

And up until now, because Donald Trump has effectively flipped the American position to be supportive of Russia, the Russians have had no incentive to negotiate. Now, I think, after the meeting in Jeddah yesterday, Putin wants to be careful he doesn't lose what he's got from Trump. So he will have to think about this pretty carefully.

But one way that he might proceed is to say, sure, in principle, we agree to a cease-fire. Now let's have the combatant parties on both sides negotiate operationally exactly what that means. It's one thing to sit in a conference room somewhere and say, let's have a cease- fire. It's another thing for the people on the ground to know exactly what that means.

And negotiating the specifics can take quite some time if you don't have the parties both willing to do it.

BLITZER: Good point.

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy says it's now up to Russia to show they are serious about peace. How much pressure does this put on Moscow?

BOLTON: Well, I do think it puts some pressure on him. It complicates Putin's position a little bit.

I don't think, frankly, a cease-fire is in Ukraine's interest. I think, if you freeze the conflict along the existing front lines and start negotiations in Geneva or Vienna or some neutral capital that drag on and on, the cease-fire line could become a new de facto Ukraine-Russian border, which gives Russia 20 percent of Ukraine's territory.

I think Zelenskyy had to agree to the cease-fire in Saudi Arabia because he needed to get U.S. military assistance, intelligence assistance turned back on. He had to try and repair the damage from the debacle in the Oval Office. So, of course, he agreed to it, and he did get the military assistance turned back on. He wants that to continue, and he will try and leverage this against the Russians.

But it's -- he's in a very dangerous and precarious position. So is Ukraine as a whole.

BLITZER: I want to share, Ambassador Bolton, something you wrote in an important article in "The Atlantic" magazine yesterday. And I will put it up on the screen, and I'm quoting you now.

"Ronald Reagan knew how to handle nations that might commit unprovoked aggression against U.S. interests. Trump clearly does not. This does not reflect differences in strategy, which Trump lacks. Instead, it's another Trump reversal, this time of 'The Godfather''s famous line, it's not business, it's strictly personal" -- end quote.

Is Trump's foreign policy driven by transactional priorities? What's your sense?

BOLTON: Sure, he doesn't do philosophy or grand strategy, doesn't even really do policy.

He believes, if he has good relations with Vladimir Putin, then the U.S. has good relations with Russia, which is not true. I think Putin, KGB agent that he used to be, sees Trump as an easy mark. And he's been manipulating him very successfully since the election.

[11:45:11]

And I think his task now, from Putin's point of view, is to keep the manipulation going. Trump hasn't had a good relationship with Zelenskyy since the famous perfect phone call in the summer of 2019 that led to the first impeachment, and I think that remains the case.

So, right now, the calculus, I think, tilts very heavily in Russia's favor for reasons that don't help American national security at all.

BLITZER: The U.S. and Ukraine have also come to an agreement, apparently, on a mineral deal. This is the deal that stalled last month after the verbal breakdown of talks between the Ukrainian president and the U.S. president in the Oval Office.

This is the 52nd day of Donald Trump's second term. How would you characterize Trump's approach to foreign policy, foreign diplomacy, at least so far?

BOLTON: Well, I think he's ripping up decades of effort to build security for the United States.

I think the NATO alliance is in grave danger. I think our allies in Japan, South Korea, and other countries are very worried that they may see the same attitude. I think this trade war through increased tariffs that he's getting us into around the world is another form of isolationism. It's economic nonsense.

It's going to leave everybody engaged in the trade war worse off and economically and going to cause enormous damage. So, I think we're stumbling into -- potentially into a real crisis if Trump doesn't wake up. If the markets don't spook him to try and change course on the economic side, or if we don't face a crisis somewhere around the world, he's pursuing policies or directions that are completely contrary to our interests.

BLITZER: Ambassador John Bolton, always good to have you in THE SITUATION ROOM. Thanks, sir. Thanks very much for joining us.

BOLTON: Glad to be with you.

BLITZER: And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:09]

BLITZER: Five years ago this week, COVID was declared a global pandemic.

Earlier this week, we asked you to submit your questions to CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, about COVID-19.

Sanjay, what did our viewers want to know the most?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we got a lot of questions five years later about COVID and a lot of questions specifically about long COVID, something that a lot of people still struggling with, Wolf.

This question came from Candy in Oregon, who asks: "What are the stats for people who have breathing problems long after having had COVID- 19?"

So, first of all, long COVID, or what was initially called long haulers, we have a better idea of what this is. These are symptoms that seem to persist at least three months, generally speaking, after that initial infection. But for a lot of people, the symptoms persist a lot longer. People may be struggling with it still today.

And about 30 percent of the population had long COVID. So those are the numbers. And it can be all sorts of different things, fatigue and brain fog and dizziness, taste and smell issues, that's a big one, and sleep problems as well, but also breathing problems.

About 40 percent of people with long COVID seem to have persistent breathing problems. It seems to be caused by thickening or scarring of the lung tissue after that initial infection. That seems to be what's really driving it. People may have decrease in exercise tolerance. They might even have difficulty going up a few stairs as a result of this.

So it's just something to keep in the back of the mind. The good news is, Candy, there is evidence that even simple directed breathing exercises, as simple as it sounds, can have a big impact overall on your breathing difficulties. And you got to make sure to not get another infection. That's one of the big ones as well.

We got George from California, who asks this: "I would like to know what the latest rule of thumb is regarding vaccinations. I just got the flu and COVID vaccines in September and hope for the best."

So, George, you're doing the right thing, staying up to date on your vaccinations really important. And keep in mind, with regard to flu, which you mentioned, it's been one of the worst seasons for flu as well in the last 10 years.

So, if you're having bad respiratory symptoms, it's worth getting checked out to find out if this is flu or COVID because there might be some antivirals you can take, especially if you get diagnosed early.

Also, keep in mind, if you're over the age of 65, if you have immune compromise, you're at higher risk. So, really making sure you stay up to date on vaccinations is important. If you have had COVID recently, you're likely to have some immunity from that. But with natural immunity or with vaccine-induced immunity, because the viruses mutate so regularly, that's why you need to stay up to date on your vaccinations. That immunity will sort of wane over time.

[11:55:00] I think we got time for one more question here. This one's coming from Sweden, Isabella, who says: "Why do we all seem to have gone through a shift in terms of how we experience time? What is this phenomenon called?"

Time is fixed, but how we experience it can be very different. The term is subjective time distortion, subjective time distortion. And what's interesting about this is that a pandemic can cause people to have subjective time distortion, but so can just about any other big societal event, a natural disaster, conflicts, things like that.

So, when we talk about that you start to have feelings of time sort of feeling rushed, time moving very quickly, days and weeks sort of blending together, things that may have happened last week feel like they may have happened years ago, that is typically what happens.

It's because your attention is sort of focused on one thing for a long period of time. That's what happens when big societal events are happening. So, for a lot of people, Isabella, it does improve over time, subjective time distortion. The key is to start focusing your attention things outside of that singular event.

Hope that helps -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It certainly does. Always helps to hear from you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Appreciate it very, very much.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining me this morning. You can always keep up with me on social media @WolfBlitzer. We're following all these late-breaking developments.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" is coming up next right after a short break.