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Trump to Announce Kennedy Center Honorees; Trump Speaks With Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired August 13, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: last-minute push for peace. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy talks with President Trump -- his strong message ahead of Trump's meeting with Putin.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Plus, in just moments, President Trump will put his mark on the D.C. culture with his Kennedy Center honorees. We're going to bring that to you live when he makes the announcement.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: We're following the breaking news right now involving both the president and the vice president of the United States.

President Trump is expected to leave the White House any moment now on his way to the Kennedy Center this hour right here in Washington. He's exerted increasing control over the performing arts center since taking office. And, today, he will announce the next group of people to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

Meanwhile, Vice President Vance is expected to wrap up a trip to the United Kingdom by visiting U.S. troops stationed in England. We're expecting him to make remarks, and we will bring those to you, of course, as well, but, first, a very strong message from Europe, as President Trump prepares to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday in Alaska.

As concerns grow over Friday's summit in Alaska, Ukraine's President Zelensky and European leaders held a call with Trump this morning urging him to resist Putin's demands in any potential cease-fire agreement.

And, only moments ago, Zelensky made his message very clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Let's wait for the result. In any case, the key issues which obviously we're asking as to our principles, as to our territorial integrity in the end will be decided on the level of leaders. Without Ukraine, it's impossible to achieve. And, by the way, everyone supports that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, let's go live now to CNN's Betsy Klein at the White House.

Betsy, what more are we learning about this call that just took place?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER AND WRITER: Right. It was a very critical conversation for President Trump with his European counterparts along with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, all leading up to Friday's very high-stakes meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Now, German Chancellor Merz characterized this as a meeting where they laid out that they expect major decisions to be made in Alaska on Friday, and this was an effort for the European leaders to lay the groundwork ahead of that, President Trump meeting virtually with Zelenskyy, the leaders of France, the U.K., Finland, Italy, and Poland.

Those leaders encouraged the president to end -- to encourage Putin to end this conflict, the president making clear ahead of that meeting that he was receptive to them. He said they are great people who want to see a deal done.

[11:05:04]

But President Macron of France told reporters that he thought Trump was very clear he wanted to achieve a cease-fire in this meeting, Zelenskyy saying that the president expressed support for security guarantees for Ukraine. He also said he told Trump that he believes Putin is bluffing and is pushing to occupy all of Ukraine, Zelenskyy also advocating for stronger sanctions against Russia.

European allies, of course, have expressed concern about the possibility of Ukraine ceding territory, but the White House downplaying expectations so far, casting this expected meeting as a listening session.

BROWN: All right, Betsy Klein live at the White House, thanks so much.

I want to bring in national security correspondent Kylie Atwood to talk more about this, particularly Europe's view of this call.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, as Betsy was just saying, we got a swift readout from these European leaders after this critical phone call with President Trump before he sits down with President Putin.

German Chancellor Merz said that one of the things that they wanted to make clear was addressed in the conversation with Putin was maintaining the security guarantees for both Europe and Ukraine in this conversation. And he also said that they wanted to agree with Trump on what he called attainable goals. And we have heard from Europeans over the last week or so that what

they believe is an attainable goal here is an unconditional cease- fire. We heard President Macron after this phone call with President Trump actually say that Trump agreed that he too wanted a cease-fire. Let's just listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): The exchange with President Trump allowed him to declare his intentions for the meeting on the 15th of August and allowed us to very clearly explain our expectations. I thank him for that.

And I think I can say that several messages came out of the exchange that we just had and which is a very important measure. The first is that President Trump was very clear on the fact that the U.S. wants to obtain a cease-fire during this meeting in Alaska.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, the key question here, though, is, will President Trump be willing to entertain any proposal from President Putin that says, sure, Russia will agree to a cease-fire, but only if they also get something in return?

We were told that last week, when Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, was in Russia meeting with Putin that one of the ideas discussed, proposed by the Russian side, was the Russians taking control of the Donetsk and Luhansk territories that they are now largely in control of, but not fully in control of.

That would be a major concession for Ukraine just to get a cease-fire. Europeans are making clear that they don't want that to happen. So we will have to watch and see what more we learn out of this critical phone call today.

BROWN: All right, we shall see. Kylie Atwood, thanks so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, I want to continue our conversation right now.

Joining us, the retired U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove. He's also a former NATO supreme ally commander in Europe.

General, thanks so much for being with us. Always appreciate that.

I want to begin with President Trump's video call earlier this morning with President Zelenskyy and several European leaders. They are desperate to try to convince President Trump that no deal can be struck without their approval. Do you believe President Trump will show that discipline on Friday when he sits down in Alaska with Putin?

GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Well, thanks for having me on again, Wolf.

And I would say if anyone tells you they know what President Trump is going to do, you should just stop the term -- the broadcast. He will make his own mind up. I do believe that President Trump sees this as a preliminary sort of meeting.

We in the West and we in the United States in the past have agreed that nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So I believe that anything that is going to be durable and lasting is going to have to take Ukraine's part and approval in the process.

BLITZER: I'm wondering, General, how much you think Putin would like to totally cut out Zelenskyy and the European leaders and strike a deal separately with President Trump?

BREEDLOVE: He would absolutely love that.

Wolf, this has been his aim for nearly 20 years. He wants to deal with the American president over the top of Europe and certainly over the top of Ukraine. He desperately needs to be seen as a world leader at that small table, unencumbered by the Europeans or Ukraine.

And I think that we should be very, very careful not to legitimize the fact that Putin can cut a deal about Europe and Ukraine without Europe and Ukraine.

BLITZER: How damaging could a bilateral U.S.-Russia deal be to America's traditional alliances, including NATO? And you're a former NATO supreme-allied commander.

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BREEDLOVE: Well, Wolf, I -- that's really a big leap.

I don't believe the United States, I don't believe that President Trump would try to cut a lasting deal on Ukraine without those entities. And so I think it's just really bad speculation to talk about it out there.

And I'd like to remind the audience that we have a deal. We have a deal with Russia. We have a deal with the United Kingdom and with Ukraine. It's called the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. And it would be really good if we would back up and look at what that deal said and start living up to the things that we agreed to in that deal.

BLITZER: This week, Russia has made some new military gains inside Ukraine.

I want you to listen to what Ukraine's president, President Zelenskyy, said about that just a few minutes ago. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY (through translator): Putin is bluffing. He's trying to push before the Alaska meeting on all directions of our front line.Russia wants to occupy the whole of Ukraine. This is his wish. And Putin is bluffing that sanctions is nothing and they don't work. In fact, sanctions are hitting Russian economy hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: General, President Zelenskyy touched on a couple of important topics there. Do you believe, first of all, that Putin will grab as much territory as possible before a possible cease-fire and is erasing, erasing the possibility of very potentially damaging sanctions that could emerge?

BREEDLOVE: Well, first of all, I wouldn't use the word that President Zelenskyy used. It's not bluffing. I would call it propaganda.

Russia is desperate for the world to see them winning in Eastern Ukraine. In fact, most military thinkers, and I'm one of them, agree that Putin is losing. If you look at how -- he had to have 20,000 North Koreans come in to help him retake Russian land, and he still hasn't retaken that land. He's asked for more North Korean soldiers.

And now he has North Koreans Manning his industrial complexes because he doesn't have the manpower to do it. This is not a nation that's winning, but Putin is desperate for people to see him as winning to try to change the arrangement at the table as this deal could be cut.

BLITZER: Very quickly, before I let you go, General, thousands of Russian troops have been killed in the course of this war. Does that have any impact on the Russian attitude at all?

BREEDLOVE: Well, I -- we always have said Russia can suffer, and Russia reminds us that Russians can suffer.

But I think we're beginning to see the fraying and the cracking of that, as the numbers are over a million now. And Putin is going to have to answer to that. Remember the moms of Moscow in the first part of this 11-yearlong war and how they affected what was starting to happen in Russia.

So this is going to be a big problem for Mr. Putin to explain the massive loss of the next-gen young men.

BLITZER: Retired General Philip Breedlove, as usual, thank you very much for joining us.

BREEDLOVE: Good to see you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thank you -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, still ahead right here in THE SITUATION ROOM: President Trump's efforts to reshape American culture taking center stage with a trip to the Kennedy Center in Washington.

BLITZER: And that visit coming just a day after the White House unveiled new plans to make Smithsonian exhibits more aligned with his views. We have new information.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[11:18:22] BROWN: Breaking news: President Trump will soon leave the world for Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, where he's expected to name this year's honorees.

It is the first group of honorees since the president took control of the center's board earlier this year. And the Kennedy Center has been a cornerstone of D.C.'s cultural life since it opened in the '70s.

Let's go live now to CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene at the Kennedy Center.

Alayna, what more can you tell us about the honorees?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes.

Well, Pamela, we are standing by to see the president, of course, come here. He will give remarks and then unveil who these honorees are. You can see behind me some of those podiums that are covered. Unclear what's under them, but obviously I think going to be naming these honorees.

We did hear from the Kennedy Center saying that one of them is going to be an Englishman, a New York City rock band, a dance queen, and a multibillion-dollar actor. But, look, I think what's really interesting as well as the context of all this.

If you look back to the president's first term, the fact that he's coming here today, it's actually his third visit since he's been in office since January. It's very different from what we saw during the first administration, when the president didn't go to any of the Kennedy Center Honors awards over his four years.

And partly that was because a lot of the people who were performing here did not want to have him present. They were refusing to go to a typical White House pre-reception, and so the president decided not to go.

Things are very different this time around. He came -- he took over the Kennedy Center's board, becoming the chairman of the board earlier this year. He named his own president in Ric Grenell, someone he's, of course, very close to. And really it's just the latest sign of him really putting his imprint on some of the biggest cultural institutions in this city now that he is president once again.

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BROWN: And this also comes, Alayna, as the White House is ordering this controversial review of the Smithsonian's museums and exhibits. Tell us about that and the scope of this review, why it's drawing so much criticism.

TREENE: Yes, well, part of this follows an executive order that the president had signed earlier this year where he argued that many of the exhibits inside the museum, specifically the Smithsonian, which we're seeing with this review that he's ordering or he said he was ordering yesterday, that he believed were racially motivated or saying that they were recasting history in a light that he did not believe is as favorable to what it should be.

And so what we saw him do on Tuesday is essentially conduct a comprehensive internal review of exhibits and materials at the Smithsonian, calling for all of their internal guidelines and looking at these different exhibits to see what might need to be updated in order to comply with that executive order.

Of course, we have to point out that the Smithsonian is the world's largest museum complex. It is, of course, a historic institution in this city. And I think it ties into what we're seeing him do today at the Kennedy Center with, again, really trying to put his imprint and his reach and his influence on some of these iconic places in this city and also in a way he did not do before, really trying to exert his influence over places that perhaps in the past have once rejected him -- Pamela, Wolf.

BROWN: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I want to bring in our panel of experts right now.

CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, is with us here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

I want to start with you. How does all of this play into President Trump's broader efforts to try to leave his mark on some of Washington's most iconic institutions?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, that is one of the things that I think is the biggest difference between the second Trump presidency and the first.

He is trying to leave his mark. I mean, Pamela, you and I covered his first term in office. And he rarely ventured out, as Alayna was saying, but really throughout the capital, he's trying to leave a mark, certainly on the expansion of the White House, but also in some legacy-leaning ways.

And this is clearly what he's trying to do at the Kennedy Center. I'm told he also is going to look around the Kennedy Center a bit and sort of make some decisions of how they will spend some $250 million that House Republicans and Senate Republicans have earmarked for renovations there.

So he wants to leave his mark on the Kennedy Center. There is discussion about naming the opera house after a first lady Melania Trump. We will see about that. But really throughout the cultural institutions of Washington, he is paying much more attention. But country music is something he -- that's kind of a staple of his rallies.

He doesn't like it as much, I'm told. But that's who I'm interested in seeing who that nominee is, because Lee Greenwood, of course, starts every one of his rallies. And he is on the board of the Kennedy Center because President Trump placed him there.

BLITZER: He's proud to be an American. ZELENY: He is, "God Bless the USA," right?

BROWN: They have the Bible business together, right, Lee Greenwood and Trump.

BLITZER: So you think we can expect a lot more gold at the Kennedy Center?

ZELENY: I think there's no doubt about that. I mean, we will see how much gold $250 million buys you.

But the president's box, I'm told, is being a refurbished. I'm sure it will be as gold-laden as the Oval Office has become.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: I want to bring in Lisa Respers France, because, Lisa, you cover entertainment here at CNN. Even before taking office, President Trump has been part of the cultural zeitgeist, right, from his time hosting "The Apprentice" to appearing in movies like "Home Alone 2."

How do you see this latest move by Trump to leave his mark on these cultural institutions?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: I think it's indicative of the love-hate relationship that it feels like he has with Hollywood and pop culture, because, as you point out, he's a part of Hollywood.

Some people actually say that they feel like he was initially elected because people viewed him as who he was on "The Apprentice" as opposed to who he turned out to be as president. So I think that he very much understands that the arts are a path for resistance, are a path for discourse, and he wants to control the narrative.

And, consequently, that means that he's really leaning into wanting to control the Kennedy Center and he's taking control of the Kennedy Center, because he -- this is not a president that wants any type of dissension at all. He does not want people being critical of him. And so by taking control, he can control the acts. He can control, as we will see today, who gets honored by the Kennedy Center, which is a huge honor.

And also I think he was not very happy about some of the artists that decided they were no longer going to participate. "Hamilton" canceled. The actress and producer Issa Rae, she canceled. And they're just two of the acts that decided that they did not want to participate in anything at the Kennedy Center if it was going to be as closely aligned with Donald Trump as it is right now.

So some people just don't want to be involved. Some people in Hollywood don't want to be involved with something that President Trump is putting his stamp on.

[11:25:04] BLITZER: Yes, I know a lot of people here in Washington who don't want to go to the Kennedy Center now because of Trump's involvement in all of this.

Robin, you're a reporter on the culture desk of "The New York Times" and you reported on the Trump administration's review of the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington. Walk us through what kinds of dynamics are at play here from the Smithsonian Institution itself to its Board of Regents to Congress and the White House.

How does this -- how do they all fit in?

ROBIN POGREBIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": So this seems like a real escalation of Trump's efforts to kind of put his finger on the scale of culture and a kind of -- he's had enough in terms of feeling that the exhibitions and the content of these institutions are not what he wants to see and he wants to get some results.

Whether that's coming from him or people inside his administration is not entirely clear. What also isn't clear is what kind of actual legality he has in terms of exercising this kind of an ultimatum. But, nevertheless, he seems to feel much more emboldened than he did in his first term. And what he's done here is, he's given them 120 days to kind of evaluate their institutions.

They have a list of their initial targets and then to come back to them with the changes they're going to make. And those changes they're looking for are partly just how they tell the story of American history. And they feel like the Trump administration wants it to be more positive.

And they also feel like it's gone much too much in the direction of diversity, equity and inclusion. And they clearly want to put the brakes on that and they're going to put their muscle behind it. Just exactly how they're going to enforce it is unclear. But this is much more of a sort of a forceful effort than we have seen in the past.

BROWN: Yes, and just when you look at the broader context, the National Museum of American history removing the placard referencing Trump's two impeachments. It's been reinstalled with some changes. The museum for its part denies it was pressured by any government official to make those changes.

But what do you make of that whole saga, Robin, and how that fits into this broader picture here?

POGREBIN: I think what's interesting here is there's usually a very bright line between the governance of a cultural institution and the content, the exhibitions and what they show. That is the purview of the directors and of the curators.

I mean, here, the government is clearly saying, we want to see changes in what you show. And that is a very new frontier. And I think what you do see the Smithsonian trying to do is walk this fine line between sort of not poking the bear, not angering this president, knowing the consequences of that, and also adhering to its principles and its mission.

The difference with the Smithsonian is combined -- it's comprised of 21 different museums -- museums -- excuse me -- the National Zoo and others, and it gets 62 percent of its billion-dollar budget from the federal government. So the federal government has some financial leverage here, and that's certainly more scary and more powerful.

BLITZER: Robert Prevost of "The New York Times," thank you very, very much.

I want to continue this conversation with Elliot Williams right now.

Elliot, President Trump has made this push to reject so-called wokeness, as you know. His administration's review of the Smithsonian is just one example of all of this. Has he been successful in this push?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I guess the question is, what is wokeness and what does that even mean, and how do you define that concept?

And by way of example, Wolf, the National African American Museum, which is just a few blocks from where we are right now, I think the most powerful exhibit there are the shackles, the very small shackles that were put on a slave toddler, right?

Now, many people would regard that as divisive or uncomfortable because it makes people uncomfortable to see. It might even make many white people really uncomfortable to see. And that's OK. I mean, we can still love America and embrace the country, but recognize that there are images and artwork or artifacts that are part of our culture that are also very hard to look at.

So when we talk about the end of wokeness, that also can mean the end of things that, quite frankly, we ought to be seeing. And so even the language -- and we talked about this at the beginning of the segment, that some things are racially motivated and the president wants to get them out.

Well, a lot of American history is racially motivated. And, again, that's OK. That doesn't mean that we're saying that we dislike America or are rejecting it. And so there's a very gray area here and we're really wading into territory that the president quite frankly ought not.

BLITZER: We have to learn from our history.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BLITZER: You think it's possible he could actually try to shut down the African American Museum at the Smithsonian?

WILLIAMS: I mean, shut it down, I don't know, because of all the laws that establish buildings and real estate and so on.

But they could certainly curtail the kinds of artifacts and artwork and exhibits that are there. I mean, you saw it with the impeachment exhibit. So it's a museum just like any other and it can be changed. And that's very dangerous for our shared heritage as Americans.

BLITZER: All right, Elliot, stand by. Everybody, stand by.

We're going to carry the president's remarks live once the event begins. We will be right back.

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