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Trump Hints At "Big Progress" In Ukraine Peace Talks; Sources: DHS & ICE To Sweep New Orleans Next Week; NBA's Billups Pleads Not Guilty In Mafia-Linked Gambling Probe. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired November 24, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: -- Mahomes said after the game that they needed this win to give them some momentum for the rest of the season. Next up for them are those Cowboys, a Thanksgiving feast on Thursday.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And as all of us remember, especially Pamela and me, when -- when these words come up, it's very important. I get knocked down --

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: But I get up again. That is -- that is Wolf's favorite song.

BLITZER: Jumbo wombo, I get knocked down, but I get up again. And we saw that at the NFL all weekend. They get knocked down, but they get up again. Coy Wire, thank you very, very much.

WIRE: You got it.

BROWN: All right. So let's turn to some other news. "Wicked: For Good" put its magic touch on the box office. The second act to the movie adaption of the adaptation, I should say, of the iconic Broadway musical "Wicked" soared to number one, bringing in $150 million in the U.S. and $226 million worldwide. That beat the first "Wicked" movie, which made $114 million in the U.S. around the same time last year.

"Wicked" success is a welcome sign for Hollywood after historically low -- slow October, more of a boost is expected this weekend with disease is "Utopia 2," which opens Wednesday. I know my kiddos are looking forward to that.

BLITZER: I'm sure they are. And the next hour of The Situation Room starts right now.

BROWN: Happening now on sealing the testimony, the Justice Department makes a move that could force new Epstein documents to be made public.

BLITZER: And the NBA head coach Chauncey Billups arraigned in federal court now. We'll find out how the Hall of Famer is responding to allegations that he took part in an alleged rigged poker game scheme tied to the mafia.

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. We begin this hour with the new deadly Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight. Even as talks continue in Switzerland over a peace proposal, this morning, President Trump hinted that U.S. and Ukrainian officials are making, in his words, big progress, "big progress in Geneva" as they hammer out a 28-point plan. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expressing a little more skepticism at the peace process. Listen to what he just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Putin wants legal recognition for what he has stolen to break the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty. And that's the main problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: With us now, CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton and CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid. Colonel, let me start with you. Will Ukraine have to accept some very tough compromises if this agreement that's currently on the table is going to work?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, I think if -- if this agreement is the one that is actually adopted, the compromises are not only going to be tough, but they might be unbearable and might also be politically damaging for Zelenskyy. And from a military standpoint, I think the problem is going to be that the Ukrainian army is going to have to figure out how to go into their particular positions.

Are they going to have to withdraw to areas where they need to go in and establish new positions? Are they going to have to get some new advantages tactically that they don't -- that they wouldn't have if they -- if they were to go with the -- the current state of affairs.

BLITZER: And bring Barak into this discussion. Barak, what leverage does the U.S. have right now with Russia, for example, to get them on board with any changes to the original proposal?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, Wolf, I think that's the million-dollar question, because we had those discussions in Geneva yesterday between the U.S. and Ukraine. The gaps narrowed quite significantly. The Ukrainians managed to get amendments into the text. But now the question is, when is the U.S. going to have a similar dialogue with the Russians? And then we'll know if the Russians are actually on board. They were on board, or at least they said they were on board, on the original text.

The text changes. It's a live text. That's what I hear from U.S. officials. It is going to change again when the U.S. goes back to Russia, and there will be several iterations of, you know, trying to get to the final result. But the question is, is Vladimir Putin really interested in stopping the war because that would be the result of any agreement. And it is not clear if the Russian president is still there or is -- is there or not. BLITZER: Colonel, have a listen to a Ukrainian lawmaker, a Ukrainian lawmaker who spoke to CNN this morning about what she says are the real breakthroughs potentially in these talks. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIRA RUDIK, MEMBER OF UKRANIAN PARLIAMENT: For the first time in all -- this whole process, we have seen the point about the security guarantees from the United States. So if there is a breakthrough, this is a breakthrough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:05:09]

BLITZER: Colonel, the question here is whether any security guarantees are actually enforceable with Russia. How do you see it?

LEIGHTON: So if the United States and NATO do not put troops on the ground in Ukraine, the enforceability of any of these provisions is actually called into question, Wolf, because one of the things that you need to have in order to actually achieve something like this is to have some kind of an enforcement mechanism.

And if you don't have that enforcement mechanism, which it doesn't appear to be there, then all of these guarantees are at the very best questionable.

BLITZER: You know, Barak, if Ukraine doesn't agree to this U.S. proposal, what happens then?

RAVID: Well, I -- I think that President Zelenskyy understood very well how -- how high the stakes are. And that's why he did not rule out the Trump plan. He did not say no. And he said, I'm willing to negotiate based on this U.S. peace plan. And I think he's going to continue to do that.

And I think what he's going to do is going, in my assessment, is going to be very similar to a sentence that a former Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said in the 1960s, when he said, I'm going to -- I'm compromising and compromising and compromising until I get what I want. And I think this is what President Zelenskyy is trying to do right now. Just another word about the security guarantee.

As far as I know, and I saw the initial draft security guarantee that the U.S. gave Ukraine, I think this is the most significant security guarantee that President Trump agreed to give any country, especially Ukraine. And this was the baseline for the negotiations. Since then, the security guarantee got stronger.

And it is modeled, it's not an Article 5 guarantee, that's for sure. But it is pretty close to an Article 5 guarantee. And this is significant.

BLITZER: Very significant. Barak, while I have you, very quickly, give us your thoughts on this Israeli military decision to target a Hezbollah leader in Beirut over the past 24 hours or so and assassinate him.

RAVID: I think what we see here is an Israeli effort to try, and I know it sounds strange, the way I'm describing it, is that to use this assassination in order to give space, more space, to the Lebanese government to implement its own plan for disarming Hezbollah.

So the Israelis are saying, we don't want to invade Lebanon, we want to get out of Lebanon, but we want Hezbollah disarmed. How do we do that? We will target the main people in Hezbollah that are against disarming and that are in favor of resuming the war against Israel. And by doing that, we might give another opportunity to the Lebanese government to go to Hezbollah and say, well, if you want this to continue, then keep your weapons. If you want this to stop, we need to get going with the disarmament.

BLITZER: Any indication, Barak, whether or not the U.S. gave Israel a green light to go ahead with a strike?

RAVID: So from what I know, the Israelis did not notify the U.S. in advance of the strike. It notified the U.S. right after, like seconds after the Israeli fighter jets sent their missiles to the targets. But what I heard from numerous U.S. officials is that for weeks now, they understood from the Israelis that the Israelis are going to escalate their strikes against Hezbollah because Hezbollah is disarming and trying to reconstitute both in southern Lebanon and in other -- and in other parts of the country. So this was not a strategic surprise for the Trump administration. And the Trump administration is not against it.

You know, I'll tell you a short sentence I heard from a senior U.S. official. He said, when I asked him, does the U.S. support this strike? He said, yalla, mazal tov, mabrouk.

BLITZER: In a lot of different languages. Congratulations.

RAVID: Yes.

BLITZER: All right. Thanks very, very much, Barak Ravid, Colonel Cedric Leighton. Thank you to you as well. Appreciate it very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Still ahead here in The Situation Room, how the next target of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is preparing for operations as soon as next week.

[11:09:37]

BLITZER: Plus, product expansions, new in-store tech and a billion dollar pajama business. The Situation Room, a special report with CEO of retail giant, Old Navy. How they are fighting inflation and preparing for the holiday shopping rush.

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BROWN: Well, new this morning, New Orleans is preparing to be the next target of President Trump's immigration crackdown. Immigrants there are reportedly staying home and hiding out as the city braces for border patrol operations there. And it comes after hundreds of people were arrested in the so-called Operation Charlotte's Web in North Carolina earlier this month. Let's go live now to CNN Senior National Reporter Ryan Young in Atlanta. What more are you hearing about this new operation, Ryan?

[11:15:00]

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam. Ever since we saw those operations in Charlotte, we've been calling nonstop to figure out where the next place could be. And all our sources continue to point toward border patrol officials popping up the first week of December in New Orleans.

I've also been on the phone with sources who told me as of Friday they saw some operations with ICE going out with a target package. Folks, they were trying to catch up. Now, you look at the video from Charlotte. You can actually see some of the operations out in full force. And that's what really scared the immigrant community. They are scared of those folks showing up with masks on their faces, going through sort of the backbone of the community when it comes to tourism in that area.

We've also reached out and got this statement from the DHS, which basically says for the safety and security of a few of our law enforcement, we're not going to telegraph what's coming next. You can see that. And obviously understand why they would not want to telegraph those agents coming into town with some of the opposition that they've seen in places like Chicago and other cities.

But listen to this statement from Louisiana, where they are concerned about how this will play out, especially with folks who live in that community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATTHEW WILLARD (D-LA): We're not bordered by any other country. So for Border Patrol to come into the state of Louisiana really makes no sense to me. Earlier this summer, we had an issue with ICE where they arrested and detained a woman who's been here for decades. She's married to an American citizen and Representative Scalise had to intervene so that she can be released. And so obviously that's a violation of that woman's right to due process. And I'm afraid we'll have more examples of that once Border Patrol comes in and becomes active in the city of New Orleans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, Pamela, as you can understand, there's a lot of people who are concerned about how this will work, especially in a city with New Orleans where crime has been trending downwards. But at the same time, we do know and the FBI has sent out alerts about this, about people sort of playing like they were ICE or playing like they were Border Patrol, basically using the mask to cover their face and then going out to commit crime. So there is a concern from local law enforcement about how this will all be coordinated so that officers who are in that area on a day to day basis stay safe. At the same time, these actions take place. When you're talking about a large tourist community with so many different restaurants, we know immigrants play a large portion of the folks who work in these businesses.

This is getting ready to that bowl season where people come and play in New Orleans, especially during the holidays. They're concerned about how this will all play out that first week of December.

BROWN: All right, Ryan Young, thanks so much for the latest there. Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, the Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups facing a judge in federal court. What he said about that alleged rigged poker game scheme tied to the mafia.

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[11:22:27]

BLITZER: New this morning, a not guilty plea from Chauncey Billups, the Portland Trailblazers head coach, appearing last hour in a courtroom in Brooklyn to face federal charges in a gambling investigation. Billups is accused of helping run rigged poker games that were backed by the New York Mafia.

Prosecutors say he used his celebrity status to attract high rollers to poker tables equipped with X-ray technology and altered shuffling machines. Thirty other people are also charged in the case, including former NBA player Damon Jones. Neama Rahmani is a former federal prosecutor and head of West Coast Trial Lawyers. Neama, thanks so much for joining us. As you now know, Billups pleaded not guilty. How do you think his defense will approach this case?

NEAMA RAHMANI, PRESIDENT, WEST COAST TRIAL LAWYERS: Wolf, thanks for having me. I think the defense is going to be that he had nothing to do with it. He didn't know that these poker games were illegal. Now, that's going to be tough because there's some text messages and allegedly wire transfers where Billups was getting cut of the proceeds.

But since he's the most well-known defendant, I think you would expect some of the other lesser defendants to be cutting deals and cooperating against him. That's why I don't think there's going to be any scenario. He's concerned about his legacy. He's obviously a former NBA head coach, a Hall of Famer. So I can't see him taking any type of deal, unlike some of his 30 co-defendants.

BLITZER: And as you know, Neama, there's a lot of evidence involved here with 31 defendants and all the iCloud storage, cell phone records and so on and so on. Overall, how strong do you think this case will be?

RAHMANI: I think it's a very strong case if you're talking about the illegal gambling case. This is a traditional indictment. Obviously, you have the mob involved. But the reason the Department of Justice charges so many defendants is to lean on them, pressure them, and hope that they flip and cooperate. In today's era of cell phone technology, Wolf, you better expect there's a treasure trove of electronic evidence that implicates these people.

Usually, when you're prosecuting a case like this, the first defendants to plead, they tend to get the best deals, especially if they're lower on the totem pole, when you're talking about a criminal organization. The reason these conspiracy cases are so strong is even if some of these co-defendants weren't involved in some of the violent acts, right, the extortion, they're still substantively on the hook for anything committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. So usually they cut a deal to try to remove themselves and get less time.

[11:25:02]

BROWN: So how likely is it, do you think, that they're going to get those plea deals that they're hoping for?

RAHMANI: Pam, I think it's very likely. I mean, there's a reason the vast majority of federal criminal defendants plead because they're looking at significant time, 20 years in federal prison, just on the wire fraud counts alone.

So oftentimes what they'll do is they'll cut deals and they'll rat or cooperate depending on which side of the aisle that you're on. And they'll implicate those that are higher up in the organization. And that's how these cases are prosecuted. It doesn't matter if it's a mob, street gang, drug cartel. You really peel back the layers of the onion if you're a federal prosecutor to get to the head of the organization. That's who you want to go after in a gambling case like this.

BLITZER: Neama, you're a former federal prosecutor with a lot of experience. Is it surprising to you to see members of organized crime allegedly involved in a scheme with outsiders, including some famous former athletes?

RAHMANI: Wolf, if I'm not surprised to see organized crime, that's a tale as old as time. What I am surprised is to see really some of the highest echelon players and coaches in the NBA risking it all for, you know, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, let's be honest. This is a tale about greed. These are people that have made many millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars during the course of their NBA career, some of them more than $100 million.

So to risk it all for something like this is surprising. But what I'm not surprised is the fact that the NBA is dealing with a gambling problem. I mean, what we've seen now with the proliferation of online betting, you can bet on your phone, even live while a game is happening, and particularly Wolf and Pam crop bets.

And for folks that don't know, those are bets involving an individual player. Now, when I was at the Department of Justice, we handled gambling cases, and oftentimes we deal with point shavings. But that is a type of case that involves an entire team essentially tanking, potentially, or one man.

But now that you're dealing with one individual who can take himself out of a game or shoot less or rebound less or pass less, it's very easy to manipulate a bet, and that's what we're seeing here.

BROWN: And it seems like just in the last month or two, we've seen more of these online gambling cases come up. Do you expect to see similar ones in the future?

RAHMANI: Pam, I do. And this is why, similar to insider trading, there are third-party companies that track betting patterns. So if an individual, let's say myself, you know, I'm a small bettor, and all of a sudden I place a big bet on a game or a particular player, that's going to raise red flags. Or similarly, if there's a lot of coordinated bets on one particular game or one particular type of bet, like those proposition bets I was talking about, that's going to raise red flags.

And these algorithms, they're very sophisticated. They've been used for the stock market for years to really track insider trading. But now we're seeing it more and more used when it comes to sports betting because there's so much money at stake.

And just a little bit of insider information, doesn't matter if it's the stock market or an NBA game, can really generate a lot of money. So expect to see more of these types of cases going forward.

BLITZER: Yes, I suspect you're absolutely right. Neama Rahmani, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it very much.

[11:28:32]

And just ahead, the Department of Justice has less than 30 days now to release the Epstein files. We're going to discuss that and more with the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin. He's standing by live. That's next.

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