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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump Says Putin Agreed To Start Talks On Ukraine; U.S. Inflation Hits 3 Percent For First Time Since June; Trump Speaks With Reporters In The Oval Office. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired February 12, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:01]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The language learning app says, quote, authorities are currently investigating his cause of death. We are cooperating fully. To be honest, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson. But what do we know?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Wow. They go on. We're aware he had many enemies. But we kindly ask that you refrain from sharing why you hate him in the comments. The apps icon and X handle have already been turned into what appears to be a very dead duo.
Usually I don't enjoy promoting these clearly naked reaches for marketing, but it's for learning a new language. That's good.
KEILAR: Features in duo.
And THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts now.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Talk about working the phones.
THE LEAD starts right now.
President Trump on the line, dishing today on his call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and then another call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Did President Trump just set up what could be the end of the war and what would be the terms?
Plus, the price of eggs rising at a rate not seen in nearly a decade. And that is not the only common item seeing a price hike. Why? Is there any blame on President Trump, who said he'd reverse inflation on day one?
And the eerie new audio released from the moments before the disaster on the Titan submersible. That's the underwater explosion that killed five passengers. What does this reveal about what went so terribly wrong?
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. President Donald Trump said earlier today that negotiations to end
Russia's war on Ukraine are set to begin on Friday in Munich. That is the major news today out of a nearly 90-minute phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump posted details about his call with Putin, who, by the way, started this unprovoked war nearly three years ago. Trump also posting he was then going to call Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, essentially to fill Zelenskyy in on these proposed peace talks that will determine the future of Ukraine. Trump fired off another post, saying that his subsequent call with Zelenskyy went, quote, very well.
Zelenskyy, for his part, said this quote no one wants peace more than Ukraine. Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let's get it done, unquote.
But, of course, what might Ukraine have to give up in exchange for peace? A potential preview. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called today in Brussels, called a return to the pre-2014 Ukraine borders, quote, unrealistic, meaning Ukraine will have to cede even more territory to Russia for a peace deal. Hegseth also ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine.
The news of upcoming peace talks comes one day after Russia released a wrongfully detained American from Russia, Marc Fogel. And today, by the way, an unnamed American citizen was released from prison in Belarus, a country hit hard by U.S. sanctions for its support of Russia's war against Ukraine and its crackdown on civil society.
Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who is at the White House for us, and Fred Pleitgen, who is in Moscow for us.
Jeff, tell us more about Trump's phone call with Putin. What are we learning about the negotiations? How might this all shake out for Ukraine?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, Russia began the invasion of Ukraine, as you said, and President Trump is eager to end it. The unanswered question here today is what role or what say, will Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have to do with this? The fact that he received his telephone call after the president talked with Vladimir Putin this morning tells you a lot what you need to know in terms of the priority that this administration is placing on trying to resume relations with -- with Russia.
You were looking at those images last night. We were here at the White House as the American prisoner Marc Fogel was released. That was the beginning of a step here. And when the president was asked if he had spoken with Vladimir Putin, he said, not yet. Didn't really answer. But this morning he did.
So that paved the way. It opened the door, if you will. But so many questions are remaining now. What is going to happen with the Ukraine?
Of course, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been at the center of western diplomacy. He's been at the White House. He's been at the Congress. He's on the sidelines right now in these conversations. There is no doubt about that. So even as relations are opening up, the Biden administration did not have diplomatic relations much conversations with the Russia at all over the last three years. Trump sending a message he wants to change that.
We all remember from the first Trump administration. There is no doubt that Vladimir Putin wanted to use the president at that point to essentially revitalize his role on the national stage, to bring him back out of the wilderness, if you will. So a similar scene is replaying out here, Jake, but so many differences here now, since that first Trump administration.
But again, the order of those phone calls, I'm told is so important here, how the president is viewing this.
TAPPER: Yeah. And, Fred, what about the Kremlin? What are they saying about this call that Putin had with Trump?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're thrilled is basically the short of all of it. In fact, the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, he texted me after that call took place and said that he believed that the call was both positive and constructive as far as the Kremlin is concerned. So they believe that Vladimir Putin certainly did very well in that talk and that there was a very good atmosphere.
You hear that echoed, by the way, from Russian members of parliament, Russian politicians tonight in Moscow as well. So certainly the vibes here on the ground in Russia are very good.
As far as the Russian readout of all of this is concerned, it's very similar to what the president then later posted on Truth Social, saying that it was a good atmosphere, saying that he had invited Vladimir Putin to Washington and that Vladimir Putin had invited him to come to Moscow. The Russians certainly saying that as well.
There are some interesting nuances in the Russian readout, the Russians saying that they are willing to receive U.S. administration officials for possible talks here on the ground in Moscow, also pertaining to a possible settlement in Ukraine. So the Russians, feeling that some of those negotiations could actually take place here inside Russia.
There's one very interesting nuance, Jake, that we picked up on. Its something that the Russians said, I want to just quote a little bit. They say president Putin in turn, mentioned the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and agreed with Trump that a long term settlement can be achieved through peaceful negotiations.
So the Russians, there talking about the root causes of the -- of the conflict. And that's something that they've really been doing over the past couple of days, sort of indicating that stopping the war and leading to a ceasefire could be a little more difficult than President Trump had let on before he took office. And right after he took office as well, the Russians in the past few days have been speaking a lot about some of the red lines for them. Of course, a lot of that pertaining to the territory that they hold inside Ukraine, the realities on the ground, as the Russians put it.
And then, of course, also that territory inside Russia that the Ukrainians hold, which the Russians say they want to win back on the battlefield rather than through negotiations. So definitely a lot of things still up in the air. But on the whole, it's very difficult to overstate the vibe here on the ground in Moscow is a very good one. The Russians very pleased with this phone call -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Fred and Jeff, thanks to both of you.
Let's discuss all of this with former NATO supreme allied commander, General Wesley Clark, and former deputy director of national intelligence, Beth Sanner.
Beth, let me start with you today. Before the Trump Putin call, Defense Secretary Hegseth in Brussels was drawing some lines in the sand regarding Ukraine.
And former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted this quote: The defense secretary has just articulated his administrations willingness to give Putin two giant victories, Ukrainian land and no Ukrainian membership in NATO. What did he get from Putin in return? Nothing. This is not how you negotiate with Putin, unquote.
Beth, do you agree with that? And what do you think all of this means for the future of Ukraine?
BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think it means that Putin has been driving a very, very hard bargain up until this point. I mean, he was just doubling down on very maximalist demands. And so Trump decided to give him a lot just to get him to the negotiating table. And now, as Fred said, you know, there is there is much rejoicing in Moscow because they've gotten a lot for just showing up.
And, you know, so I think that balancing that is pretty -- is going to be a pretty tough act, because what's left.
TAPPER: General, Trump had previously spoken about striking a deal with Ukraine, Zelenskyy. Ukraine would offer the U.S. access to its valuable rare earth mineral minerals as payment for continued American assistance.
Does it sound like that is off the table? And what do you expect Zelenskyy is going to do here? Does he have any leverage?
WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think it's not off the table. But, Jake, the majority of those are rare earth minerals and so forth are in Donbas and they're not accessible by the Ukrainian government.
So there are still minerals and the other parts of Ukraine, titanium and other things. But the majority of the wealth is under Russian occupation right now. Does Zelenskyy have leverage? And not much, really. Except for the
fact that the Ukrainian military has said it won't accept these kinds of conditions. At least it said that informally. That's what I'm hearing from people. They don't want to accept the conditions that Secretary Hegseth and President Trump are laying out there. They want to continue to fight. They want their land back. They don't want to give up sovereignty.
And when you try to get to the root causes of this, for Mr. Putin, this means the fact that Ukraine is actually a separate country, that's an offense to Mr. Putin. He doesn't believe that he's staked his whole his whole standing on the fact that Ukraine is part of Russia and he doesn't accept the fact that NATO has expanded beyond the 1997 agreement.
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So this is the Baltics, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Finland, Sweden, those are root causes to Mr. Putin. So when you're looking at is this going to be a ceasefire? Easy. Mr. Putin would love a ceasefire.
Is it sustainable? Well, that's the question. And it really depends on whether the United States really will put the put the backbone in this to keep it sustainable. Maybe not U.S. troops on the ground, but U.S. enablers, intelligence, air support, control of the airspace. All of that is part of it, and beyond what the Europeans themselves do.
TAPPER: Beth, I want --
CLARK: This is really about the United States.
TAPPER: Beth, I want to pay attention to one line from Trump's long Truth Social post about his call with Putin. He said, quote, we both agreed we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia, Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of common sense. We both believe very strongly in it, unquote.
How do you interpret how Putin dealt with Trump here? And would you describe what the U.S., what it sounds like the U.S. is preparing to do as appeasement?
SANNER: We are too soon, I think, to be describing it as appeasement. Let's -- let's see. Secretary Bessent has used the words, you know, security. Maybe not guarantees, but something like that, that the agreement that's over the rare earths will provide a security umbrella, basically over Ukraine. So let's see what that looks like.
I mean, you can kind of see a little bit of a different dimension there that, you know, because it's in the Donbas, much of this or adjacent, you know, maybe that's part of the deal, is that Ukraine has to get these back. So, you know, this could be the pushback from the United States side.
You know, in terms of Putin, obviously, he is quite skilled at knowing what words work and -- and framing things in a way that appeal. And, you know, that was effective.
TAPPER: General Wesley Clark and Beth Sanner, thanks to both of you. In just a few minutes, I'm going to speak with lawyers for Marc Fogel, the American citizen who Russia released as we work to learn more about the negotiations that led to the prisoner swap.
But first, the issue affecting all Americans these days, consumer prices -- food, shelter, cars and more. It's all on the rise. Can your elected leaders really ease the price hikes? We'll talk about that.
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TAPPER: Tough news for your wallet tops our money lead today. New data shows prices rose again last month and inflation hit its highest rate since last June.
CNN's business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich is breaking down some of the numbers.
So, Vanessa, what does this mean for American consumers?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, as you mentioned, inflation rising to 3 percent year over year. We haven't seen that number since the summer, and about 0.5 percent month over month.
It's important to look at where Americans are going to feel this, and they're going to feel this a lot of places. But we know prices have been high at the grocery store. Just look at in one month the price of bacon, up 4.1 percent, instant coffee up 4.4 percent, and eggs up 15.2 percent.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has not seen an increase that dramatic since June of 2015, and eggs overall year over year are up 53 percent. And Jake, we know this because there have been egg shortages and there's been higher prices of eggs because of the deadly avian flu.
Just earlier this morning, the Economic White House Council said that they are working on a plan to combat the avian flu to bring down egg prices.
Also, housing prices. Let's look at what people are going to be paying rent up 0.4 percent. And that is important, Jake, because rent accounted for 30 percent of the entire monthly increase for Americans.
Also, fuel and oil the cost to heat your home during these cold winter months, up 6.2 percent. Now, mortgage rates are not tracked in this report, but it was important for us to put this on here because of this inflation that has been rising. That means that the Federal Reserve is less likely to cut rates. And that means mortgage rates are probably going to go up, Jake.
And what does this mean for you? What can you do as an American to combat these rising prices? Well, according to Mark Hamrick, he's a senior economic analyst at
Bankrate. This is what he's suggesting. He says that live beneath your means. Don't spend as much if you can. And also prioritize emergency savings.
And this would mean opening something like a high yield savings account that makes money on the money that you put in the bank. Now, this is good advice for to combat high prices, but this is good advice across the board. Essentially what he is saying is you want to take out some insurance, Jake, on these high prices. This is one way to do that Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much.
Let's talk about this with our experts, Democrat and Republican here.
Good to see both of you.
So as a candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly said inflation, he would take care of it on day one. Here's a reminder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Prices will come down and come down dramatically and come down fast.
So when I win, I will immediately bring prices down starting on day one.
Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
TAPPER: So anticipating this, President Trump on Truth Social today wrote in all caps. Biden inflation up.
Well, I'll have both of you weigh in on this.
Xochitl, do you think it is that most voters are willing to give the president a bit of a honeymoon on this, or, no, the buck stops here?
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XOCHITL HINOJOSA, FORMER DOJ DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Well, I think the buck stops here. He is the president of United States. He controls policy. He controls what happens. He has the House. And he has the Senate.
Republicans control everything at this point, and yes, prices of eggs are up and these other -- other -- these other things. One thing I'll say though is that if I were his advisors, if I were in the White House right now, I would advise him to say two things repeatedly. This is how I'm lowering costs, and this is how I'm making the country safer. And right now, instead, you're having him, you know, bring up tariffs,
which are increasing costs, and you're having him do things like the Department of Justice and the FBI, which is going to undermine our national security. And so I think that there are two major changes he has to make going into the midterm elections and over the next two years to show that he is bringing prices down.
TAPPER: We should mention you were the spokesperson for the Department of Justice under President Biden.
Bryan, what do you think? I mean, he did make a lot of promises about prices coming down, and it's only been a few days, but prices are not coming down.
BRYAN LANZA, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Listen, I think the important thing, the important thing to understand is when we had the election, he had a plan. But what we didn't anticipate was Joe Biden going on the spending orgy. Also, this regulation orgy, which put a lot of restrictions on our energy growth, our energy independence, you know, gas and oil. He put those restrictions on at the end, to slow the growth of what President Trump wanted to do. And we're seeing the effects of that.
He went on this tremendous spending orgy, you know, after the election, to just hand out money anywhere. What happens when you put money into the economy? I think every economist will tell you it leads to inflation.
So, yes, President Trump came in, 19 days ago, just over 19 days ago. And he has to shock the system because he knew very well that the things that Biden did and his team did during this transition harmed our economy. And he had to shock the economy to make sure that we didn't feel that we're having a spending frenzy going forward, and we're seeing the effects of this.
HINOJOSA: Well, but shocking -- shocking the economy doesn't necessarily mean causing chaos in the government. And I think what you're seeing across the government right now, what he's doing at USAID, what he's doing at every agency, is he's causing chaos, and that doesn't help our economy. That's what I'll say, you know, there hasn't been.
LANZA: He's reforming our economy. These agencies --
HINOJOSA: There hasn't been one thing that he has been able to point -- one thing he's been able to point to that puts money back in people's wallets. What is it? What's the one thing he's done?
LANZA: You can continue to defend the administrative state? But he can tell you right now, the best thing we can do is stop the government from putting more money into the economy, spot, stop the growth of government. And that's the thing he's doing. That is an important policy.
The other thing he's done with respect to energy, he's gotten rid of -- he's moving forward and getting rid of the burdens that Joe Biden has put on the economy and on energy as a result of him losing the election. He's sort of being a sore loser and handing to the American people. Those have effects, and were dealing with those effects. And the American people see that and feel that more importantly.
TAPPER: One thing I want to note at this time yesterday, President Trump and Elon Musk were in the Oval Office having something of a press conference. And then Elon Musk was talking about all the fraud and waste and abuse that he had found in the government.
And one of the things that people like me and Anderson Cooper and others said was, okay, where's the evidence? Where are the receipts? I hear what you're saying. I'm not saying it's not true, but show us the receipts.
And there are some receipts that were provided today by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is a DEI contract, $36,000 for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That is against the president's policies in his America First agenda. This is a $3.4 million contract, a Council for Inclusive Innovation at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Commerce, another DEI contract that DOGE identified.
I can continue to go through these. Oh, I love this one, 57,000 bucks for climate change in Sri Lanka. What is this doing to continue the interests of the American people? Absolutely nothing.
REPORTER: Are all those things you just mentioned fraud or are they waste, or are they just contrary to the president's policies?
LEAVITT: I would argue that all of these things are fraudulent, they are wasteful, and they are an abuse of the American taxpayers' dollar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So the White House might disagree with these contracts. And certainly it sounds like a lot of them are contrary to executive orders that President Trump signed 100 percent. But that's not fraud. I mean, fraud is -- is a very specific thing.
LANZA: I think that's wasteful. I mean, if you ask the American people what they think of these programs being spent, they're going to say they don't want their tax dollars spent on these things. You're right. It's not --it's not fraud. I suspect the next rollout will be more of these fraudulent things that you say take place.
I don't think anybody in this table is saying fraud does not take place with respect to federal dollars. It clearly does. We see example after example. What we've seen in this example, what Karoline showed today was waste. And I think if -- you know, if, if the left wants to continue to defend these cuts and say that these were necessary, wasteful spending needs to take place, that's where we're going to win. TAPPER: Yean, I'm just -- I'm just -- I'm giving them credit for the
receipts. I'm just noting that there's -- there's waste, there's fraud, there's abuse, and there's also things that are contrary to what the president signed into executive order. It sounds like that's what that is.
Xochitl, I want to play a little clip from Justin Trudeau, the outgoing Canadian prime minister, about Trump's assertion that Canada should join the United States. Let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: I've said unequivocally from the beginning, there's not a snowballs chance in hell that Canada will ever be the 51st state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, that's some shocking language from Justin Trudeau, who's not known for saltiness, but I just want to give you that word.
[16:25:01]
HINOJOSA: That is -- that is salty. I will say that it's not helpful to be in the situation with your allies. It is -- Canada has always been an ally. Whenever you have to have tough conversations with your ally, comments like Trump made earlier this week is they're not helpful and honestly, it's embarrassing to our country.
TAPPER: Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
President Trump is facing a slew of legal challenges to his agenda, and today, a hint at exactly how the Trump administration plans to push back on what is playing out in the courts. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: President Donald Trump and his newly confirmed executive in front of the -- administrator in charge of the Department of National Intelligence, just spoke.
[16:30:04]
Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: -- plan on meeting with Vladimir Putin. And were there any preconditions set to agree to this meeting?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. We had a great call and it lasted for a long time, over an hour this morning.
I also had with President Zelenskyy a very good call after that. And I think we're on the way to getting peace. I think president Putin wants peace and President Zelenskyy wants peace, and I want peace. I just want to see people stop getting killed. We're very far away from that particular war.
But that's a vicious war, probably a million and a half soldiers killed in a short period of time. I've never seen anything. I have pictures that are -- you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe what you have to look at, young, beautiful soldiers that are just being decimated. And it would be nice to end it immediately. But we had a very good talk with people.
Didn't really know what President Putin's thoughts were, but I think I can say with great confidence he wants to see it end it also. That's good. And we're going to work toward getting it ended and as fast as possible.
It's a -- it's a horrible situation going over. It's flatland and the bullet goes off and the only thing it can hit is a body, a human body, a young human body. And they're losing just tremendous numbers of mostly soldiers, just the cities and towns have been largely demolished. It's a shame what's happened to that country.
It would have never happened if I were president, that I can tell you. It would have never happened. It's -- to look at that. And October 7th would have never happened either, by the way, Middle East.
But we'll get it -- I think we'll get it -- we'll get something done. We're going to be meeting actually, tomorrow. They're meeting in Munich, as you know, and we're going to have some other meetings and we'll be -- I'll be dealing with President Putin largely on the phone, and we ultimately expect to meet.
In fact, we expect that he'll come here and I'll go there and were going to meet also probably in Saudi Arabia. The first time we'll meet in Saudi Arabia and see if we can get something done.
But we want to end that war. That war is a disaster. It's a really bloody, horrible war.
REPORTER: Mr. President, did you commit --
REPORTER: You said Saudi Arabia, you -- the first meeting will happen.
TRUMP: I think so. We think we're going to probably meet in Saudi Arabia, the first meeting.
REPORTER: When it will be? When?
TRUMP: Hasn't been set, but not too distant future.
REPORTER: Did you also be part of that meeting --
TRUMP: We both understand, you know, we know the crown prince and I think he'd be a -- would be a very good place to meet.
REPORTER: So it sounds like that would just be a meeting between you and Putin and perhaps the crown prince, but not President Zelenskyy.
TRUMP: Probably. We'll have a first meeting and then well see what we can do about the second meeting.
REPORTER: Did you also commit to go to Ukraine?
TRUMP: What about Ukraine?
REPORTER: Did you commit to go to Ukraine?
TRUMP: No, I haven't -- I haven't committed to go to Ukraine.
REPORTER: Would you go?
TRUMP: I would think about going. I'd think about it. No problem.
REPORTER: You say today, Mr. President, that he received your vision. What is your plan to end this war? Like today, Secretary --
TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to tell you my plan. I can just tell you we've made a lot of progress. This should have been done by Biden, not by me because this has been going on for now, a long time, years, and it should have been done by Biden, just like the young gentleman that I brought home yesterday.
After two weeks, we worked on it for two weeks. It was a fine man, and he was in there for three and a half, almost four years, and they weren't able to do a thing. And I got him out.
And as you know, I didn't pay $6 billion. I didn't pay anything. I -- we did a trade and we did a good job. We got him out in two weeks. He should have been out years ago. It really should have been out years ago.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Do you oppose NATO membership for Ukraine?
TRUMP: I don't think its practical to have it, personally. I know that our new secretary of defense, who's excellent, Pete, made a statement today saying that he thinks its unlikely or impractical. I think probably that's true.
I think long before President Putin, they said there's no way they'd allow that. This has been going on for many, many years. They've been saying that for a long time. That Ukraine cannot go into NATO. And I'm -- and I'm okay with that. I just want the war, whether they are or they're not. But it certainly would seem to be that most people have said that that is something that's not going to happen.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: -- freezing out President Zelenskyy of this process a bit. Isn't there a danger of that?
TRUMP: No, I don't think so. As long as he's there. But, you know, at some point you're going to have to have elections, too. You're going to have to have an election.
REPORTER: He says he wants security assurances, Mr. President. What does that look like?
TRUMP: In terms of what?
REPORTER: If the war were to end, he says he wants guarantees of security.
[16:35:02]
TRUMP: We'll see what that means. We have -- I think, when the war ends. One thing he was very strong about, he wants if it ends, he wants it to end. And that's President Putin said that he wants it to end. He doesn't want to end it and then go back to fighting six months later, we talked about the possibility I mentioned it, of a ceasefire so we can stop the killing. And I think well probably end up at some point getting a ceasefire in the not too distant future.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Do you expect Ukraine --
TRUMP: Say it, what?
REPORTER: What do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process?
TRUMP: It's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. Their people are being killed, and I think they have to make peace.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I said that was not a good war to go into, and I think they have to make peace. That's what I think.
REPORTER: Why did you -- why did you decide to provide support to Ukraine?
REPORTER: Would you support Zelenskyy ceding territory or exchanging territory in any agreement to end the war?
TRUMP: Well, he's going to have to do what he has to do. But, you know, his poll numbers aren't particularly great, to put it mildly. He's got a country where, you know, it's been savaged and attacked and he's got an army that's been very, very brave, actually, despite the fact that, you know, we've given them, in my opinion, $350 billion. That's what the real number is. You don't hear that number.
And Europe has given, in my opinion, $100 billion, and they've done it in the form of a loan. And I have a secretary of treasury right now who's actually quite brave. He's over in Ukraine on a train. And there's a lot of things happening around that train that aren't so good.
And he's going there to get a document done where were going to be assured that were going to, in some form, get this money back, because were putting up far more money than Europe. And Europe is in far more danger than we are. We have an ocean in between. Europe has nothing in between. You know what they have in between.
They have Ukraine in between. So, so -- wait a minute. So, as you know, Europe is putting up money and they're getting it in the form of a loan. And the United States under Biden didn't do loans. They just handed money every time somebody walked in from Ukraine, they just handed them money foolishly.
And this should have never happened. It should have never started. And once it did, other things should have happened. Other things should have taken place.
So we're -- we're getting security on our money. We're going to have it secured by they have raw earth and they have oil and gas, and they have a lot of other things. And we're asking for security in our money.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: They've agreed to it. Ukraine has agreed to it.
REPORTER: Does it mean you are not sending any more aid to Ukraine?
TRUMP: No, we are, but we want it secured and the money is going to be secured.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: When will the U.S. stop sending funding? When would the U.S. stop sending?
TRUMP: Because if we didn't do that, then Putin would say he won. We're the thing that's holding it back. And frankly, we'll go as long as we have to go, because we're not going to let the other happen.
But President Putin wants to have peace now, and that's good. And he didn't want to have peace with Biden.
REPORTER: Was that conversation with Putin?
TRUMP: And you tell me why that is, okay?
REPORTER: Was that conversation with Putin to start these negotiations part of the deal to bring Fogel home?
TRUMP: No, but it was a nice thing that he allowed Marc Fogel to leave. In fact, Marc is -- wasn't feeling well, but he was all of a sudden, about two weeks ago, he started being treated very nicely. He said they took him out for haircuts. They took him out. They -- they helped him out a little bit and made him feel better, made him look better. And they were nice to him.
And he said, I saw something happening. And it had to -- it coincided with when I came into office. So that was nice. And he was -- he's a fine person. He was so happy to be out.
He was there. He was there for three and a half years plus, and he shouldn't have been there at all. He should have. They should have had him out much faster than that.
REPORTER: What does make you believe that Zelenskyy --
TRUMP: Well, go ahead please.
REPORTER: Sorry, sir. Just to be clear, do you see any future in which Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders?
TRUMP: Well, I think Pete said today that that's unlikely. Right. It's certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a lot of land and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of -- they lost a lot of soldiers. But it would just seem to me and I'm not -- I'm not making an opinion on it, but I've read a lot on it, and a lot of people think that that's unlikely.
Some of it will come back. I think some of it will come back. Yeah, some of that land will come back.
REPORTER: But these are -- ultimately, these are both Russians --
TRUMP: Who are you with?
REPORTER: Me.
TRUMP: Yeah.
REPORTER: AFP.
TRUMP: Yeah. Who?
REPORTER: AFP, Agence France-Presse.
TRUMP: Okay.
REPORTER: I just wanted to ask you the things that the secretary of defense was talking about, the 2014 borders and the lack of NATO membership.
[16:40:07]
Ultimately, these are both demands that Russia has made in the past. Is there not a danger of handing Russia a kind of win on this?
TRUMP: Well -- well, I think that if you look at the war, the way the war is going, we'll have to make your own determination. I'm just here to try and get peace. I don't care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed. Killed,
Last night, you know, Kyiv got hit very, very hard. I want to see people stop getting killed. That war is ridiculous. It should have never happened. And it should have never happened.
Yeah. A couple of more questions.
REPORTER: Are you planning to sign today? Are you planning to sign an executive order on reciprocal tariffs, sir? TRUMP: Yes, I am, in fact, I may do it today. And if I do it today, I
could almost do it right now. Would you like to me to talk about it now?
I don't want to take anything away from this young lady's day, because this is her day, and I may do it later on, or I may do it tomorrow morning. But we'll be signing reciprocal tariffs.
The world has taken advantage of the United States for many years. They've charged us massive tariffs that we haven't charged them. And as you know I just did something on steel and aluminum 25 percent. And that will go up at some point, but 25 percent, which will level the playing field quite a bit. I did it previously 50 percent.
And Obama was -- Obama was very weak and Biden was even weaker on steel. The steel was just absolutely -- it really started with Obama.
The world really took advantage of us. And then that morphed into Biden. And what they did was he was so worried about trying to attack his political opponent that he didn't know what he was doing with respect to countries taking advantage. He should have looked at the countries both friend and foe, taking advantage of us.
So we're going to be doing reciprocal tariffs, which is whatever they charge. We charge very simply. But we're going to be --
REPORTER: Considering exemptions, talk about widespread fraud and abuse.
TRUMP: Oh, yeah, the tremendous fraud. There's tremendous fraud. And it's hard to believe that you can have that kind of fraud. You're talking about, like, are you talking about what?
Wait, wait, wait, which are you talking? You're talking about with regard to all of the investigations that are going on about the stupidity. What we're going to do is tomorrow, I'm having a news conference. I'm going to read to you some of the names that hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars have been given to.
And if you tell me that we should be giving money to those things, those entities, I think you'll probably have to leave as a reporter because you're not very talented. When you look at the kind of money, billions and billions of dollars being thrown away illegally and there's no -- there's no chance. I mean, I say it in front of our -- our attorney general.
There's no chance that there's not kickbacks or something going on. When you give millions and millions of dollars to somebody that stands to look at something for 15 minutes and walks away with millions of dollars, that money is coming back in some form. And that's only one form of corruption.
The biggest thing is what they do to our country. They're taking massive amounts of money and spending it on items. I went through a list of 200 expenditures that were made, and I found three that looked like they were reasonable. Okay, three, and we'll be talking about that tomorrow. We have a lot of stuff.
And I want to commend Elon because he's done a fantastic -- he doesn't need this. You know, he's abused by you people every day. He's found more things and anybody could find. I think he's got the credibility to do it. I know he does.
And it's his group of people. You know, they started off with 12, I call them 12 geniuses. They started off with 12 and they went to 20 and 25. And now they're up to almost 100 people are joining to help them because this is a massive fraud that's taking place. And then you have judges that are activists, and they sit there and they say, oh, as an example, $59 million going to a little small group in New York City.
You get nothing going to North Carolina to help. Nothing. They say we don't have any money because they've given it away on the border, but you have nothing. What they did to North Carolina is a shame.
And then they send $59 million to New York City for a hotel for a little -- a little bit of nothing. What they've done a hotel that was not luxury. That's getting luxury rates for migrants where they're making a fortune. And we catch 'em, we catch 'em.
And but -- a judge says, well, even though it may be a fraud, you have to send the money in anyway. Send the money. I said, wait a minute, we have money that shouldn't go because we caught it before it was sent out. But they want the money to go anyway.
[16:45:02]
And, I think you're going to have a lot of things to look at, Pam, I really do, what's going on with this whole thing. And this is just one group. We haven't talked about Department of Education. We haven't talked about the military. We haven't talked about a lot of things that are very big.
And what's happened is as an example, you'll have cases where you have a three month contract and maybe the guy that signs a contract leaves, maybe he gets rich. All of a sudden, he leaves for that reason. But you have a three-month contract and maybe he leaves. So the contract is sitting there and the people signing the checks don't know. It'\s three months and it goes on for years.
The three months turns out to be three years, five years, ten years. It just goes on forever. And the guy on the other side of the contract just keeps getting check after check after check. Because Elon had an expression yesterday because nobody cares, it's a great expression. Nobody cares.
The guy that signed the contract didn't care. Maybe there, may not be there, may be crooked. Who knows? But you have to care. Otherwise, you can't really run a thing like that. Or you can't run a country really, because there's so many transactions, thousands and thousands of transactions.
And if you don't have people that care, you're going to lose control. And that's what's happened. And we've caught it. Now, what we caught is billions and billions of dollars, but it's a tiny fraction of the real number because you can never catch the real number, because people have gotten away with tremendous amounts of money.
But I said, we have to make our government smaller, more efficient, more effective, and a lot less expensive. And we could find $1 trillion. But were being hindered by courts where they file in certain courts where it's very hard to win. And a judge will stop us, and a judge will say that it doesn't make any difference what you find. You just keep paying the money. That's a hell of a way to be.
And I follow the courts. I have to follow the law. All it means is that we appeal, but that gives people time to cover their tracks, and that's what they do. So it's a very bad -- it's a very bad thing that's taking place.
But hopefully if the courts, hopefully, the courts will be fair. They don't have to be very fair. They just have to be a little bit fair because this is so egregious, what's taking place. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Nobody's seen numbers like this. These are massive numbers, $9 million for somebody to go and stand in a store and see how people shop. Okay. I mean, you take a look at -- you take a look at these things. It's a disgrace.
And then you have a country that we want to make America great again. It's very hard to make America great again when you have things like this, and you're going to see the same thing, Department of Education is going to be a disaster.
The military, I mean, I see it. Look, I bought, I came in -- they had a contract done, as you know, for $5.7 billion for airplanes. It was Air Force One with Boeing, 5.7. I got it down to $4 billion, a little less than that, one penny less than that, $3,999,999,999.99. They said I said it has to have a three in front of it because I wouldn't sign the contract for 5.7 billion. I was able to cut $1.7 billion off the price. And it didn't take me long, $1.7 billion.
If people would care, they'd be able to do that with every single contract that's put before them. And we wouldn't have deficits, would have nothing but a tremendously low taxed wonderful country. But they have to care.
And speaking of that, you know, Boeing, we're not happy with the service were getting in terms of those planes. They would like to get more money. We're not happy about that whole thing.
We signed a very strong contract. I signed a guaranteed maximum contract, which they haven't seen in a long time. And they're saying they're getting hurt by it, but they have to produce the product and we expect them to produce the product.
They have -- they have to produce the product. They agreed to build planes at a certain price. They're not used to that. They used to having time and material contracts where its whatever it costs, time and material, no dates, no anything, and it ends up costing five times more. You look at some of the ships that have been built. Look at -- take a
look at the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier, the Ford. It came. It was supposed to cost $3 billion. It ends up costing like $18 billion. And they make, of course, all electric catapults, which don't work. And they have all magnetic elevators to lift up 25 planes at a time, 20 planes at a time.
And instead of using hydraulic like on tractors that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything, they use magnets.
[16:50:08]
It's a new theory. Magnets are going to lift the planes up and it doesn't work. And they had billions and billions of dollars of cost overruns. I met the architect. I said, have you designed a ship before? This is one of the biggest ships in the world. It's like landing at LaGuardia Airport.
But you look at the kind of waste, fraud and abuse that this country is going through and we have to straighten it out. We have great people going into the military in terms of we need ships, we need a lot of things. We have great people, we have business people going in.
But when you look at what's happened to our purchasing, the purchasing, and when you look at the USAID, when you look at the things that they're giving to the -- the billions, the billions of dollars that they're giving to, and it doesn't make sense. It is interesting that when you're looking for fraud, you look at items, hundreds of items, and you'll find 1 or 2, maybe, if you're lucky, here's something where you look at it and they're all fraudulent.
You know, by just looking at the topic, they're all fraudulent, except it's the opposite. You'll find 1 or 2 that's like a legitimate reason.
So I just want to thank Elon for going through it. I want to thank all the people that are working with him. You know, we have a big group of people. All I think the lowest IQ is about 160. That's very high. I think you have a couple of you have a couple of 182s in there.
But they're doing a fantastic job. They don't -- he doesn't need it and they don't need it. But were showing things and its going to be a -- it's a big -- people have no idea how important it is.
Yeah?
REPORTER: How soon do you want the Department of Education to be closed?
TRUMP: Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education is a big con job. We're ranked -- so they ranked the top 40 countries in the world. We're ranked number 40th, but were ranked number 1 in 1 department, costs per pupil.
So we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world. But we're ranked number 40. We've been between 38 and 40. The last time I looked it was 38. And then I looked two days ago, it came out the new list. It came out at number 40.
So we're ranked 40. Norway, Denmark, Sweden, I hate to say it, China as big as it is, it's ranked in the top five. And that's our -- that's a primary competitor. We're ranked number 40. So if we're ranked number 40, that means something's really wrong, right? And I say send it back to Iowa, to Idaho to Colorado.
Send it back to places that and there are a lot of Indiana. You have a great new governor. You have a great senator that Jim Banks just got elected. You got great people.
I'll tell you what? Indiana is going to be fantastic. We probably have 35, maybe 37 states that will do as well as Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden. They'll be just as good. Then you have -- then you have the ones that we all know about. It'll be the same story.
But you know what? Even they will be good. Because you look at New York, you give it to Westchester County, you give it to long island, you give it to Nassau County, you give it to Suffolk County. Same thing you go out to, and you give it to Upstate New York.
So you'd have 4 or 5 sections. You give it to Manhattan. Manhattans a little bit tougher for some reason. I don't know why it would be tougher, but it is.
You give to California and you go to various areas outside of Los Angeles, and you might have 6 or 7 different subgroups, but generally, like in if you go to Iowa, you give it to Iowa, you don't have subgroups, you have Iowa and other places that do a good job.
If they do a good job, they're going to do a great job in education. Those places will be every good, every bit as good as the various countries that do so well all the time. It's the same countries that are doing well. And so we have --
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: All right. You have been watching President Donald Trump speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. A lot of information of importance there.
He was asked about his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where they discussed setting up negotiations to end the war. Trump said he and Putin expected to meet probably in Saudi Arabia.
The president also said today he's going to be signing an order implementing reciprocal tariffs on every country that charges duties on U.S. imports. The president, as he's been doing now for quite some time, bashed government contracts and spending, saying that DOGE and Elon Musk have found numerous examples of millions of dollars in fraud.
The president also said he wants the department of education to be closed immediately. This has become, in these first weeks of the Trump administration, the second Trump administration, something of a daily occurrence around this time, the president giving commentary, making news about his agenda.
[16:55:03]
We're going to have much more reaction to all of this ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
This hour, it was the search that captivated the world's attention, a tragic, tragic one. The Titan sub, believed to be missing for days before it was found in pieces on the bottom of the ocean floor. Now, the coast guard is releasing the suspected audio recording of the sub's implosion. As the coast guard tries to figure out exactly what went so terribly wrong.
Plus, could President Trump's cuts to humanitarian aid programs around the world actually end up hurting America's farmers? The Kansas Farmers Union is warning yes, possibly. And the group's executive director is here to explain why.
And leading this hour, President Trump moments ago, making news on a --
