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Trump to Welcome Zelenskyy to White House for Critical Talks on War in Ukraine; Bolton's Vehicle Arrives at Federal Court After Indictment; AI Boom Partly to Blame for Higher Utility Bills. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired October 17, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SALMA ABDULAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Needs to take an active role, not only in making sure these parties abide by the ceasefire, but also to push them to the next phase, phase two of the deal, where there are even more obstacles.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, there is so much destruction and so much desperation there in Gaza, as you well know. Salma Abdulaziz, thank you so much, really appreciate it.

New Hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, just moments ago, we saw former National Security Advisor John Bolton leaving his home. He is expected to surrender. We're not sure when, after being indicted on federal charges related to the alleged retention of classified documents. We are standing by for an update.

Soaring electricity bills just in time for winter. Could artificial intelligence be to blame?

And Halloween horror, masked suspects show up on a resident's doorstep, threatening to kill the people inside.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is headed to the White House for what is most definitely a consequential sit down with President Trump. Zelenskyy is expected to continue his push to get the green light on American Tomahawks, long range missiles that could allow Ukraine to hit more precisely and much deeper into Russia, seen as potentially game changing weapons in this war. Zelenskyy is saying that it has Moscow, in his words, quote, rushing to resume dialogue.

And his chief of staff just told CNN contributor Barak Ravid this, quote, we need decisions that will help to change Putin's attitude, that he is -- he is in a strong position. He needs to understand that with President Trump, it's impossible to play games. The White House summit today comes after Trump held a two and a half

hour call with Vladimir Putin just yesterday and told reporters after that that they'd agreed to meet face to face again, this time in Budapest, Hungary.

President Trump also saying that he even leveled that new Tomahawk threat to Putin on that very call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I did actually say, would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition? I did say that to him. I said it just that way.

So he didn't like the idea. He really didn't like the idea. No, I said it that that way.

You have to be a little bit lighthearted sometimes.

HOLMES: Did he specifically ask you not to provide Tomahawks?

TRUMP: So wouldn't anybody? I mean, it's been in the news. Who wouldn't do that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining U.S. right now is CNN contributor Jill Daugherty, former CNN Moscow bureau chief and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. During the first Trump administration, he was a director for European affairs on the National Security Council. It's very good to see both of you. Thank you for being here.

Lieutenant Colonel, Zelenskyy meeting with Trump today, pushing to get those Tomahawk missiles. What do you think of that? Do you think Russians are afraid of the Tomahawks?

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I think they're concerned. These are very powerful and capable missiles with a 2,500 kilometer range, 1,600 miles that allows Ukraine to hit targets deep into Russia. These are the primary objectives might be these Shaheed facilities, manufacturing facilities that are producing thousands of drones that have been targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, Ukrainian civilian populations, raining terror on Ukrainian cities.

And if the Ukrainians could go after that target, that would be critical. But I don't think this is a magic bullet, nor is this something that with a snap of the fingers just shows up. Ukrainians will employ these under their own authorities.

Likely the transfer would go through and the purchase would go through the Europeans and the Ukrainians need some time to train on these systems like they needed for the Patriots. So this would be something that occurs weeks, months down the road, hopefully in time for Ukraine to destroy these facilities and kind of alleviate some of the harm to the energy infrastructure that's essential for Ukraine to keep its, you know, cities and its population warm.

BOLDUAN: Every moment is a critical one when you're in the middle of a war, right, Jill? But how important is this moment, this sit down for Zelenskyy right now? Right now it seems that he has Donald Trump on his side.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It does. And that seems to have been the message up until that conversation with President Putin, you know, Trump and Putin. Because before that, it really did look as if President Trump was over it. He was sick of what Putin was doing and we had the Tomahawk conversation.

But after that conversation with Putin, we haven't heard a lot about the Tomahawks from President Trump. So I think the question is, was Putin able to play the usual game and convince President Trump that, look, those missiles aren't going to make much difference anyway?

[08:05:00]

And -- and this he says this all the time -- if you use something like that, it's escalatory. And it means that it's going to ruin relations between the United States and Russia. And this is what Putin constantly does.

So I'm sure that he played on President Trump. And the question is, you know, after this Zelenskyy meeting, will we actually get some action, not just let's have another meeting with President Putin in Budapest?

BOLDUAN: And Lieutenant Colonel, kind of to that point, you now have the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune. He said yesterday that he plans to move ahead with that bill to impose a new round of crushing sanctions on Russia that has overwhelming bipartisan support. It's been out there for months.

And the way that Thune's talking about it now is he says the time has come. But President Trump just told reporters yesterday, the way he's describing now is it may not be perfect timing to move on that bill right now. Add to that that the president claims -- that Donald Trump's claim this week that India told him, Modi told him that they were going to stop buying Russian oil.

India's foreign ministry now says today the wording is we are not aware of any conversation or any such assurance from the Indian leader on that. I mean, what do you make of this?

VINDMAN: Sure. So I think this is, you know, Trump era national security and foreign policy. A lot of things have been worked on, coordinated.

The Ukrainians have been here for days trying to smooth the path for sanctions, for additional military systems to be purchased for Ukraine, for Tomahawks. All that was quickly undone by a phone call, a late minute phone call, last minute phone call from Putin to Trump with -- and this is an open channel. So, you know, one of these leaders picks up a phone, the other one's going to answer. It's a historical channel for to manage crises and accidents and miscalculation. So as per form, Putin concerned about sanctions coming in, concerned about additional weapons calls.

And almost certainly this is going to delay any decisions being made because Trump is not going to want to upend the potential for a deal to unfold over the course of the following weeks. The setting also is really for this meeting between Putin and Trump is critical. It's going to be hosted by Viktor Orban, somebody that's notoriously damning of Zelenskyy, damning of Ukraine.

I remember vividly going on the presidential delegation to Zelenskyy's inauguration. Meanwhile, Orban was meeting with Trump in the Oval Office and Orban was casting a shadow over this relationship with Ukraine. That's going to be the setting for this next meeting.

And it's going to be a big setback for, you know, all the reasonable and rational approaches, whether it's Thune in the Senate or any other actions that the U.S. could take, because the president is going to -- is not going to be willing to take any action. So we're weeks delayed on all the work that's been laid to try to get to this point just by a phone call yesterday.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see both of you. Thank you so much. Good to see you, Jill. Thank you so much, Lieutenant Colonel -- Sara.

SIDNER: Coming up, sparks flying and the Big Apple as candidates in the New York mayoral race face off on the debate stage. We'll bring you what was said.

And more on this case. He faked his own child's kidnapping and now he's pleaded guilty to killing his seven month old.

Plus, a major drug bust. Authorities seized more than 14 million bucks worth of cocaine hidden in a truck that was on the highway. That story and more next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right, just a short time ago, we saw John Bolton leaving his home in Maryland -- you see him there. Trump's former national security adviser and vocal Trump critic is expected to turn himself in after being indicted on charges of mishandling classified material.

Prosecutors say that Bolton kept and shared diary like entries with family members, namely his wife and daughter, which they say included top secret information. Bolton has slammed the indictment, accusing the president of political persecution.

Joining me now is Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor and a friend of the show, I must say.

Look, we've heard what John Bolton has said before this, that he is a victim of political persecution by the Trump DOJ. What are your thoughts after looking through this indictment? NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: Well, first of all, the indictment, unlike the one against James Comey, the former FBI director and the one against Leticia James, the attorney general for the state of New York, this indictment has actual facts that lay out criminal activity. So there's a whole series of things. It tells a story about an individual who is a national security director who essentially kept sending home information on an almost daily basis that was done for the purpose of maintaining a diary that he would use to write the book that he ultimately published.

And the indictment claims he made over a million dollars on that. It also alleges various items that show that he had the intent to commit the crime, that he signed documents saying that he was not supposed to do this. He's gone on air, on television, saying people aren't supposed to do this.

[08:15:00]

But again, this whole idea of political persecution is a huge issue overhanging this case and is something we're going to learn a lot more about with respect to any details as this moves along.

SIDNER: As this case, you point out, is different because also career prosecutors have backed this case. They did not do the same thing for Comey and Letitia James.

I do want to just quickly. We just learned this, that John Bolton has arrived. His vehicle has arrived at the courthouse now.

So we know that he made his way from home this morning just less than an hour ago. And now he is at court. Let's talk about what happens when he goes into court now.

As the former national security adviser turns now defendant in this case, what happens in court at this stage of the case?

AKERMAN: Not too much. He basically goes in. The judge asks him whether he pleads guilty or not guilty.

I think it's pretty obvious he's going to plead not guilty. If it's the same judge who's going to be presiding over the entire case, likely he's going to set up some kind of a schedule for motions. He may ask Bolton's lawyer to kind of list what he's planning to do in terms of motions.

That may be premature at this point because obviously no documents, no discovery has been turned over by the government to the lawyer at this point. So we're just going to have to see what happens. We may get some clue about their defense, but I think it's pretty clear that they are going to claim vindictive prosecution.

Which could very well wind up allowing John Bolton to take discovery here of depositions and subpoenaed documents from Donald Trump, from the attorney general, from the deputy attorney general, everybody who had some kind of say in whether or not this case was going forward. What makes it different is this has been investigated since back in 2021 under Merrick Garland, who was a real attorney --

SIDNER: Right.

AKERMAN: -- general who really followed the law, really looked at the facts. And you have to believe if they didn't go ahead with this case, then there's got to be a legitimate reason.

And when you balance that against the fact that Bolton is on Trump's enemies list and he's part of Trump's retribution tour, it is going to be very interesting to see what kind of facts come out during the course of this case.

SIDNER: Yes, it sounds like you're saying two things can be true at once. There can be some political pressure in a case like this, but also there are some evidence in this case, which is different than what you saw with James Comey, similarly to Letitia James.

AKERMAN: Absolutely. And the problem here is Donald Trump has said so many things against John Bolton. There's a reason why presidents never have done that before.

SIDNER: They don't. They're not normally they don't weigh in on any kind of case that could come up to the DOJ.

AKERMAN: Right, for this for this reason.

SIDNER: For this reason. Nick Ackerman, you're great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

AKERMAN: Thank you.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: All right. A major military shakeup, a top general suddenly announces he is out. The commander overseeing the controversial strikes on targets in the Caribbean. So what happened here?

Then first concern about AI taking your job, now your electricity. How artificial intelligence could be pushing your bills higher and higher just in time for winter.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, the cost of electricity rising across the country. So what's the possible connection to artificial intelligence?

CNN tech editor Lisa Eadicicco is here with us. So what's going on?

LISA EADICICCO, CNN TECH EDITOR: So we're seeing electricity prices rise across the U.S. The average price of electricity has gone up by 13 percent since 2022. And there's a lot of factors that go into those rising prices. But one of them is increasing demand for electricity because of all of these data centers that are being built and also being maintained to support new AI advancements. And we've seen a ton of money being put into new data centers and other AI related infrastructure. Meta, for example, said in its earnings report for the quarter that ended in June that it spent 17 billion on capital expenditures. And those kinds of funds typically go towards building out new infrastructure. That's spending on leases and things like that.

And Microsoft similarly spent 24.2 billion in its most recent earnings report, it said. So we're seeing a lot of money being spent in this space.

And that's driving up demand. And those prices -- those price increases are starting to trickle down to consumers. And we've been seeing a lot of reports, even just anecdotally on social media of people complaining about rising costs in their electricity bills.

BERMAN: I think one of the things that that some people who may not be even, even a little bit into AI don't realize is how much energy it takes to fuel this. You hear the AI pioneer Sam Altman or whatever, and they always talk about energy being like the primary obstacle to massive expansion in AI.

EADICICCO: Absolutely, and I feel like part of that is because a lot of these AI models are very power intensive. And on top of that, the technology is growing so fast. So it wasn't too long ago that we were using ChatGPT for things like generating vacation itineraries or helping to manage your schedule or these really relatively simple text based things.

But now companies are increasingly adopting AI to write code, to build websites from scratch, to assist with other work related tasks. And you have new apps like OpenAI's Sora, which can generate really realistic looking video in a matter of seconds. And the technology is moving really fast.

And that's putting a strain on the power industry as well, because it's growing a bit faster than they're probably used to when it comes to new computing technology.

BERMAN: And look, it's becoming a political issue in some races around the country, too. Some people not so happy that these big power data centers are going up in their backyards. It's great to see you. Thank you so much for coming in.

EADICICCO: Thank you.

BERMAN: Kate.

[08:25:00]

BOLDUAN: So New York's mayor's race taken center stage as the candidates take part in their first general election debate, and it got nasty and it got nasty quickly. What it means now, though, for this race today.

And it's something straight out of our nightmares, truly. A new doorbell cam footage showing the moments that three people show up in terrifying Halloween mask, banging on a homeowners door, and threatening to kill the people inside.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, breaking just moments ago, we learned that former national security adviser John Bolton just arrived at the federal courthouse in Maryland. The former national security adviser, also ambassador to the United Nation.