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Interview with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA); Trump Endorses Freeze to Current Battle Lines in Ukraine, Colombian Ambassador to the U.S. Recalled to Bogota; Amazon Says Its Systems are Effectively Back Online; Appeals Court: Trump Can Deploy National Guard to Portland, Oregon. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 20, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: New today, President Donald Trump tempering his support for Ukraine as he looks for a path to peace with Russia. Today, he said that Ukraine could still win the war, but that outcome at this point is unlikely. It follows this statement he made aboard Air Force One last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let it be cut the way it is. It's cut up right now. I think 78 percent of the land is already taken by Russia.

You leave it the way it is right now. They can they can negotiate something later on down the line. But I said cut and stop at the battle. I go home. Stop fighting. Stop killing people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That 78 percent number inaccurate, given where things stand right now in Russia's gains into Ukraine. Those comments come after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday. European officials, after being briefed by Zelenskyy afterwards, say Trump got testy, even raising his voice in frustration as he pushed for those same territorial concessions.

With U.S. now, Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss. Congressman, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. I'm just curious to get your reaction to President Trump demanding that Ukraine concede territory in order to end the war.

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Candidly, I don't know what he said. I mean, it was incoherent, another embarrassment for American diplomacy when our commander in chief can't even communicate what he's talking about. So I can tell you what the Russians hear.

The Russians hear weakness. And this is why I have so strongly advocated for a clear and compelling definition of victory as the cornerstone of our strategy. I said that to Joe Biden.

I've said that to Donald Trump. It's a three-part definition of victory, a secure eastern border, freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, and accession to the European Union for Ukraine. If Ukraine achieves those three pillars, it will put up a big W.

And it will signal to Russia that war doesn't pay. And it will signal to the Ukrainian people that they can join the West with security and prosperity.

[15:35:00]

SANCHEZ: In terms of the Ukrainian side of this, it's likely that they would have to make some level of territorial concessions, though, right? Possibly relinquishing the gains that Russia has made as we're showing a map to our viewers. Otherwise, it would require a level of manpower and firepower that the West hasn't provided Ukraine to that to this point, and that would further extend the war.

Isn't it a fact that Ukraine is going to have to give up some territory?

AUCHINCLOSS: Yes, and you'll note that I said a secure eastern border didn't specify where.

SANCHEZ: Sure.

AUCHINCLOSS: Those elements of its eastern frontier that have been taken by Russia have been largely Russified at this point. They're also not the engine of Ukraine's future economy.

So long as Ukraine has its western hubs and it has freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, it can be a prosperous nation. But the thing that this self-described dealmaker-in-chief needs to understand is you don't make concessions up front to the Russians. What you do is you seize the Russian assets held in Brussels, you give that 300 billion euros to Ukraine to rearm over the course of the next decade to equip and to train a cut rate force, you sanction Russian oil, and then you authorize Ukraine to use Tomahawks to strike their refineries.

From that position of strength, where you can credibly say that we can prosecute this war for years to come using your money, Vladimir Putin, then you can talk about land concessions. But to bumble your way through some sentence about, oh, I don't know, 78 percent of this or that, it just looks like you're the junior varsity squad negotiating against a bunch of hardened Kremlin apparatchiks.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, I want to pivot to South America because President Trump, amid these tensions with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, has vowed tariffs and other financial punishment for what he describes as a lack of a strong crackdown on narcotrafficking. And in response, Colombia has decided to recall its ambassador to the United States back to Bogota. What do you make of that decision?

AUCHINCLOSS: I led a combined special operations drug interdiction mission in Central America, worked with Colombian special operators as the commander of that mission. And I can say that what Donald Trump is missing right now are two Cs, Congress and Colombia. He needs to scope and authorize these strikes against the Venezuelans through Congress so that they have a statutory basis and so that we're ensuring that he is taking out combatants and drug traffickers, not innocents.

And second, we need to be working by and with the Colombians. The Colombian special operators have been battling against narcoterrorists for decades. They're good at it.

They're good at riverine and jungle patrolling and drug interdiction tactics. I've worked with them up close. And to alienate the Colombians when we're going against the Venezuelan drug cartels is counterproductive.

He needs to bring Congress on board to give this legitimate basis, and he needs to have the Colombians as our allies.

SANCHEZ: To the question of legitimate basis, do you believe that these strikes are illegal, even if the allegations that these are drug traffickers bear fruit?

AUCHINCLOSS: Yes, and it speaks to the deeper rot that we have in the War Powers Act coming from the 1970s. Whether it strikes against Iran, which I thought strategically were sound, whether it strikes against Venezuelan drug cartels, which I support, the commander-in-chief still needs congressional buy-in. That's not a partisan statement.

I said that when Joe Biden was commander-in-chief, too. The commander- in-chief is able to execute a war, but he is not able to declare war or to instigate war-making against other organizations without congressional buy-in. The Constitution is super clear about that, and this is a dangerous session of the people's power to an out-of-control executive.

People think that it starts overseas, but as we're seeing with these ice waves, the militarization of executive policy can start overseas and seep into domestic policy real quick.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, we have to leave the conversation there. We look forward to the next one.

AUCHINCLOSS: Be well.

SANCHEZ: Up next, millions of users worldwide experiencing disruptions after an Amazon Web Services outage brings down popular apps and Internet sites. The company has just given an update. We've got it for you in just moments.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Just moments ago, Amazon announced that its systems are mostly back online after a major outage brought down thousands of websites and apps impacting millions of people around the world. Amazon Web Services is the leading provider of cloud infrastructure technology, and it's a lifeline for companies both big and small. With U.S. now is Mark Spoonauer, Global Editor-in-Chief for Tom's

Guide.

All right, so explain to us what happened here, because so many apps, sites, and just the stuff that people use day in, day out is being affected.

MARK SPOONAUER, GLOBAL EDITOR IN CHIEF, TOM'S GUIDE: Yes, when you think about it, this was like a who's who of the Internet in terms of what went down. You had Reddit, Amazon itself, people couldn't shop, Venmo in terms of sending payments, and people even had trouble checking into United and Delta. So this was a very widespread outage.

[15:45:00]

And as you said at the top, like this is the foremost provider of cloud services, and they have about 33 percent market share. So this is definitely a single point of failure for a lot of companies.

But in terms of what happened, it looks like the errors started coming in around 3 a.m. Eastern time. And it's basically like the phone book of the Internet couldn't give the correct phone number to lots of addresses.

And what that basically mean, there was like failed connections across the board. And this had a cascading effect, and it continued late through this morning. So while, you know, Amazon is saying that they're starting to fix the problem and that like everything started to come back online, even now I'm seeing complaints across multiple services.

So it looks like it's going to take a little bit longer to come back together.

KEILAR: OK, and so one expert's telling CNN that the total cost of the outage could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. Explain to us why and who's going to be shouldering that cost.

SPOONAUER: Yes, so I think when you think about like all the services impacted, like even like Zoom, right, so that the cost of productivity, like for that alone, I saw one estimate that it's as many as like, you know, as many as -- or as much as $500,000 per hour for that particular business. Amazon could be as much as 72 million per hour.

And when you think about the amount of retail that comes through and a lot of their partners. Like even games like Fortnite, you know, lots of like online purchases happen through that as well. Slack, you know, so many of us, you know, connect through that, although today it was pretty minimal. And even Reddit, right, like one of the biggest websites, period, in terms of how people get their news, the estimate was $140,000 per hour.

So when you add that up, that is billions of dollars. And in terms of like retribution and like refunds, what Amazon has done in the past, I think it's mostly been like in the form of credits, right? But when something lasts for this long, I think there's going to be questions asked about, OK, so what are you going to do to prevent this from happening again?

If this was a data center in Virginia, where are the resiliencies and redundancies being put in place? So it doesn't go on for like several hours at a time. 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. is a long stretch.

KEILAR: What can they do to prevent it again? And how important is that for these apps, websites, all of these businesses to stick with Amazon and not go looking for someone else?

SPOONAUER: Yes, like in terms of market share, so like Azure is out there from Microsoft, they have 21 percent market share, Google Cloud about 12 percent. So those are the big three. So it doesn't hurt to look at like other options and to look for redundancies yourself when it comes to cloud infrastructure.

But right now, you know, AWS has locked up 90 percent of the Fortune 100. The question is, how long is that going to last if things like this continue?

KEILAR: Yes, does someone else see opportunity? Mark Spoonauer, great to speak with you about this and give people a real sense of what's happening here. We appreciate it.

SPOONAUER: Thank you.

KEILAR: And ahead, the murder trial of the former Illinois sheriff's deputy who fatally shot Sonia Massey in her home after she called 9-1- 1 is now underway. More when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Breaking news into CNN, a federal appeals court just ruled that President Trump can deploy National Guard troops to Portland. Oregon officials had sued the White House to try and stop that move.

KEILAR: CNN's Whitney Wild is with us now. Whitney, what does this ruling mean?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're still going through it, but for the short term, it means that the Trump administration can allow the National Guard to operate at that ICE facility in Portland. And this is critical because when we look at what the Ninth Circuit means, it is widely considered a liberal circuit. It is widely looked at while this ruling would not extend beyond Portland.

I mean, people do look at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for how these other lawsuits may play out in other cities. We, again, our team is combing through this order. The majority order is a 57-page order.

The dissent is another 36 pages or so. So we're going through for the fine details. But what I think is notable here is that there is some suggestion in the majority order that the Portland Police Department is not helping federal law enforcement enough. The reason that that's important is because here in Chicago, when a judge put a temporary restraining order on the National Guard's ability to operate at Broadview and throughout Illinois in tandem with these federal agents as they're enforcing federal immigration law, it is because of the local help that a judge said basically the locals have it. There is no need for the National Guard.

So again, we're still combing through the reasoning here, but what is clear is that the judiciary is looking at the totality of help from not just federal law enforcement, not just what the National Guard can provide, but what local law enforcement is able and willing to provide to assess the real risk to federal agents who are out pursuing these immigration enforcement actions -- Brianna and Boris.

KEILAR: All right, Whitney Wild, certainly some big news there.

We have CNN legal analyst, Joey Jackson, with us. Joey, what do you think of this decision?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's concerning -- Brianna and Boris. And I say that objectively, legally, not politically. And the reason it's concerning is because remember the process.

The district court judge, which is the judge that initially got the lawsuit said that there will be no troops sent into Portland. And then the Trump administration tried to say, OK, and send them in from California. And she said no as to that also.

But the reason it's concerning is because she had a hearing. And at that hearing, there were facts, right?

[15:55:00]

Hearing is about facts and evidence with respect to whether or not the deployment was lawful. And a lawful deployment means if you're going to allege, is the president certainly has the authority to send troops if federal properties are at issue to enforce constitutional rights, et cetera.

So yes, you have the authority, but they have to be facts that would substantiate your ability to send the troops. And therefore, it was felt that a hearing was appropriate to determine what the conditions were like on the ground. And thereafter, the judge concluded that factually, the assessment was that the Trump administration's facts were not comporting with the reality.

In fact, I will quote her, she said, untethered from reality. And so now you have another court and that's an appellate court. And they are certainly -- the appellate court is higher than the district court.

They evaluated and it's a very procedural, very procedural ruling. And it says that the district court should not substitute its judgment as to the president and that the president is afforded and should be afforded great deference. And the only way the president could be overruled is if he's patently wrong. Well, I think the district court judge in having a hearing made that assessment that the president was patently wrong with regard to a rebellion or anything else. And so this broadening of authority, which according to the district judge -- she was there at the hearing, I wasn't -- who said it was untethered from reality, untethered from the facts, and there was nothing justifying it, has now been overruled by a court. And this gives the president more broad authority.

And finally, the implication is not just to Portland. Remember that this National Guard issue is not limited there. It's all over where the president is seemingly sending them.

So the issue then becomes, does it embolden the administration then to send troops everywhere and anywhere? Because remember, you have to, according to this appellate ruling, afford great deference to the president. And unless the president's patently wrong, the court can't substitute its judgment.

But again, the court wasn't substituting, in my view, its judgment. It was giving a conclusion after having a hearing with regard to what was happening. So it's concerning, I would say.

SANCHEZ: So Joey, what happens next? It seems like this is a case that is destined for the Supreme Court, but there need to be more appeals.

JACKSON: So yes, I mean, what can happen next is that you can have, this was a three-judge panel, and of course, it was a two-to-one ruling. There's a dissent. That dissent means there was a judge that felt it was an improper ruling, the other two.

You could see what's called a fancy term en banc review. That means that the full court, not really full court -- full court has about 30 justices -- but usually when an en banc review, you'll have about 11 justices evaluating a case to determine whether or not the two-to-one ruling is proper. And then for sure, Boris, you hit the nail on the head, it will go to the Supreme Court and they will have to make a determination.

But this is a great, really, I mean, as it relates to the president, expansion of presidential authority and in a day and age where there's concerns with regard to that expansion and concerns with regard to whether that expansion is based upon facts and politics, that's a concern.

We in the court of law base things on what happened. What's the evidence? What are the facts? What does it show? Not -- doesn't care what your political leaning is.

Remember that this district court judge, I hasten to add in Portland, who said Mr. Trump cannot do this, was appointed by him in his first term. So it was all about the law, all about the facts and her decision was, hey, you can't do it. This court didn't say you can't do it on any factual ruling, but said, hey, we have to defer to the president and unless the president's patently wrong and you can't substitute your own judgment, the judge didn't do that, is my argument. I'm sure I've been redundant about it. The judge held a hearing and at the hearing said, administration, what you're doing is untethered, untethered, said the judge, not me, to the reality on the ground. So it's concerning to me because I like decisions that are predicated upon facts and the law and not predicated upon procedural issues that, I mean, you know, certainly in this instance, give the president broad discretionary authority.

KEILAR: Joey, we only have a couple seconds. How do you see this playing out? Really, we only have a couple seconds. How do you see this playing out for the National Guard in cities?

JACKSON: I think that what we're going to see is National Guard everywhere and anywhere that the administration in its discretion believes that they should go whether or not the facts justify it. That's to me what this decision says.

KEILAR: That's going to get a lot of attention. Joey Jackson, thank you so much for your analysis there.

JACKSON: Of course.

KEILAR: So look up tonight, because we do like to look up on this show at the sky. The sky is about to put on a pretty amazing display. According to Earth Sky, the Orionid meteor shower is about to peak, meaning that streaks of all fireballs will soon be peppering the sky.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the show is going to start around 8 p.m. Eastern, but it's really going to hit up at midnight when as many as 10 to 20 meteors could be seen each hour.

[16:00:00]

Our friends in the Weather Center put together this cloud cover map for us. Looks like folks in New England and parts of the Midwest might have trouble seeing it at times.

Don't fret, though. This show lasts through November as Earth passes a meteor stream in space. Hopefully none of them end up in your backyard.

Thank you so much for joining us. THE ARENA with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END