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Trump Hints At "Big Progress" Being Made In Ukraine Peace Talks; Trail Blazers Coach Billups Due In Court In Rigged Poker Games Case; JFK's Granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg Says She Has Terminal Cancer. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 24, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning President Trump is posting that "something good just may be happening" after Secretary of State Marco Rubio's weekend of negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Geneva. Those talks are set to resume and continue today on the Trump administration's 28-point peace plan to bring an end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

The early draft though drew quite a bit of criticism from both U.S. lawmakers and European allies over provisions included, like Ukraine surrendering to Russia all of the land that Moscow has declared for itself in the eastern part of Ukraine and also Ukraine permanently cutting the size of its military.

Overnight, Ukrainian officials say Russia launched a new deadly drone attack on its second-largest city.

Joining me right now retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons, and CNN political and global affairs commentator Sabrina Singh. Thank you, guys, so much for being here.

Major, from a military perspective what is the effect that this peace plan would have if implemented in the broad contours that we have seen in this early draft?

MAJOR MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.) (via Webex by Cisco): Well, good morning, Kate.

In the early contours, in the broad sense it would put Ukraine at a tremendous disadvantage. First of all, it would require them to cede territory that Russia doesn't control right now. And it would not allow Ukraine to put up any kind of defense in depth to prevent a future attack that Russia could make.

Right now Russia has what's called interior lines. They could reinforce themselves inside of Ukraine into certain areas. And if the current plan, as they want -- it just cedes too much territory to Russia, again, in areas that they don't control right now.

So you've got to do this based on the battlefield math and right now Russia still does not control those key areas that Ukraine does not want to give up. And if they do unfortunately give them up, then they'll be at a great disadvantage for a potential future attack.

BOLDUAN: So, Sabrina, what is being negotiated in, I don't know, written down and then it's what's being said out in public.

I mean, it was 24 hours ago that President Trump was posting and accusing Ukraine of not being grateful enough, saying that this would never have happened if they had even stronger leadership, which was a swipe obviously at Zelenskyy. Then how do you square that with the president's comments just this morning that something good just may be happening?

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR, FORMER DEPUT PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I think we're sort of used to the whiplash from -- coming from this administration and sort of the mixed messages. And you certainly saw that play out over the weekend with this so-called peace plan being proposed that was potentially a Russian document that was drafted, and then Marco Rubio having to walk that back.

I think what's important here is that this plan is a Russian wish list and some of the things that would -- that they would have to concede is a capitulation for Ukraine. And so what this really brings I think broader attention to is the reliance on someone like Steve Witkoff who is so clearly taking the Russian points and presenting it to Ukraine as though they just have to accept this plan.

And I think you've also seen that from the president's words as well. I mean, of course, starting on Friday, he was berating the Ukrainians for not being grateful and then again today saying, like, progress is being made.

We've seen this administration continuously roll out the red carpet, quite literally, for Vladimir Putin and again, sympathizing with the Russians, which is frankly not our -- in our own national security interest and not in our European allies' as well.

BOLDUAN: Major, what's not clear is kind of to Sabrina's point. Like, what would happen if Ukraine does not accept this deal? If Ukraine were to refuse to surrender these key pieces of land. If Ukraine does refuse to agree to these big limits on the size and the scope of its military and the weapons that it can or cannot possess. What could the administration do?

LYONS: Well, they're going to keep grinding on and the only leverage they have right now is they keep the Russian military from breaking through and breaking out.

We've seen this drone capability though kind of go back and forth between a side of Russia having advantage and then Ukraine getting it back. Electronic warfare as well, making sure that you can be preventive against those -- the drones that are coming. It's an entirely new kind of battlefield that both sides are adjusting to.

But Ukraine feels confident enough they can keep Russia from amassing troops and not breaking through and hold the current defensive lines that they have right now. They're not in any kind of offensive mode. It's a tough way to fight a war but they can still sit there and defend. They could force Russia to bleed more and to send more troops. And again, I don't see the leverage that's changed from Russia's perspective to change their behavior.

It's going to take the United States and NATO allies to help more with air defense platforms and other Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the like to make sure that Russia has some kind of leverage feeling in order to make this deal. I just don't think they're going to make it without any of those things.

[07:35:05]

BOLDUAN: And that's a key -- and that might be what is driving the Europeans' kind of fear and anger around this, Sabrina.

I mean, they do not seem happy with this starting point. I mean, the president of the European Commission saying Sunday, "As a sovereign nation, there cannot be limitations on Ukraine's armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to a future attack." And she said that would also undermine European security.

What does this moment and agreement that they're working on mean for Europe?

SINGH: Well, what it means for Europe is they're really looking for this plan to -- as a source of containment for Putin. They don't want to see Putin go beyond the borders of Ukraine. And so this peace plan has a lot of implications for European security.

And so part of the peace plan that's -- this so-called plan that's been proposed is not allowing NATO troops to station within Ukraine, which is something that Europe feels very strongly about as having NATO troops there as being a peacekeeper force as that sort of buffer from Russia to the rest of other European countries.

And so it's very clear that Putin has said from the beginning he has broader ambitions beyond Ukraine. And so this plan that not only kneecaps Ukraine's military and does not allow NATO membership to Ukraine would weaken European security.

And that's why you see so many European leaders expressing concern about this and a lot of backdoor diplomacy going back and forth with the White House with leaders and allies calling President Trump and getting him to not only push this Thursday deadline back but be open to more security guarantees for Ukraine as well.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. This Thursday deadline doesn't seem as firm today as it maybe did yesterday.

It's good to see you both. I really appreciate it. Thank you -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right.

Happening today, NBA Hall of Famer Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups will be arraigned in court in New York on federal money laundering charges and wire fraud conspiracy charges. The five- time All-Star is accused of being a "face card to lure in high rollers to play rigged poker games backed by the mafia."

Billups is expected to plead not guilty. His lawyers have said there is no way he would jeopardize his legacy, his reputation, and his freedom for a card game.

CNN's Mark Morales joins me now. What are we expecting to see in court today, Mark?

MARK MORALES, CNN REPORTER: Well Sara, we're expecting to see every member of this scheme appear in court today. And as you mentioned, that includes Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups who was the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers at the time of his arrest. Now, his lawyer has said that they intend on fighting these charges. That begins today when he's expected to plead not guilty.

Now, also appearing in court are going to be several capos and soldiers who were members of four of the five legendary New York crime families. And just to run through what was exactly happening here, what's not new for the mob is that they've always historically run card games. The new twist here is that they've taken these card games and they've starting rigging them using very high-tech, sophisticated apparatuses to do that.

We're talking about rigged card-shuffling machines, X-ray tables -- even using hidden cameras, all in a way to sort of get money from these high rollers that they would sucker in to come and play in these games. And they were able to get up to somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million from them -- total proceeds from this scam.

Now again, they're all going to be appearing in court today. A lot of what they're going to be discussing today is going to be stuff that's typical in these sorts of cases. It's going to be housekeeping items. But what's really notable here is that you're going to have 31 defendants here at the same time, so it's going to be a lot of volume. So we're talking about a lot of discovery, which means that there's going to be a lot of electronics, a lot of phones, a lot of -- a lot of that that's going to be given on a rolling basis.

And in addition to that, we're also going to be discussing plea deals that some of the defendants are already trying to work out -- Sara.

SIDNER: Yeah, 31 people involved. I was just going to mention that obviously, plea deals are at least being talked about and potentially worked on. But that is a lot of people in court. I know a lot of people are interested in this case with all those details that are stunning.

Mark Morales, thank you so much for your reporting on this. I do appreciate you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also this morning, the FBI is investigating after the personal data from some of Wall Street's biggest banks may have been compromised. Hackers accessing a huge amount of data from SitusAMC, a company that many Wall Street banks use for real estate loans and mortgages. The firm's clients include banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citibank. CNN's Matt Egan is looking into the very latest on this. There's a lot still kind of to be learned about how far and wide this went, but what are you learning?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well Kate, this attack targeted a critical piece of the invisible infrastructure that really powers finance, and it set off a scramble over the weekend on Wall Street to assess the damage.

[07:40:00]

Now SitusAMC -- it's not a household name --

BOLDUAN: Right.

EGAN: -- but it is a major player in real estate finance. Its technology is used by private equity firms, insurers, big banks, asset managers, and others.

And so what happened was about 12 days ago, Situs realized that its systems had unauthorized access and they discovered that account records and legal agreements -- sensitive documents, right -- were impacted here. And so they notified JPMorgan, Citi, and countless other clients that their data may have been impacted.

Now at this point, it's an ongoing investigation so it's not entirely clear which of the Situs clients had which of their information compromised. But Situs said that their systems are fully operational. That this incident has been contained. And they also said that this attack did not include encrypting malware, which is a signal that this was not a ransomware attack.

Now the FBI put out a statement over the weekend -- Kash Patel, the FBI director. He said that "While we are working closely with affected organizations and our partners to understand the extent of potential impact, we have identified no operational impact to banking services." And Kash Patel went on to say that the FBI is committed to identifying those responsible and for safeguarding the system.

Now we know that banks -- they're known as some of the strongest when it comes to cyber defense, right? They spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars on defense. But cyber researchers show that this attack really demonstrates that they're really only as strong as their weakest links and when one vendor that they all use has a breach there can be shockwaves, really, across the industry.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. It seems -- I mean, how far those shockwaves go, it just seems that they're still trying to figure that out.

EGAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Matt. Thank you very much.

EGAN: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right.

New this morning, new fallout from Marjorie Taylor Greene's surprise announcement that she is resigning from Congress. Punchbowl is reporting that other Republican members say that more resignations could be coming.

One senior Republican told Punchbowl, "This entire White House team treated ALL..." -- that's in all caps -- "...ALL members like garbage. ALL. And Mike Johnson has let it happen because he wanted it to happen." This senior House Republican goes on to say, "More explosive early resignations are coming. It's a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel, and they will lose the majority before this term is out."

With us now Republican strategist and former man of the house Doug Heye, and Democratic strategist Meghan Hays.

Those are some pretty strong words, Doug. What do you make of them?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yeah, I wish I could be a man of the Senate today, actually. But the reality is John, we could have had this same conversation last week, last week, eight, 10, 12 years ago. What we've seen in Congress over now a generation is it has become a bad workplace.

I remember very clearly walking to my car at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2012. As the clock was striking midnight, I was leaving the office, and I thought I hate this job.

And what we see is this happens more and more for members of Congress. And what's unusual about this is its members who are in the majority -- so the ones who are actually charged with doing things. Who are committee chairs, subcommittee chairs. It has become and has been for a long time a bad workplace and I wouldn't be surprised to see more resignations or retirement announcements come over the coming weeks or months.

When members of Congress spend time with their families back home -- obviously, they've done that for several weeks during the shutdown -- but Thanksgiving and Christmas -- that's when we see those decisions get made.

BERMAN: They feel, Meghan, it seems, based on that quote inside Punchbowl, sort of bullied by this White House.

What do you take from that? And what do Democrats see in this Marjorie Taylor Greene sort of defection?

MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION CONSULTANT: Look, I mean, I think that they have to decide whether or not they're going to bend the knee to Trump or they're going to do what's right for their constituents.

And if they don't bend the knee to Trump then they get a flacking from the MAGA base. They get harassed online. They get harassed in their districts at town halls. And then they have a primary challenger that becomes extremely dirty and nasty.

So I don't blame them for wanting to retire and not have to put up with that. They want to go there and do work for their -- for their district and for their constituents and they're not being able to do that because Trump's agenda isn't working for them and isn't working for their constituents.

So I understand why Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to leave as well. She can be --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

HAYS: -- a thorn in the side of the MAGA, a thorn in the side to Republicans, a thorn in the side to Democrats, and make more money outside of Congress and probably be more effective.

BERMAN: Megan, what about the reports this morning that the White House is going to come out with a plan that would extend some of the Obamacare subsidies maybe by two years. It will put an income cap on them and maybe require some kind of minimum premium payment there.

To what extent do you think this is something Democrats could accept?

HAYS: I mean, we'll see how it goes. But I do think if they are willing to work with Democrats and extend the subsidies and make -- work to make health care more affordable, Democrats are going to have to take a good, strong look at this.

[07:45:00]

This is not surprising that they are doing it. Tony Fabrizio, in July, put out a polling memo saying that most Americans wanted these health subsidies extended. So it's high time they come around to it now. It's unfortunate that we had to shut down the government for over a month to do this. But I think that the Democrats need to take a hard look at it and they need to get this done for the American people.

BERMAN: To what extent, Doug, is this an admission from the White House that they know they have issues when it comes to the Obamacare subsidies?

HEYE: It's a very real political problem. I think it's one of the things that we saw in these recent elections from earlier this month. But this is also a hard road ahead. If Trump doesn't just extend these for a year -- clearly past the election -- welcome to Washington -- it's very hard for Republicans to do anything on health care.

In 2014, I spent every week from January to June working on Obamacare replacement. And the reality is we were not even able to get a white paper together on what we actually wanted to do with our committee chairs of jurisdiction -- really exciting stuff. They couldn't get that done.

And legislatively, it's going to be difficult for Republicans to figure out here is what we want to do on health care and going into an election year where the calendar is really thin.

BERMAN: All right.

Last take here, Meghan -- this one Kash Patel. The New York Times reporting about these traveling SWAT teams, perhaps for his girlfriend. The New York Times reports that the FBI Director Kash Patel is under scrutiny for dispatching SWAT teams to protect his girlfriend, country singer and conservative figure Alexis Wilkins and repeatedly using government jets for personal trips. All this while the bureau faces major budget cuts.

I mean, how do you think this plays with the electorate, Meghan?

HAYS: Yeah, fraud use -- fraud abuse and waste right there at its definition and its core. I mean, Kash Patel is an unserious person leading a very serious agency and this is not surprising. He thinks that the taxpayer money is how own bank account and he's learning the hard way that it's not.

BERMAN: Of course, the FBI director himself does get to fly on government jets and enjoys the protection of federal personnel. But we will see what this means for his potential friends.

Doug Heye, Meghan Hays, great to see you both. Thank you very much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

Ahead, a devastating revelation for the Kennedy family. The 35-year- old granddaughter of President John K. Kennedy reveals she is dying of cancer. She reveals her diagnosis and her worry about her cousin RFK Jr., now the head of HHS.

Also, horse on the lam. How police were finally able to get this beautiful guy. That story and more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:51:37]

SIDNER: This morning there is shock and sadness after the 35-year-old granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy revealed in a deeply personal essay she has terminal cancer. In the essay for The New Yorker, Tatiana Schlossberg says her doctors noticed an abnormality in her white blood cell count after she gave birth to her daughter in May of 2024. She was later diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation of leukemia called Inversion 3.

After a year of varying treatments, including chemotherapy and stem cell transplant, Schlossberg has been told by doctors that she essentially has a year left to live.

So now she's speaking about her journey and in that she is also calling out her cousin, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the devastating impacts she thinks he anti-vaccine stance policy changes and budget cuts could have on patients like her and others in the long run.

With me now is Dr. Andy Kolb. He is the president and CEO of Blood Cancer United.

First, can you explain to us lay folks what this kind of leukemia means, what it does to the body, and why it is so deadly?

DR. ANDY KOLB, PRESIDENT AND CEO, BLOOD CANCER UNITED (via Webex by Cisco): Well, thank you, Sara, for having me today and for talking about this important issue.

The leukemia that Tatiana mentioned in the article is something called acute myeloid leukemia or AML. It is a leukemia that occurs in more than 20,000 adults in the U.S. every year, and children as well, and it is particularly hard to treat. It requires intensive chemotherapy. It requires, for many patients, a bone marrow transplant. And even despite all of that very intense therapy many patients still relapse.

SIDNER: I mean, she has a newborn. How do you treat a patient who also has a baby and is trying to sort of function at her best possible -- in a best possible way as she's going through this to try to get her through with the least amount of pain?

KOLB: Yeah. You know, cancer can occur at any age. It is more -- this type of cancer is more common in older adults, but it does happen to young adults too. And it is particularly cruel when it happens at times of life like childbirth. And the physicians that are taking care of her, they just need to do everything they can to treat her disease while making sure that she is able to provide the care that she needs for her family.

These are decisions that patients, families, and care teams have to make all the time and they're very difficult. But, you know, the care that she received -- the care that she talks about in the article, it just shows how challenging this can be for young families.

SIDNER: Yeah. This article really strikes you in the gut when you -- when you read through her words.

In her essay she talks about this, and she talks about her cousin Robert Kennedy Jr. who is the head of HHS -- and Human Services -- Health and Human Services. Here is what she said.

She said, "As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby (as she calls him) cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings. Hundreds of NIH grants and clinical trials were canceled, affecting thousands of patients. I worried about funding for leukemia and bone marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering."

[07:55:30] I mean, do you share the same concerns, and have you heard some of these same concerns from doctors and researchers?

KOLB: Yeah. Her treatment course outlines just some amazing advances in cancer care from chemotherapy, to transplant, to CAR T-cell therapy or Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy where scientists take cells outside the body, genetically modify them so they can fight cancer cells, and then put them back inside the body. Each one of those treatments took decades to develop and billions of dollars to develop.

And you can see that despite all of that she's gotten benefit from each one but is still not cured. And to me, that just says that we -- while we are engaged in a very important national conversation about how we fund health care in the United States, I think her story really highlights the fact that we need to do more. That we need to do more research, develop more and better -- more effective therapies, and to keep pushing for progress for patients like Tatiana and tens of thousands of others that are out there.

SIDNER: Yeah. It is really hard to her this -- in particular, that it's someone who is just 35 years old and a new mom.

Dr. Andy Kolb, thank you so much for taking the time to talk us through that -- appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: Very difficult.

All right. New this morning, this could be one of the busiest Thanksgiving travel weeks in years with millions of people expected to fly over the holiday week. It's going to be a major test for the airlines that struggled during the government shutdown.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean goes inside Southwest Airlines command center.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, good morning, Southwest.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This is mission control for your Thanksgiving trip, from storms --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have some scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): -- to software snags.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll keep you updated if that status changes.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): Three hundred workers here inside Southwest Airlines network operations control in Dallas are diving headfirst into the biggest travel rush of the year.

Justin Lebon is helming what's called the bridge and reporting to him are about a dozen different divisions on the floor, all monitoring everything from crew schedules to space launches to keep 800 airplanes moving.

JUSTIN LEBON, NETWORKS OPERATIONS CONTROL DIRECTOR, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: We move about 500,000 to 600,000 people a day, and you never know what's going to walk through that door with a problem.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): Thanksgiving is this team's latest challenge after the government shutdown forced Southwest to cancel hundreds of flights a day.

ANDREW WATTERSON, CEO, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: That's about what you'd see from a very bad winter storm.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): Andrew Watterson is Southwest's chief operation officer.

WATTERSON: So it wasn't that bad. Not easy but did not stress the network at all.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): Southwest says even still, 83 percent of its flights arrived on time -- a testament to improvements it made after its massive schedule meltdown of 2022.

WATTERSON: We have redundant technology, we have better staffing and better decision-making, and so we're able to handle these largescale events very well.

MUNTEAN: These numbers are the flights that Southwest is monitoring in real time. There are about 500 flights in the air right now, but the day is still pretty young, and the airline still has about 2,500 flights left to complete for the entire day. On the biggest days of the Thanksgiving rush that's like moving the population of Minneapolis.

STEVE WEST, VICE PRESIDENT, NETWORK OPERATIONS CONTROL, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: That's our goal -- is to -- is to -- is to complete the schedule.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): Steve West heads the command center and showed me the scope of the work that goes on here.

On this day, teams are monitoring bad weather coming for Las Vegas and Phoenix, both major bases for the airline. The goal here is to maintain what's called A-30. That's getting flights to their destinations no more than 30 minutes late.

MUNTEAN: Is this stressful? It seems kind of stressful.

WEST: It can be, but these guys have been doing it for so long that it becomes natural for them.

MUNTEAN (voiceover): For Justin Lebon, he says just 10 people not making their connections becomes personal. It's why he's confident Thanksgiving for the airline will be something to be thankful for.

LEBON: It's looking pretty good. I think the weather next week is looking pretty good. We always kind of stay, you know, about a week ahead looking at general trends and everything. Pretty good spirits and everything so we're looking forward to it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Pete Muntean, thank you for that.

Forty-two-year-old actor and musician Donald Glover, also known as "Childish Gambino," just revealed that he suffered a stroke last year. He canceled his tour last September only saying at the time that he had to because of an ailment.

Then over the weekend he was on stage during a concert in Los Angeles and told the crowd the news that while touring it started with a pain in his head and then his vision started to be impacted, which led him to the doctor. And at the hospital, that is where they told him he had had a stroke. And doctors also discovered he had a hole in his heart which then required two surgeries.

Hope he's doing well now.

Police in New Jersey discovered the hard way that you can't outrun a horse, but you can sure try.