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U.S. Official Says Ukraine Has Agreed to a Peace Proposal; U.S. Wholesale Inflation Heated Up in September; Strategist Argues the Real Poverty Line is $140K for Family of Four; Pentagon Threatens to Court Martial Kelly Over "Illegal Order" Video. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 25, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: "Minor details are outstanding." Now, this as Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, though, says that more work needs to be done. Adding to the nuance here, in a post on X, Ukraine's National Security Secretary writes that the delegations had, quote, "reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva."

[08:30:21]

Overnight, a new wave of deadly strikes exchanged between Russia and Ukraine. At least seven people were killed in Ukraine, three in Russia. So, the war grinds on regardless. And not every leader, world leader, is bullish on these talks or the peace plan laid out by the White House originally.

French President Emmanuel Macron saying this overnight in new reporting, "We want peace, but we don't want peace that's, in fact, a capitulation. That's to say that puts Ukraine in an impossible position that gives all the liberty to Russia to go further. That includes against other Europeans and puts our security in danger."

Joining us right now is Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee.

A lot seems to be percolating on this right now, Senator. On Friday, you called the draft deal that was kind of put out there repulsive. We now hear these developments of Ukraine agreeing to a deal with only minor details to work out. What's your reaction to this?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Well, Kate, it's good to be with you. What we've seen the Trump administration do time and time again is throw the Ukrainian people under the bus and side with Vladimir Putin. And that's exactly what they did when they put forward that 28-point plan a couple days ago and demanded that Zelenskyy and Ukraine adopt it before Thanksgiving.

It was so bad that reportedly Rubio, Secretary Rubio told two United States senators, a Republican and Democrat, that it was in fact a Russian plan, which he has since said was not accurate. But it was a Russian-tilted plan. And so, of course, the Ukrainians and our European allies resisted it. And now we have a situation, Kate, where there was these discussions in Geneva where apparently the Ukrainians and the Americans are now kind of on the same page. It's gone from 28 points to 19 points. But if you're Russia, you're going, hey, I'll take that original Trump plan, right?

I mean, I don't see where this goes. And by putting out the 28-point plan originally, the Trump administration saying it was an American proposal, you know, Putin is going to say, I'll take that one.

BOLDUAN: The fact that we're hearing from a U.S. official that there's -- that they've agreed to a deal, but we do not have confirmation, if you will, from Zelenskyy and we've really -- it doesn't seem word yet from the Russians. Is this strange? Is this coming down to what -- how do you define we've reached a deal?

HOLLEN: Well, we've seen this happen before as well, Kate, which is the Trump administration announcing a deal, announcing that the Ukrainians have agreed to something when in fact they've not agreed to something. And so, that may well be going on here.

It's possible, of course, that there was some meeting of the minds among, between the Americans and the Ukrainians in Geneva. But again, if you're Vladimir Putin and the Russians, whatever they may have agreed to is probably very different than what Trump put forward in his 28-point plan.

So, this is just negotiating against ourselves, this negotiation in public. We saw what happened in Alaska. It went nowhere in Bolden Putin. Trump, while he says he's going to impose more sanctions on those who buy Russian oil, he has essentially blocked the bipartisan legislation in the United States Senate. So, it doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere very quickly. In fact, maybe going backwards.

BOLDUAN: Much more to learn on that one. At the very same time, I do want to ask you about -- President Trump is preparing to roll out his own fix now to stave off the coming spike in health care premiums because of the expiring Obamacare subsidies. The framework, it seems, is to temporarily extend ACA subsidies with new limits like income limits.

You voted against the final agreement to end the shutdown because it did not address health care subsidies. What do you think of this coming Trump offer? A good opening bid?

HOLLEN: Well, Kate, I've not seen any details on the proposal. Yes, I would like to see the Affordable Care Act tax credits extended. If we don't extend them, over 20 million Americans will see huge increases in their premiums and costs. And that will actually put pressure on everybody's insurance rates across the board. That's why we pushed to turn off this ticking time bomb that Republicans left in place when they did their big, beautiful bill, right?

[08:35:14]

They extended tax cuts for the richest people in the world permanently, but they allowed to expire this tax credit that helps middle class families buy health insurance. So, I would like to see a deal. I've also seen reports, Kate, that the Trump plan has already been a non-starter among many Republicans in the House and the Senate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, there's maybe possibly behind the delay is that there was backlash amongst conservatives over extending the subsidies at all. So, unclear -- there's a lot of unclear, I guess, in what we're talking about here in the details of what's coming and what's not and what's agreed to and what's not. So, we'll see on that.

Clear another thing up for me. "The New York Times" has this new reporting that you and at least a half a dozen Democratic senators have formed a group and are calling yourselves the Fight Club. Not happy about the direction and strategy that we -- that is being pushed by Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand for the party in terms of political strategy going into the midterms. Why have you formed this group, Senator, and what are you going to do with it?

HOLLEN: Well, Kate, there's a concern among a number of us that the DSCC, which is the political arm of the Senate Democrats, should not be engaged in some of these Senate Democratic primaries. It's fine, you know, to support a Sherrod Brown who was recruited into a race, but there are many active and open Senate Democratic primaries, and it's our view that for the most part, these should play out without interference from the Senate Democratic leadership.

And so, that was the basis of concern. We have a lot of good candidates out there. And the DSCC has seemed to put their foot on the scale in favor of the more establishment candidates as opposed to some of these, you know, other candidates. So, that was the basis of the concern, and -- and this is why a group of us announced support, for example, for Peggy Flanagan, who's the lieutenant governor in Minnesota, and decided to put our -- our support behind her. We think she's the sort of anti-business-as-usual candidate, and we thought it was important to make a statement there.

BOLDUAN: Real quick, I mean, with this group, aren't you inherently saying that you think Schumer and Gillibrand are leading the party toward failure?

HOLLEN: No, as I said, if you look across the board, there are many Senate races where we think the DSCC has made the right choice, but we see no reason why they should intervene in these particular cases, and again, seem to be putting their foot on the scale in support of sort of the more -- the more business-as-usual candidate at a time when we think we need to shake things up more.

BOLDUAN: I do appreciate, though, you breaking the first rule of Fight Club, which is you are actually talking about Fight Club and acknowledging Fight Club. We appreciate it, Senator. Thank you.

HOLLEN: I realize the irony there, but of course that was a piece that appeared in the New York Times, and so I'm responding to your question about it.

BOLDUAN: I always appreciate a direct response to a direct question. Senator, thanks for the time.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking just moments ago. Long- awaited data about wholesale inflation in September. Let's get right to Matt Egan for what it says.

Matt, what are you seeing?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, John, this report shows that wholesale inflation, it did heat up between August and September. So, this is the Producer Price Index. It measures prices before it hits all of us as consumers, and it showed that prices were up by 0.3 percent between August and September. That was exactly as expected, but this is an uptick from the prior month where prices were actually down by 0.1 percent.

Now, on an annual basis, producer prices were up by 2.7 percent. That's actually a touch more than expected. That's in line with the prior month of August, which was revised higher. That shows the monthly changes here for producer prices, and you can see it can be volatile. It's been moving around a bit, but it did heat up during the month of September.

As far as why this happened, this really is not about services. Producer prices for services, which are not exposed to tariffs, they were unchanged during the month of September. However, the BLS says that producer prices for goods, which are exposed to tariffs, they went up by almost one percent. That is partially because of energy, and we know that some energy prices did go up during the month of September.

[08:40:11]

But it's also about food, and we know that food prices, that has been a major source of frustration for consumers at the grocery store. That's one of the reasons why the Trump administration has rolled back some of those tariffs on agriculture. But we should just remember, this is really just a snapshot in time, right? It shows where wholesale inflation was back during the month of September, before the government shutdown. This report has been delayed by the government shutdown, and it is a rear view of what's number.

You can see the trend for producer prices going back for the last year or so, and you can see it did start to tick higher a little bit, but it is off that peak. But look, John, this is so important right now because the cost of living, affordability is front and center. And I do think that this report shows that inflation still is not where economists, the White House and the Federal Reserve, frankly, want it to be.

John?

BERMAN: Yeah, it's a tick higher than that and persistent. Matt Egan with the latest on this. Thanks very much, Matt.

Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Should $100,000 a year be the new definition of poverty in America? One longtime financial strategist is arguing it should be. Again and again, we know that Americans say they -- they cannot make ends meet with the current cost of groceries or housing or child care, among other things.

The U.S. poverty line was developed six decades ago in 1963, and this is what it looks like today. The federal poverty line for a family of four this year is $32,150. But strategist Michael Green argues the poverty line should actually be $140,000, and he joins me right now.

Michael, you're a Portfolio Manager and Chief Strategist at Simplify Asset Management, and you wrote a Substack titled, "The Valley of Death: Why $100,000 Is the New Poverty Line." How did you get to this point? What is it that you saw that said, we're calculating this wrong?

MICHAEL GREEN, CHIEF STRATEGIST & PORTFOLIO MANAGER, SIMPLIFY ASSET MANAGEMENT: Well, I have to confess, this has been a voyage of discovery for me. I'm very fortunate. I've been well beyond this point. I understand how fortunate I've been in that, but I'm seeing more and more people struggle. We're seeing it in the sentiment. We're seeing people who are truly depressed and unhappy about the direction that the country is going, even as all the indicators are suggesting everything is fine.

There's two ways approaching that. You can try to tell people everything's fine because the economics tell us everything's fine, or you can actually look at the data and understand what is actually happening. In the United States, the way we define the poverty line is an archaic measure. It wasn't supposed to be three times food. It was supposed to approximate the entirety of a family budget in 1963, and they extended it because it was easier to track food prices.

Today, we haven't updated that balance. All the metrics that we're ultimately looking at are simply three times that food budget. We're an agricultural superpower who opened up our food markets. Food prices have not kept pace with general inflation, and as a result, all those other components -- housing, education, child care, et cetera have exploded underneath us, and we've denied that they exist.

SIDNER: You talk about the fact that the way it was calculated was three times the amount of your food budget, and it didn't take into account many other things that are modern now that people have to deal with, like child care. I do want to ask you about this term, valley of death. What do you mean by that term? Who is in this valley of death?

GREEN: The vast majority of American households, unfortunately. So, what's really happening is that use of the poverty line is the point at which we start declaring, you're doing OK. You no longer need tax benefits, assistance, et cetera. At roughly $35,000 a year, slightly above that poverty threshold for a family of four, two earners, two children, you start losing food benefits. At about $45,000, you start losing housing benefits. At about $50,000, $60,000, you start losing child care benefits. And so, at every point in that process, people are having more income benefits taken away from them than they're earning in incremental income. That makes it effectively a valley that they're trying to climb out of, and one slip, one period of unemployment, one transmission broken on your car can be enough to send you right back down into the pit.

SIDNER: What, when you look at this, is the first step to trying to fix this? And do you think there is will to do so?

GREEN: I do think there's will. I also think that there is a latent awareness. Part of the reason the piece has resonated is because people are looking at it and saying, wait, that describes my life. This is how I feel. I feel like I'm not getting forward in my life, and I'm even more concerned about my children.

One of the things that jumps out of the piece is when you think about how to survive and what you're earning. A typical young person earning a reasonable income that has been relatively successful in their start. They're making $65,000, $70,000. Well, look at this, and they can't even fathom the idea that child care is $30,000 if you have two kids.

[08:45:12]

SIDNER: Right.

GREEN: All right. At the extreme end of it, seniors who are operating off of fixed pensions and who paid into the system and did the right things are looking at this, and they also can't imagine it because it's a world that didn't exist.

So, really, I would just emphasize that more than anything else, this piece is just trying to make people aware and start the process of conversation so that those in the middle are actually feeling heard. Those at the extreme right are suddenly actually aware. Those who have done very, very well, my peers in this space, need to be aware of this stress and strain that is coloring the electorate and driving things like the election of Mamdani here in New York City, to which most people are like, well, that'll show them they're going to get communism, right? We never asked why. We just didn't stop and say, why are they voting this way?

SIDNER: And we know that he ran on affordability, which is what many of the other Democrats ran on who won their races. That one word is what Americans really, you know, feel in their gut needs to be changed.

GREEN: Well, what they're saying, when you say affordability is distinct from inflation, right?

SIDNER: Right.

GREEN: Inflation is the rate of change.

SIDNER: Right. GREEN: So, many people who are trained in economics, myself included, have looked at the claims of runaway inflation and said, that's absurd. Affordability is a different component. It's like drowning. Affordability is the level of water that you need to get above to catch a breath.

SIDNER: Right.

GREEN: Right? If you raise that even slightly, you're still drowning.

SIDNER: Right. Doesn't matter how slight, it's still, you know, making it impossible for you to live.

GREEN: And I do want to emphasize, this is a bipartisan issue. Part of the reason I started on this path was my anger and frustration at the response that came typically from the left mocking many of the concerns around affordability. The entire series started when a right- wing influencer put up a post that said, in the 1950s, a single income could afford, right? And it turned into this giant mocking campaign. We're doing it on both sides. On the right, we're pretending the problem doesn't exist. On the left, we're pretending the problem doesn't exist. We need to actually listen to what people are telling us.

SIDNER: Best advice of the day. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it, Michael Green. That was a really, really, really interesting substack. And thank you for coming on to explain it all.

GREEN: Thank you for having me.

SIDNER: All right. Kate?

BOLDUAN: A heroic rescue caught on camera deputies rushing in to help a woman who fell on a roof. Details on what happened there.

And for the first time in 10,000 years, a volcano is erupting in Ethiopia. The impact it's having far and wide.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:53]

BERMAN: This morning, the war of wars between the Democratic senator and the Secretary of Defense, who is threatening to recall him to duty and court-martial him. Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, is one of six congressional Democrats who appeared in a video urging U.S. troops not to obey illegal orders. President Trump called the video, quote, "seditious behavior punishable by death."

Kelly, in new defiant comments, says he was just reminding the troops they swore an oath to the Constitution, not the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): I'm not going to be silenced. I'm not going to be intimidated. We wanted to just remind folks that they need to comply with the law and be reminded and also explain to members of the military that we have their backs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hit back this morning, making an offhand remark about Kelly's military medals.

With us now, Paul Rieckhoff, the President and Founder of Independent Veterans of America. Paul, great to see you again. I just want -- the latest is that Secretary of Defense Hegseth, who's got a job to do, has been on Twitter all morning, still attacking Senator Kelly, saying that a despicable video urging the Department of War, of course, the Defense Department troops to refuse illegal orders may seem harmless to civilians, but it carries a different weight inside the military.

First, respond to the fact that Secretary Hegseth keeps on commenting here.

PAUL RIECKHOFF, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, INDEPENDENT VETERANS OF AMERICA: This is straight on brand for them. I mean, they found a political target, a political enemy. They want to silence and they're coordinating all their guns and all their social media attacks on one person. They've done this before. They've done it to Kelly before. And I think it's really outrageous. It's crossed a new line. And it's not just about silencing Kelly. It's about silencing anybody in America who's a military retiree who wants to speak out.

There's two million military retirees in America. That's why I think this really has a chilling effect across not just Kelly. They are identifying him and making him a political target because they don't agree with him. But it really is going to cascade across all retired generals, retired flag grades, retired enlisted folks who just want to speak out politically.

If you cross Donald Trump and you cross Hegseth, they will come after you. That's why it's so dangerous. I think that's why there's been so much bipartisan pushback. I've seen in the last 12 hours or so, John, there's thousands of people online who are pushing back, who are saying, I stand with Senator Kelly. They're Gold Star families. They're ordinary veterans around the country because they know this is politics and it's the worst form of it.

BERMAN: What do you think of how Senator Kelly is responding in the video? And we played much more earlier. Some of it's really fiery. He says, look, I had a bomb explode outside my plane once. I've been to space four times. My wife was targeted in a political shooting. You know, "Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, don't scare me."

RIECKHOFF: I think that's who he is. And I think that's going to come out in the wash here. People don't understand this guy went into space. He's a decorated Navy combat veteran. But he's also on the right side of this issue. And that's what I think is going to start to unfold over the next couple of days.

Also, Trump threatened him with death, right? He also called him a seditionist, right? Trump knows what a seditionist is because he pardoned about six of them. Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers, the guys who tried to take over the Capitol, that was sedition and they were tried for it. And they were ultimately pardoned by Trump after being convicted, I think, of 18 years. This is not sedition. This is not treason. This is political speech that he doesn't agree with. And he's targeting Kelly to shut him up.

BERMAN: A little more of the substance from Secretary Hegseth this morning. The secretary says, "In the military, vague rhetoric and ambiguity undermines trust, creates hesitation in the chain of command, and erodes cohesion." What do you think of -- of that criticism of the statement from the six lawmakers?

[08:55:14]

RIECKHOFF: It's groundless. I mean, they're not in the chain of command. They are political actors. They're members of Congress. They're allowed to speak out. And what they said may have been imprecise, right? I don't think it was necessary, but it wasn't sedition. It wasn't illegal. It wasn't a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It was political speech that they didn't agree with. If anything, it was obvious. Our troops know they're not supposed to follow illegal orders, but Hegseth continues to twist it. He continues to misrepresent it. And I think objective Americans can see what the senator and the other elected leaders say, and they can see what Hegseth is doing in response.

And keep in mind, this is happening while Kelly and others are pushing back on Venezuela. They're pushing back on Ukraine. They're pushing back on deployment of National Guard troops. So, it's steeped in politics. And it's why our politics should be separate from our Department of Defense. And our Secretary of Defense should have better things to do.

BERMAN: What about the long-term impact of this? What do you think it will be?

RIECKHOFF: I think it's an expansion of Trump targeting his political enemies. He did it at the Justice Department. We saw how that landed with a thud yesterday with James Comey and Letitia James.

Now, he's weaponizing the Department of Defense. He's using the legal apparatus over there after cleansing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after purging all the JAG officers. And this, I think, might be a dangerous first of many to come. He may come after General Milley. He may have to come after other retired flag-raids who he doesn't disagree with. That's why this is so dangerous and so unprecedented. This is taking us into very, very bad waters, not just for our military, but for our democracy.

BERMAN: Paul Rieckhoff, great to see you. Thanks so much.

RIECKHOFF: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Kate. BOLDUAN: So, it was a scary close call in Colorado, all caught on body cam video. Deputies called to a care facility for patients with dementia and Alzheimer's. And when they arrived, they found a 69-year- old woman hanging onto the roof. Two caregiver -- caretakers were actually on ladders trying to hold her in place until more help could arrive. Deputies later learned that the caretakers had been putting up Christmas lights on the home when the woman opened her window and walked out onto the roof and slipped. Deputies managed to pull her back from the ledge and to safety once again. Unfortunately, she was not injured.

A volcano -- volcano, that's how you say it apparently where I come from, a volcano in Ethiopia erupted. And the reason that it is such big news, it had sat dormant for 10,000 years. Video showed huge plumes of smoke and ash from the volcano blanketing the sky. The ash cloud was so big, it impacted air travel even thousands of miles away in India. No casualties have been reported from the eruption, but it did smother grazing lands that are vital for local farmers.

And a big reveal in Times Square, a new ball for the New Year's dubbed the Constellation Ball. The festivities organizers say that it is the largest New Year's ball ever. Wrong way. Ever. There it is.

Here are the details. It's 12 feet wide. It holds more than 5,200 reflective Waterford crystals. Yes, please. Twice as many as the old one and weighs more than 12,000 pounds. I mean, seriously, people.

Sara?

SIDNER: I love all that sparkle.

BOLDUAN: A little bit of bling to bring in.

SIDNER: And it's volcano, volcano, tomato, tomato.

BOLDUAN: I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.

SIDNER: You know, it's Tuesday. It's all good.

All right. New this morning, a source tells CNN, the Trump administration is now weighing another unprecedented shift in its immigration approach. It's considering re-evaluating the refugees who were admitted to the U.S. during Joe Biden's presidency.

An internal memo shows officials are even considering re-interviewing people who have already gone through the vetting process. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is joining us now from D.C. with this reporting. What are you learning about this new move potentially?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Sara, this is a move that targets one of the world's most vulnerable populations, and that is refugees, who to come to the United States must show that they were persecuted or face persecution in their home country.

Now, refugees are folks who come from abroad. They go through rigorous checks and vetting in a process that can often take years. Now, what the Trump administration is doing here is ordering a review of all of those who came under the Biden administration.

Now, we did the math on that. Between fiscal years 2021 and fiscal year 2025, 235,000 people, you see it there, entered the U.S. after going through the refugee admissions process. Again, a process that takes a long time because of the vetting and checks that are part of it.

Now, what we understand in terms of what the administration wants to do here is they want to do these interviews to ensure that the grounds by which these refugees came to the U.S. are valid. And if they find that it's not, they say that they can terminate their status and that the individual would not have the ability to appeal that decision. The memo also orders that pending applications for adjustment of status be placed on hold.

Now, after a refugee is in the United States for a year, they are required by law to apply for permanent status. So, anyone that is in that system currently, well, their applications are being put on hold until a later date that was not specified in this memo.

[09:00:13]

Here is how one refugee advocate put it. Quote, "Just the threat of this is unspeakably cruel.