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Russians Make Gains In Areas Along Ukraine Front Lines; Ukraine Agreed To United States Ceasefire Plan But Russia Has Not; United States Markets, Investors Rattled By Trump's Trade Policy. Former Philippine President Extradited To ICC; Trump Administration Guts Pollution and Climate Policies; 46 Injured as Anti-Government Protesters Clash With Police in Buenos Aires; Global Marine Expedition Discovered 866 New Species. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired March 13, 2025 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world, and everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead, Vladimir Putin visits Russia's Kursk region, wearing a military uniform, but says nothing about a proposed ceasefire with Ukraine.
Sounding the alarm, American CEOs' weigh-in on Donald Trump's tariff policy, as the president says more levies are on the way.
And from clean air to clean water, the Trump administration rolls back more than a dozen pollution regulations, alarming climate scientists in the U.S. and beyond.
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ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM WITH ROSEMARY CHURCH.
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CHURCH: Good to have you with us. Well, the conflict in Ukraine looks set to dominate a busy day of international diplomacy. In the coming hours, foreign ministers from the G7 will continue their talks in Canada, while the head of NATO, Mark Rutte, is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
The talks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Kursk region on Wednesday, where his forces are claiming significant gains after a Ukrainian incursion last year.
According to Reuters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, has told Russian-state news that the operation to push the remaining Ukrainian forces out of Kursk is now in its final stage. Russia's top general claims hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have been captured in the renewed offensive there, and President Putin believes victory is at hand.
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VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): In the near future, the task is to finally defeat the enemy that is still engaged in combat operations. Who has dug into the Kursk region as soon as possible, and completely liberate the territory of the Kursk region.
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CHURCH: So far, Russia has not said whether it will agree to the U.S. proposed 30-day ceasefire, which Ukraine has accepted.
President Trump, said Wednesday that the ball is now in Vladimir Putin's court.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a great success yesterday. We have a full ceasefire. When it -- if it kicks in, but we have to see, it's up to Russia now. But we've had a good relationship with both parties, actually. And we'll see --
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CHURCH: Meanwhile, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says he expects the U.S. to take strong steps if Russia does not agree to the temporary truce.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I'm very serious, and for me, it's important to end the war. I want the president of the United States to see it. I want Americans to see and feel it. I want Europe and all to be in alliance in order to do everything to force Russia to end this war.
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CHURCH: CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has the latest on the fighting in Ukraine and reaction inside Russia to the U.S. ceasefire proposal.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A brazen attack. Russian troops sneaking through a gas pipeline to target Ukrainian positions.
The assault is starting, the soldier says. The Russians saying thanks to this assault, they have all but taken the town, Sudzha, one of Ukraine's last footholds on Russian territory.
Kremlin controlled T.V. in breaking news mode, hailing the gains.
This is what the most important victory of the Russian spirit and weapons looks like, the host says.
The Russians have been taking territory in multiple areas along the front line in recent days, leaving some in Moscow wondering why they should even bother with a Trump administration ceasefire deal.
Now, Trump, like an ultimatum, says, you stop the war because Ukraine is ready for a ceasefire, this man says. But what's the point? What ultimatum? We're dominating on the battlefield.
After the Ukrainians agreed to a 30-day ceasefire in meetings with the Trump administrations negotiators, the U.S. says now it's time for Moscow to do the same.
MARCO RUBIO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: They're probably processing the news the same as the rest of the world is. So, we hope to have a positive answer from them. The ball is truly in their court.
PLEITGEN (voice over): But so far, the Kremlin hasn't even picked the ball up yet. Russian President Vladimir Putin silent on the issue and his spokesman saying they're waiting to hear from the U.S., while the foreign minister, in an interview with U.S. bloggers, merely stated what Russia isn't willing to allow, like tolerating NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine.
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SERGEY LAVROV, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, RUSSIA: Under any conditions, well, nobody is talking to us. They keep saying nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, but they do everything about Russia without Russia.
PLEITGEN (voice over): This, as the Trump administration is saying, it's eagerly waiting to hear from the Russians, whose forces continue to grind down Ukraine's defenses.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
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CHURCH: Earlier, CNN's Fareed Zakaria talked about the Russian president's visit to the Kursk region and discussed the significance of Vladimir Putin's decision to wear a military uniform while saying nothing about the proposed ceasefire.
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FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN, HOST: What it tells me is that Putin very much views this as a war that he is still committed to fighting. He has said very recently that he would make no concessions. He said this to a Russian citizen who asked him on the street, he's talked about how the ceasefire would simply mean that Ukraine could resupply, and he's been given the greatest gift by the Trump administration recently, which was the pause in military aid and the pause, most crucially, in intelligence sharing.
So, Russian troops are on the move. They haven't -- they've -- they haven't really made massive gains, but they certainly have a momentum that they didn't have two or three weeks ago, and that's because Ukrainian soldiers have been operating in the blind without any intelligence.
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CHURCH: A U.S. official said Wednesday that the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine has fully resumed after the meeting with Ukrainian representatives in Saudi Arabia.
The CEO of Blackrock, the world's largest asset management firm, is warning that U.S. President Donald Trump's economic policy changes are already taking a toll.
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LARRY FINK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BLACKROCK: Talking to CEOs throughout the economy. Here, the economy is weakening as we speak.
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CHURCH: His comment comes as trade tensions escalate between the U.S. and its allies over Mr. Trump's tariffs on all steel and aluminum coming into the U.S.
On Wednesday, the European Union and Canada hit back, each announcing retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars-worth of U.S. goods.
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MARK CARNEY, PRIME MINISTER-DESIGNATE OF CANADA: I'm ready to sit down with President Trump at the appropriate time under a position where there's respect for Canadian sovereignty, and we're working for a common approach, a much more comprehensive approach for trade. We're all going to be better off.
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business and worse for consumers.
The counter measures we take today are strong but proportionate.
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CHURCH: Trump, meantime, is threatening to take further action after the retaliation by Canada and Europe.
Sitting with Ireland's Micheal Martin in the Oval Office, he accused the E.U. of treating the U.S., "very badly".
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to be doing reciprocal tariffs. So, whatever they charge us, we're charging them. Nobody can complain about that. Whatever it is, it doesn't even matter what it is. If they charge us -- if they charge us 25 or 20 percent or 10 percent or two percent or 200 percent, then, that's what we're charging them.
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CHURCH: But Mr. Trump's trade policy isn't just rattling U.S. allies. Americans are also feeling the economic unease with a new CNN poll finding most are not impressed with his handling of the economy so far.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny has the details from the White House.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is repeatedly embracing his economic policy, even as a new CNN poll shows that 56 percent of Americans say they disapprove of his handling of the economy, and six in 10 Americans in particular, say the tariff policy is not the correct one.
Now, the president is doubling down on this policy, saying that he's not inconsistent. That's not what's roiling the markets.
He's saying he is being flexible. We asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about that.
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ZELENY: Is it a sense that the market and business leaders are not understanding what the president is trying to do, or that they don't like what the president is doing? How do you explain the stock market?
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's a snapshot of a moment in time, and we expect there will be good days and there will be bad days, but ultimately, Wall Street and Main Street are going to benefit from this president's policies, as they did in his first term.
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ZELENY: With new tariffs on the way, seemingly every single day, and reciprocal tariffs coming in April, the administration is holding straight forward on the path of saying that tariffs will eventually lift the economy.
That very much is an open question, certainly in the minds of the stock market, as well as in the minds of some of the president's own supporters.
But for his part, the president is saying that it is flexibility, not uncertainty, that he is using as one of his central positions here.
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Now, going forward, there is no doubt that the economy will be one of the major factors he is judged on, the White House, watching these polling numbers as well. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.
CHURCH: Justin Wolfers is a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Good to have you with us.
JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Good to see you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: So, President Trump's new steel and aluminum tariffs intensified his trade war, Wednesday, with Canada and the E.U. retaliating. And JPMorgan Chase, predicting a 40 percent chance of a recession this year due to Trump's extreme policies -- their words.
If Trump persists with his tariffs, is a U.S. recession inevitable this year?
WOLFERS: Nothing is inevitable, Rosemary.
And let me give you the clearest reason for some optimism, even while I share a lot of pessimism. The first thing is the economy. The U.S. economy right now is really strong.
President Trump inherited an economy that was growing well, that had inflation and had basically fallen back to normal, that had unemployment near a 50-year low, and so far, he hasn't been at the controls long enough for much of that to have changed.
The second thing is, the single best indicator of how the economy is going to perform tomorrow is how it's performing today. So, if I told you today is pretty good, then, maybe your best forecast is if nothing goes wrong, then tomorrow is going to be pretty good too. That's the cause for optimism. Of course. I said if nothing goes wrong.
Normally, when the economy, we think about external things that might lead things to go wrong, a financial crisis or a pandemic or an oil price hike, this time, the really scary stuff is coming from inside the house. It is a chaotic economic policy coming from the White House, and it's one that is certainly leading many businesses and consumers to pause before spending, and that could, but by no means, necessarily, but will -- could spark a recession.
CHURCH: Right. So, U.S. inflation numbers cooled Wednesday, but markets ended mixed, and that was after they tumbled, Monday and Tuesday rattled by Trump's tariffs.
So, Trump believes his economic strategy will eventually bring wealth to this country and lower inflation, oil prices, and the cost of living. Essentially, Trump believes that this short-term pain will equal long term gain.
Is any part of what he is doing right now -- is it -- does it make economic sense to you at all?
WOLFERS: No. So, look, if you were to pass a policy that involves short-term pain and long-term gain, think about what that would mean for stocks. Because when you buy stock in a company, you're not buying it for tomorrow, you're buying it for the very long run. Another way of saying that is the stock market is effectively a way of betting on not just the short run, but also the long run. And what we've seen is every time Trump has stepped forward with his agenda, stocks have tanked. So, that's the market saying, we don't believe in this agenda.
Look, the tariff agenda is one where he says, what I want to do is raise high tariffs and then force businesses to return to the United States. Fair enough. It may or may not work, but think about a business trying to decide whether to build that next factory in the United States.
What matters is not the tariff rate today. What matters is what the tariff rate will be in three, four, or five years that it takes to build the factory, and then, over the ensuing three, four, or five decades, in which the factory is open. And there is nothing Trump has done that has fundamentally changed businesses views about the long- term future of tariffs.
Those who are in favor of free trade are still very much winning the war of ideas, even if they're sustaining a few losses inside the White House right now.
CHURCH: And, of course, meantime, while all this is going on, a government shutdown is looming, with Senate Democrats prepared to block the House GOP spending bill, which needs to be passed by Friday to avert a shutdown.
What would a shutdown mean for the country in the midst of this tariff chaos and market turmoil? And of course, we can't forget the massive government job cuts?
WOLFERS: Right. So, this is a country in economic and political turmoil. This is a Congress that has shown itself over and over to be incapable of making smart and responsible fiscal decisions. This is a president who has made a lot of fiscal decisions without deferring to Congress, even though that's in the Constitution. Much of the Trump agenda right now is, in fact, you know, makes the front pages today. But what's -- what gets lost is most of it is tied up in court and will be tied up for months to come.
The ability -- so, therefore, you know, people have been fired who shouldn't have been fired, and then, even if they're not fired, perhaps, the government will be shut down.
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The essential functions will keep continue -- will continue, but I think what it's going to do is push even more eyes on Washington, and hopefully lead to some political pressure that will reign in the worst excesses of what's going on.
CHURCH: Justin Wolfers, a pleasure to get your economic analysis as always. Many thanks.
WOLFERS: Thanks. Rosemary.
CHURCH: Two programs that gave money to schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers are coming to an end.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is cutting $1 billion in funding to the COVID-era programs, as part of President Trump's efforts to downsize federal government programs. The move is facing backlash from organizations that source food for school meals. They say it's already hard enough to get good options with the rising costs of food, labor, and equipment.
The USDA says they will instead focus on, "stable, proven solutions" that deliver a lasting impact.
He is nicknamed The Punisher. Now, he is sitting in prison and waiting for trial.
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had one more message for supporters before he arrived at the International Criminal Court. We'll take a look on the other side of the break.
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CHURCH: A prominent Palestinian activist will remain in U.S. detention for now as his case plays out in court. But a New York federal judge says Mahmoud Khalil must be allowed more access to his attorneys after they told the court that their ability to speak with him has been severely limited.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, was arrested, Saturday, and his green card revoked in an attempt by the Trump administration to deport him for his involvement in anti-Gaza war protests.
His lawyers say he was arrested for exercising his first amendment rights.
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BAHER AZMY, ATTORNEY TO MAHMOUD KHALIL: Mr. Khalil's detention has nothing to do with security, it is only about repression.
United States government has taken the position that it can arrest, detain, and seek to deport a lawful permanent resident, exclusively, because of his peaceful, constitutionally protected activism.
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CHURCH: U.S. borders czar, Tom Homan, called Khalil's arrest justified, and accused him without evidence of inciting violence.
The Justice Department says they will attempt to move his court proceedings out of New York.
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Duterte! Duterte!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Duterte! Duterte!
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CHURCH: A group of his supporters showed up outside a detention facility in the Netherlands as he arrived on Wednesday, hours earlier, he released this video from the plane that flew him to the Netherlands. Duterte is facing murder charges related to his ruthless and deadly war on drugs.
But he said he will take responsibility, "for everything and protect the Philippine police and the military". Melissa Bell has our report.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Far from the Philippines. Rodrigo Duterte, the country's former president, now in The Hague, and accused of crimes against humanity.
His dramatic arrest in Manila on Tuesday, the result of an International Criminal Court warrant, only served after a U-turn by the country's current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
RODRIGO DUTERTE, FORMER PRESIDENT, PHILIPPINES (through translator): My order to them was that if they are holding a gun, kill them immediately, so there will be one less criminal.
BELL (voice over): Dubbed "The Punisher", Duterte oversaw a brutal years-long crackdown on drug pushers that allegedly left thousands dead. More than 6,000 people were killed, according to police data, but independent monitors believe that the number could be into the tens of thousands, including bystanders caught in the crossfire.
DUTERTE: What is the crime that I committed?
BELL (voice over): Duterte has repeatedly denied the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug suspects, and although the verdict could take years, his arrest is significant.
First, because the former Filipino president will be one of a very small number of former leaders to have ever been taken to trial, but also because the Philippines had actually withdrawn from the ICC under Duterte in 2019. The court argues, however, that the crimes were allegedly committed when it did have jurisdiction.
And the ICC has plans for other world leaders, too, though it relies on the cooperation of national governments to execute its warrants. It's seeking the arrest of both Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for Israel's actions in Gaza, and Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Justice for all the victims of Duterte's crime.
BELL: Outside the ICC, celebrations of a step that some say means that justice will at last be done.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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CHURCH: Senior Arab diplomats met with America's Middle East envoy in Qatar as they push an alternative to U.S. President Donald Trump's vision of Gaza's future.
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According to Qatar's Foreign Ministry, they presented a unified Arab plan for Gaza's reconstruction. The $53 billion proposal calls for rebuilding Gaza by 2030. Mr. Trump has floated the idea of the U.S. taking over the enclave, permanently relocating Palestinians who live in Gaza, and turning the area into what he calls a "Middle East Riviera". The proposal has been met with widespread international condemnation.
Nearly 350 hostages have been rescued after a deadly train hijacking in southwest Pakistan on Tuesday. Sources tell CNN, the Baloch Liberation Army, a militant separatist group, has claimed responsibility for the attack, which resulted in the deaths of at least 27 hostages, one soldier and at least 35 militants.
Passengers tell CNN, the separatists opened intense gunfire on the train as it passed. The militant group has been responsible for some of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan over the past year.
The Trump administration is dealing a major blow to progress made on clean air, water, and the climate crisis. Details on the policies that are being rolled back after the short break.
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CHURCH: One day after President Trump held an apparent electric vehicle auto show in front of the White House with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, his Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to undo climate policies that would've pushed power plants and car makers to use cleaner forms of energy. The EPA also plans to roll back rules on soot, mercury, and coal ash pollution, and eliminate programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity.
The administration is also preparing to strip the EPA's authority to manage pollution that causes global warming. Critics say these actions would sacrifice human health to benefit private industry. Climate and environmental groups are vowing to challenge the EPA's moves in court. Well, the pollution and climate rollbacks were announced in rapid fire order. More than a dozen were released in about two hours at some point on Wednesday. More now from CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It is the chainsaw effect that we've been watching all these weeks. Famously, President Trump promised oil executives carte blanche when it came to deregulation. In today's event, which is actually time to the biggest energy conference in Houston, today, Lee Zeldin put out a video on X and they were putting out press releases with such a flurry, about 31 different actions and rollbacks that some of them had typos or placeholders at the top.
We have one of those there, "Trump EPA announces 0000." You can see there, it's sort of shoot first, fill out the press release later. They're going after, of course, as you mentioned, vehicle emissions, tailpipe emissions, power plant pollution, mercury pollution that comes out of there, coal, wastewater, oil and gas, coal ash, reporting CO2, industries just kind of keeping a tally on how much planet coke (ph) and pollution they're putting in to the sea and sky. They no need to do that anymore.
Now, a lot of this is symbolic. It still has to go through the courts, it has to go through Congress, but it just is the latest in an all-out war on science, around public health, around the environment, and of course, around the climate crisis. It's going to affect everything on earth eventually. But in the near term, it'll be the folks who have struggled with the biggest costs of our economies, folks who live next to factories and toxic waste sites.
There's one example. This week, about 30 miles outside of New Orleans, there's a big petrochemical plant, right next to a community, right next to an elementary school. There was a Department of Justice lawsuit supposed to go to -- before a judge next month, dropped by the Trump administration. They said because it was a blow against the radical Diversity Equity Inclusion policies of the last administration. It was potentially deadly chemicals coming out of a factory.
Does it matter the race of the elementary school nearby? But this is what -- all of these programs are just being systematically destroyed. And then you've got the forecasting scientists, the climate modeling folks. They've gutted resiliency funding for communities to try to build back from fires out in California or hurricanes in Florida. Every level of this, every mention of climate change and science is being stripped out of federal websites right now. And so, this will affect everything. But in the near term, it's economies, it's people's health, wealth, happiness are tied to this story in so many ways.
CHURCH: A worldwide expedition is spending 10 years searching for new kinds of marine life. Just ahead, a new species of guitar shark and other mysterious creatures. Back in just a moment.
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CHURCH: At least 46 people have been injured in clashes between protesters and police in Argentina. This was the scene outside the Congress building in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Protesters including prisoners, football fans, or pensioners I should say, football fans and political groups had gathered to speak out against the government and the state of the economy. The security ministry says 124 people were arrested.
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A global effort to identify new marine life has found more than 800 undocumented species. The discoveries are part of an ocean census by the Nippon and Nekton Foundations. The new species include flowery creatures called new octocorals which provide habitats for marine life, as well as gastropods with venomous harpoons and a wealth of other unique life forms. One of them is this species of guitar shark named for its shape. It was found off the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania, and it's only the 38th known guitar shark species worldwide. Most of them are considered threatened.
I want to thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. "World Sport" is coming up next. Then I'll be back in about 15 minutes with more "CNN Newsroom." Do stick around.
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