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Two-Hour Phone Call Between Trump And Putin Ends Without Ceasefire; Israel Ramps Up "Operation Gideon's Chariots" In Gaza; Deportation Protections For Venezuelans Under Threat; Biden Addresses Cancer Diagnosis In Social Media Post; North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourism Months After Reopening. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired May 20, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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


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MJ LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm MJ Lee live from Washington, D.C.

Ahead this hour, the presidents of the U.S. and Russia, coming out of a two-hour phone call with the White House and the Kremlin contradicting each other on reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Five trucks of aid entering Gaza for the first time in nearly three months. But with the enclave under bombardment and with famine already imminent, U.N. officials are warning it is simply not enough.

Plus, from hosting an international marathon to canceling all tourist visas, why North Korea is going back to its hermit kingdom ways.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that only he can end the war in Ukraine, and that he can do so quickly. But 119 days into his second term, his two-hour phone call with Vladimir Putin, the architect of the war, ended without a ceasefire and without any meaningful progress towards one. Still, President Trump insisting that the call went very well. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I said, when are we going to end this, Vladimir? I know him for a long time now. I said, when are we going to end this bloodshed, this bloodbath? It's a bloodbath. And I do believe he wants to end it. Very tough situation. But I said to him, we got to get going, and I did say also, if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away, because what are you going to do? We don't have boots on the ground. We wouldn't have boots on the ground. But we do have a big stake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Russia's president squeezed in the phone call during a tour of a school in Sochi. The Kremlin says the two leaders spoke about a, quote, "prompt resolution" and the possibility of direct contact between Russia and Ukraine. But they did not commit to a location or a time frame, leaving the situation seemingly unchanged. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with the U.S. president

before and after the call with Putin. He insists he will not accept unjust peace conditions that Russia has proposed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Nobody will withdraw our forces from our territories. It is my constitutional duty, the duty of our military to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Yes, there are temporarily occupied territories now because of the aggression of such a huge country. But we will accept no ultimatums. We will not give away our land, our territories and our people, our homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's chief international security correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, brings us more on the impact of the Trump-Putin call.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three presidents who didn't meet last week and three very different moods after one not very fruitful phone call.

First up, Russian President Vladimir Putin taking the most important call of his war casually from here, a music school by the sea. A ceasefire might come with the right paperwork, he said. And President Trump knows Russia wants peace. But no substantive change from three months ago.

Russia's position is clear, he says. The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis.

Flash across the Black Sea to Kyiv, where Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has got through a weekend of record drone strikes. Nine killed in one on a minibus to see this supposed breakthrough moment for diplomacy just heap frustration on frustration. They don't even know who will meet next or where.

ZELENSKYY (through translator): Such a meeting could take place in Turkey, in the Vatican or in Switzerland. We are now considering these three venues. The question is, who will be able to organize this with the appropriate result?

PATON WALSH: And the most positive spin from President Donald Trump.

TRUMP: We just spent two and a half hours talking to Vladimir Putin.

PATON WALSH: Who five days ago wanted to personally intermediate between two enemies, but now seems tinged with a sense he might be stepping back. And Ukraine and Russia can talk about a ceasefire alone. Maybe in the Vatican. The conditions for that, he wrote, will be negotiated between the two parties, as it only can be because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: For more, I want to bring in Jill Dougherty, a CNN contributor and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She's also the author of "My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin." She's joining me now from Tallinn, Estonia.

Jill, it is great to have you here. This is a phone call that lasted around two hours. You have to factor in obviously the translations, but still a lengthy phone call. And we now have readouts from both sides. Here's a little more of what President Trump told reporters after the call. Listen.

[00:05:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn't even be talking about it because I'd just pull out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: But, Jill, I think we would know if this call had resulted in some significant breakthrough. Clearly, that is not what happened here, right?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Exactly. And, you know, excuse me, I'm struck by that, you know, I wouldn't participate if I didn't think something could happen. It really feels to me as if President Trump is pulling out of his own negotiations.

I'm sorry. Is there a problem with sound?

LEE: No problem at all. I can hear you just fine, Jill.

DOUGHERTY: Sorry. Yes. I heard another thing. Sorry about that. But it feels as if President Trump is pulling out of his own negotiations because, as you pointed out, for a long time he's been saying nothing can happen actually dramatically about a week ago, nothing can happen without me and without Putin. And then this conversation happens and things just seem to kind of disintegrate.

And I would point out the main demand that President Trump and the Europeans have been making and obviously Ukraine is for a ceasefire, to get to a ceasefire. But President Putin has been saying, no, let's get to the root causes. And this seems to be what President Trump is saying, you know, turning it into these ultimate peace negotiations, which is very complex to get to. And then also, I think almost more significantly, the pressure point from the West was supposed to be, the -- no talk of sanctions that you would increase the sanctions and have what are called secondary sanctions against countries that deal with Russia, and by its oil.

But there's no talk in this about sanctions. In fact, President Trump is talking about business opportunities. So, you know, standing back and looking at this, it feels as if he is kind of giving up on the let's call it diplomatic possibility for reaching any type of agreement and really gone back to what he knows best, which is business, and that we can talk about forever. But, you know, I don't think the opportunities for business with Russia are very great at all. There's almost no business going on between Russia and the United States at this point. So I think we're back to kind of point zero at this point.

LEE: OK. And, Jill, I wanted to point out, too, just how differently the two leaders seem to treat the occasion of this conversation. Two details that I thought really spoke volumes. The fact that Trump took the call from the Oval Office at the White House. Meanwhile, President Putin squeezing in the phone call while he was on a school tour in Sochi.

Is it clear to you that President Trump at this point is more interested in, or at least was, more interested in diplomacy than Putin has been?

DOUGHERTY: Well, I do take your point, definitely, because, you know, President Putin does not do things just for the fun of it or without thinking in advance, and staging that, taking that call at the school in Sochi, I think, you know, the message was, yes, I will talk to the president of the United States, but I'm going to do it while I'm doing something else. So I do think that that was significant.

And obviously, President Trump, you know, from the White House. So we've got a lot of signaling going on. And I listened very intently to the way that President Putin talked about this as well. And, you know, essentially what he's saying is what he said at the beginning more than three years ago of the full scale invasion, which is he wants a rollback, you know, a rollback not only of, you know, never Ukraine in NATO, but he actually wants a rollback of the entire NATO expansion over years in this part of the world, in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union.

So, you know, he's -- he hasn't budged. And that's where we are. So it does feel kind of like, you know, back to the future or the future back to the past.

LEE: Yes. And, Jill, you know, you mentioned briefly before just the fact that President Putin is continuing to use the language root causes. I think this is what you were getting at a little bit just now. I mean, he is insisting that whatever happens, the root causes of the war have to be addressed.

[00:10:00]

Translate that for the average person. I mean, explain why that choice in language is so significant coming at this moment from the Russian leader.

DOUGHERTY: Yes. Root causes. I mean, he's used that phrase ever since, as I said, 2022. So what it means is that Ukraine essentially loses sovereignty, so Ukraine becomes kind of a shrunken entity. It has a depleted military. You never -- you don't have a big military of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people. You have maybe, I don't know, 50,000 troops. You don't get any aid from the West, no more military equipment. You never become, you're never allowed to even try to become a member of NATO.

And the other question that hasn't been raised recently but is part of this is that the political leadership could be changed. And they talk about that in terms of de-Nazification, by which they mean President Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, but is being described as a Nazi by the Russians, that somehow he would probably have to go, that there would have to be elections, which the Russians would hope and probably try to engineer to make sure somebody else comes in.

So in other words, Ukraine would be neutered and it would be ultimately controlled by Russia, although it might, you know, officially exist as something like a country. But that's what we're talking about. These are really existential issues for Ukraine. So, and I don't understand why in these negotiations it's not clear to the American administration that that is what he's talking about.

It's not just, you know, a peace, a ceasefire or something like that. That's why he wants to go for the entire thing.

LEE: All right. Few people understand these issues better than you.

Jill Dougherty, thank you so much.

DOUGHERTY: Thank you.

LEE: The Israeli prime minister announced on Monday that Israel is, quote, "going to take control of the entire Gaza Strip." This comes after the Israeli military launched an extensive ground operation called "Gideon's Chariots" in the enclave over the weekend.

Gaza has already experienced days of heavy airstrikes, and at least 136 people have been killed over the last 24 hours. And that's according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Meanwhile, the leaders of the U.K., France and Canada are threatening Israel with targeted sanctions if it continues its military offensive and blocks aid from entering Gaza.

On Monday, aid did enter Gaza for the first time in nearly three months. Israel says it allowed five U.N. trucks carrying aid into the enclave, but humanitarian groups say more than 500 trucks of aid per day are needed.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more from Jerusalem, and a warning some of the images you are about to see are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The next chapter of Israel's war in Gaza is now underway, and it could be the deadliest yet.

Over the weekend, the Israeli military launching "Operation Gideon's Chariots" striking Gaza with devastating force. Tens of thousands of troops now mobilized for the offensive with a new mission from the top. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We

have intense, massive fighting going on. Intense and immense. There is progress. We are going to take control of the entire Gaza Strip. That's what we are going to do.

DIAMOND: Israeli strikes have killed more than 300 people since Friday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The toll on civilians is once again rapidly mounting. Among those killed is Aylul (PH), taken from this world just four months after she was born into it. Her small body now lies on her father's chest while her family searches for words to make of it all.

They were all asleep, a mother, father and their 4-month-old daughter, all targeted in their bedroom, Aylul's uncle Omar says. I don't know what to say anymore. We've spoken a lot. No one is looking after us. Not Arabs, not Muslims. No one.

In Khan Younis, mattresses and belongings are piled high once again as Israel's new offensive triggers Gaza's latest mass displacement. The Israeli military ordering hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate, declaring the area a dangerous combat zone.

[00:15:04]

In that same city, anger and frustration boiling over, including at Hamas. Hundreds of Palestinians taking to the streets in a rare protest, calling for the war to end and for Hamas to get out.

After pushing Gaza to the brink of famine, Israel now agreeing to partially lift its 11-week blockade.

NETANYAHU (through translator): We need to provide a temporary bridge, minimal basic aid to prevent starvation. That's the current situation we're in.

DIAMOND: The Israeli government says several dozen aid trucks will be allowed into Gaza this week until a new Israeli approved mechanism for aid deliveries becomes operational later this month. Thousands more are ready to go. Aid trucks will continue to be blocked.

Amid the destruction of another airstrike in Central Gaza, residents are paying close attention to ceasefire negotiations in the Qatari capital. But here, flickers of progress lead only to another body that must be wrenched from the rubble.

We went to sleep with hope that tomorrow will be better, and suddenly everything turned upside down, Raed Abu Elik (PH) says. My message is look at this. Stop this war.

More men eventually joined Raed to pull out their neighbor's body and carry him out of the rubble. Signs of hope now seem far away once again.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem. (END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And still ahead, the U.S. Supreme Court clearing the way for the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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LEE: The first flight carrying migrants who self-deported from the U.S. has landed in Honduras. It's part of an initiative from the Department of Homeland Security offering undocumented immigrants $1,000 to leave the country voluntarily. 38 Hondurans were on board, including at least four children who were born in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security says the program is a way for families to stay together and is a significant savings compared to the $17,000 per case it currently costs to deport undocumented immigrants.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the U.S. could be at risk of deportation, and that's because of an order by the U.S. Supreme Court.

CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is a pretty technical decision but it is still a win for the Trump administration, as it will allow them to continue to pursue their sweeping deportation efforts.

Now, in this case, the Trump administration had gone to the Supreme Court asking it to allow the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be able to continue to roll back certain deportation protections. Specifically we're talking about a form of humanitarian relief known as temporary protected status, TPS, and particularly when it comes to Venezuelans.

Now, the Supreme Court was asked to do this because back in March, a lower court, a district court judge, had blocked Noem from being able to do this, saying that she could not remove these protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelans. Those Venezuelans, the challengers, they argue that she was motivated by racial and political hostility.

This is just the latest in a series of challenges to the Trump administration's immigration agenda that have reached the Supreme Court pretty quickly. So on an expedited basis. Now, we did not get a full opinion from the Supreme Court. We don't have their reasoning or analysis. And we also expect that the litigation here will continue. But while that continues, the administration can start to roll back some of these protections.

Now, we'll note one justice, just in a single line, was noted as having been the only justice who would have denied this request. That is Justice Jackson.

Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Joe Biden is addressing his cancer diagnosis for the first time in a post on social media. What the former U.S. president is saying ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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LEE: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm MJ Lee. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

A two-hour phone call between the U.S. and Russian presidents failed to yield any significant progress towards ending the fighting in Ukraine. After Monday's call, Donald Trump claimed Russia and Ukraine would immediately begin talks. But the Kremlin says there's still no time frame for a possible ceasefire.

Israel says it has allowed five U.N. trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza on Monday, the first time in nearly three months. A key U.N. humanitarian official says the limited delivery is, quote, "a drop in the ocean" of what is urgently needed. In the meantime, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel plans to take control of all of Gaza.

The U.K. and the E.U. have been taking -- are taking a big step towards resetting relations post-Brexit. They signed a new deal Monday on trade, security, migration and tourism. The E.U. Commission president said, at a time of global instability, we and Europe stick together.

And U.S. President Donald Trump says news of Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis is very sad, but is also questioning why it wasn't revealed sooner, even though the diagnosis was only made on Friday. The former president's personal office said over the weekend that Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Biden himself is speaking out about the news. CNN's Arlette Saenz has more.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former President Joe Biden addressed his cancer diagnosis for the first time -

SAENZ (voice-over): -- in a social media post on Monday, writing, quote, "Cancer touches us all."

Biden has spent the past few days at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, with his family as they are working to determine what kind of treatment he will pursue after receiving this cancer diagnosis on Friday. Doctors informed him that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones.

Now, some of the treatment options medical experts say that he could pursue --

SAENZ: -- include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and radiation.

But for Biden's part, he appeared to be in good spirits in this post on social media. He had posted a selfie of himself and his wife, first -- former first lady Jill Biden, writing, "Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support."

Now, Biden's cancer diagnosis actually came two weeks before the Biden family was set to mark the ten-year anniversary of his son Beau Biden's passing from brain cancer. So, this is already a very emotional period of the year for the Biden family, and this new diagnosis adds another layer of emotion to that.

But the diagnosis is also coming as there has been a renewed spotlight put on Biden's time in office, particularly the end of it. A forthcoming book from our colleague Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson details some signs of physical and mental decline that were seen in Biden as he was leaving office.

SAENZ: So, that is another challenging point for this family, as they are not only grappling with the cancer diagnosis and the next steps forward, but also having many questions raised about Biden's waning years when he was in the White House.

Arlette Saenz, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: North Korea shuts down again, canceling visas not long after letting foreign tourists back inside the country. We'll have those details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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LEE: The "hermit kingdom" may be on some travelers' bucket lists, but if you're wanting to visit, you're going to have a tougher time.

North Korea was closed for years during the pandemic, and then it opened its borders again to foreign tourists just a few months ago. But now the doors seem to be closing again.

CNN's Will Ripley explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY JAGGARD, BRITISH YOUTUBER: Well, the Koreans are smiling and waving, heading to work. WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): British youtuber Harry Jaggard had never run a marathon, but when North Korea announced a handful of foreign spots for the Pyongyang marathon --

JAGGARD: This is where all the military parades are.

RIPLEY: -- Harry hit the ground running --

JAGGARD: These are not paid actors. These are real people.

RIPLEY: -- joining the first group of Westerners since COVID to visit North Korea's capital.

JAGGARD: Ten percent of the trip were athletes, runners, and then 90 percent were, like, content creators.

RIPLEY: Do you think the North Koreans knew that most of the people in your group were content creators like you?

JAGGARD: The tour guides definitely weren't expecting it. They said that -- the tour guides, they said that they'd never seen this many cameras, like, pointing at them.

Can we not mingle? Can we not mingle? They're going to bring one actor.

RIPLEY (voice-over): North Korea tries to carefully control every aspect of foreign tours.

JAGGARD: And one of the rules they told us was just like, you've got to ask your tour guide to film. If they tell you not to film, just don't film.

And people were, like, filming in places they shouldn't be filmed.

RIPLEY (voice-over): They could not control questions like this.

JAGGARD: But do you feel like you know him? Kim Jong-un?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, yes.

JAGGARD: He has a daughter?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mm-hmm. I think so.

JAGGARD: And she will be the next leader, maybe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure.

JAGGARD: Oh, OK, OK.

RIPLEY: He looked pretty uncomfortable when you asked him that question.

JAGGARD: He was definitely uncomfortable. I found out after that, like, they don't really talk about the future, like the future leaders. They just talk about the present.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Soon after the marathon, North Korea hit the brakes, abruptly canceling foreign visas for its international trade fair in Pyongyang.

RIPLEY: You guys already had flight tickets, hotels booked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had our visas issued and then abruptly canceled. That wasn't just us. That was actually over 200 Chinese and also Russian visitors, as well.

RIPLEY: Did they say why?

JUSTIN MARTELL, TOUR OPERATOR: They just said that it was in the national interest.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Tour operator Justin Martell was supposed to lead a 20-person business delegation. He also led tours to Rason, North Korea's special economic zone, earlier this year.

Social media influencers quickly snatched up those spots.

MARTELL: Controversy creates clicks. That creates cash. The more sensational your video is, the more views you're going to get, the more followers you're going to get.

RIPLEY (voice-over): That reopening lasted less than three weeks, all trips suddenly canceled without warning or official explanation.

MARTELL: There are some people in Pyongyang or higher up in the North Korean government who looked at the footage that came out from those YouTubers and thought that it didn't reflect positively.

It's called the "hermit kingdom" for a reason. So, all we can do now is hope for the best.

JAGGARD: These are the different haircuts we can get.

RIPLEY (voice-over): The closures mean, for now, none of this --

JAGGARD: Haircut like Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un haircut.

RIPLEY (voice-over): -- and more of this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

[00:40:02]

RIPLEY (voice-over): North Korea's carefully controlled state propaganda. A way to project power and military prowess without having to worry about anyone going off-script.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm M.J. Lee, and I'll be back with more news at the top of the hour. WORLD SPORT is next.

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