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U.S. and Russian Presidents End Summit with Talk of Progress but No Deal; Spain Battles 14 Major Fires. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2025 - 03:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

A historic summit between U.S. president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin ends without a deal. We'll look at what comes next for Ukraine.

Air Canada flight attendants are now officially on strike, leading to questions about how the airline will be able to operate.

And hundreds have been killed by floods in South Asia. We've got the latest on the areas hit hardest.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Donald Trump landed just moments ago at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C. The White House says that during the flight from his Alaska summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin, he had a lengthy call with Ukraine's president, then spoke with NATO leaders.

Despite no deal or decision on a ceasefire in Ukraine, president Trump is giving Friday's meeting with President Putin high marks. Both men characterized the summit in Anchorage, Alaska, as positive and talked of progress made.

After the summit President Trump told FOX News he agreed with Putin that the war will end with territory swapping and he said the next move is up to Ukraine's president. Here he is.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, one or two pretty significant items but I think they can be reached now. It's really up to President Zelenskyy to get it done. And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit. But it's up to President Zelenskyy. I think we are -- and if they'd like, I'll be at that next meeting. They're going to set up a meeting now between President Zelenskyy and President Putin and myself, I guess, you know? I didn't even -- I didn't ask about it. Not that I want to be there but I want to make sure it gets done. And we have a pretty good chance of getting it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: No one outside of the meeting knows what presidents Trump and Putin discussed Friday. They didn't reveal it at a joint news briefing and they didn't take questions from reporters.

Now in a break with tradition, Putin delivered his remarks first instead of the hosting U.S. president. The Russian leader said, in his view, the primary causes of the conflict must be eliminated for the fighting to end.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive all this in a constructive manner and will not create any obstacles, will not make attempts to disrupt the progress through provocations and behind-the- scenes intrigues.

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BRUNHUBER: Marybel Gonzalez has more on the high stakes summit from Anchorage.

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MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Donald Trump and Russia's president Vladimir Putin coming together for a high stakes meeting Friday in Anchorage, Alaska.

TRUMP: We had an extremely productive meeting.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): The two world leaders and advisors discussing a variety of issues, including economic matters. But the most critical topic: finding a path to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

While both leaders appeared optimistic, specific details about their discussions were not released.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Russia has its own national interests. I expect that today's agreements will be their starting point, not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue but also will help us bring back businesslike and pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.

It's been nearly 3.5 years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine. This map shows the areas now occupied by Russian troops.

Hours before the two leaders met, Russia ramping up missile strikes against Ukraine. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not invited to attend Friday's meeting, saying this ahead of the summit.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The war continues. It continues precisely because there is no order nor any signals from Moscow, that is preparing to end this war. They are also killing on the day of the negotiations and that speaks volumes.

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GONZALEZ (voice-over): Trump says he will discuss the details of Friday's meeting with members of NATO and Zelenskyy.

TRUMP: We haven't quite gotten there but we've made some headway. So there's no deal until there's a deal.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Many European leaders putting pressure on the U.S. to include Ukraine in any decisions that are made to ensure peace -- in Anchorage, Alaska, I'm Marybel Gonzalez, reporting.

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BRUNHUBER: CNN's Clare Sebastian is in London monitoring the Russian and European reaction to Friday's summit. But first, our Ben Wedeman is in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

So Ben, before the summit, some Ukrainians were hopeful the summit could lead to a positive outcome. And many were also worried some kind of deal would be hatched without them at the table.

[03:05:02]

Neither happened.

So how are they reacting today?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, let me tell you, Kim, that we've seen that the Ukrainian president's office has put out a statement.

Saying that, indeed, there was a phone conversation, a lengthy phone conversation, that was initially a one-on-one between president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and president Donald Trump and that was later joined by European leaders.

Significantly, however, that's all the details that were released by the president's office. It seems that, at least for the moment, officialdom here in Ukraine is being very cautious, is not commenting in any detail on this summit yesterday in Alaska.

So we'll have to wait and see. And, of course, we haven't really heard much in the way of comment from the White House, apart from that lengthy and rambling interview with Sean Hannity on FOX.

So the details of what was discussed, are really not clear at this point. We did hear, for instance, president Trump say in that FOX interview that a lot of points were negotiated on behalf of Ukraine and saying that perhaps land swaps are part of the final solution.

That's not going down well here. Certainly, for instance, one local independent newspaper, the "Kyiv Independent" put out an editorial that was headlined, "that meeting was sickening. Putin loved it."

So I'd say generally the reaction to the summit in Alaska has been negative. One activist I know put on Twitter, for instance, she said that it was "a huge, empty nothing. Alaska's only lesson was destroy, kill, rape, torture, steal and get a red carpet."

Certainly people were surprised at the kind, the warm welcome that the Russian president got. This is a man who's wanted by the International Criminal Court. Ukrainians like to remind Americans that it was indeed Russia that invaded Ukraine and not the other way around.

And the feeling is that, certainly with this administration, Trump, president Trump has a dark view of President Zelenskyy and describing, in some of his public statements, it sounds as if it was Zelenskyy who invaded Russia and not the other way around.

So I think we're just going to have to wait and see what substantive reaction we hear from Ukrainian officials.

But I'm willing to predict that it's going to be very cautious, short on any critical assessments of the Alaska summit, simply because that shocking Oval Office encounter between president Trump, vice president JD Vance and President Zelenskyy earlier this year.

Really drove home the point that this is an American president who does not like to be criticized, does not like any less than totally positive statements about his wonderful achievements. So I think they're going to be fairly tight-lipped here in Kyiv when it comes to this summit in Alaska.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. And when you were you were talking about how the Ukrainian media was so critical of this summit.

A very different story, Clare, in the Russian media, doing a victory lap after what they saw. So take us through that. And as well, Putin warned Europe not to torpedo the progress. So take us through what European leaders are saying in the in the wake of this summit.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Russians this morning have woken up to a very clear success story in the Russian media, the summit and all the optics, the red carpet, Putin's ride in Trump's vehicle, the Beast.

All affording plenty of opportunity to emphasize this final closing of the chapter of Russia's isolation at the hands of the West and, in some cases, emphasizing, you know, interpretations of this that showed Putin as the dominant player in this.

So an enormous opportunity for propaganda here. Putin's popularity at home, of course, tested in many ways by the war itself and the immense cost in terms of human lives. So this is being played out extremely widely. And I want to show you a video that came out on the Kremlin's Telegram

channel in the last couple of hours, showing what they say are F-22 fighter jets, American fighter jets, escorting Putin's plane from Alaska back to Russia.

We know that he's made a stop in Russia's far east on his way back. But all of this, I think, playing into the narrative of Russia now being an essential player on the world stage. So that is critical. We're also hearing from some top officials.

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Including in the last hour from Dmitry Medvedev, the former president, now deputy head of Russia's security council, listing the many ways in which he thinks this has gone well for Russia. He said, you know, a mechanism for full-scale meetings between Russia and the U.S. has now been restored calmly, he said, without ultimatums and threats.

And I think, crucially, he points out, he said the meeting showed that negotiations are possible without preconditions and simultaneously with the continuation of the special military operation, which is, of course, exact -- the exact opposite of what Ukraine wants and Europe wants.

Frankly, they want this to happen, you know, real settlement of the situation to happen only during a ceasefire. So that is what we're hearing from Russia.

I think for Europe, it is positive that there was a call with NATO this morning. You know, the U.S.' European allies in NATO have put in a lot of work to try to keep the U.S. engaged. So that is positive.

But overall, we're seeing a mixture of silence and skepticism from the major European countries who've spent the past week on a on a huge diplomatic push to get into Trump's ear to try to influence this meeting.

We haven't heard a great deal. A few officials have come out, mainly from Eastern European countries, to express skepticism. The Czech foreign minister, according to Reuters, saying, you know, if Putin was serious about peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day.

And then the Lithuanian defense minister saying, you know, accusing Putin essentially of gaslighting and veiled threats by issuing a warning, as you said, to Europe, to not sabotage these efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.

So skepticism and silence in Europe this morning, I think people are waiting, as Ben said, for more details to come out about exactly what was discussed and, of course, the next steps.

BRUNHUBER: Yes.

I really appreciate having you both. Ben Wedeman in Kyiv and Clare Sebastian in London. Thank you so much. All right. Also in London, I want to bring in Nigel Gould-Davies, who

joins us from London. He's a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Good to see you again. So no peace, no ceasefire even and no secondary sanctions. President Trump graded the meeting at 10, presumably out of 10.

How would you grade it?

NIGEL GOULD-DAVIES, SENIOR FELLOW FOR RUSSIA AND EURASIA, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES: It depends who you are, of course.

As far as president Trump goes, I sensed in the press conference afterwards a slight sense of deflation compared to the effusive, lavish warmth and hospitality he very publicly displayed to President Putin when Putin arrived.

Trump spoke for, I think, less than three minutes in that press conference. That's very unlike him. I sense that his language was measured. And he was searching for optimism against the background of something that I think went quite disappointingly for him.

There was certainly, of course, no ceasefire. He's very clear there were still big issues to resolve. And in fact, the meeting itself was much shorter, the negotiations, than was intended.

If you're Putin, well, I think, there was limited prospect of Trump on a first encounter swinging around to Putin's point of view.

But Putin's goal has been achieved, which is to say, firstly, to bring him out of this international isolation and, secondly, to continue the diplomatic process. Because Putin is playing a long game and to try to ensure that the Europeans are not brought in.

I think the single most significant statement from both leaders at the press conference was that they don't want the Europeans to -- I think one of the words that was used was "torpedo." So Putin sees this as the first stage in a track that gradually will lead to him gaining greater and greater ground over Trump's thinking.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. And that was Putin who said that about not torpedoing the -- what he called progress.

Before the summit, you wrote that this was approaching a moment of truth where Trump had to choose between Europe and Russia. So the moment of truth has come and gone.

Do you get a sense that Trump has chosen here?

GOULD-DAVIES: Not yet. It still hangs in the balance. But if you're Europe, which as your correspondent was saying earlier, has worked very, very hard this week to engage president Trump and ensure the worst outcome is avoided. You are still quite concerned about this because Putin's goals,

Russia's goals, be very clear, are not fundamentally about territory at all. They're about reordering wider European security. And when Putin talks, as he did again in the press conference, about resolving the underlying causes of the war.

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That is Kremlin-speak for Russia, seeking to, again, not merely gain a little sliver of territory here or there but to ensure that NATO's influence, America's influence in Europe are, in some longer-term, fundamental way, diminished.

Now it is encouraging that president Trump is engaging NATO, European leaders, is keeping them informed.

But it's Europe's task now to do everything it can to make sure this does not remain a strictly bilateral American-Russia attempt to solve as they might see it. The continents fundamental security questions over their heads and against their interests.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. And Putin, again, talking about root causes, suggests he hasn't softened his position on Ukraine at all, which isn't surprising.

So you talk about the burden on Europe here.

But I mean, what leverage, what cards do they have to play?

Especially when Trump apparently isn't willing to engage in those severe consequences that he threatened if talks had failed.

GOULD-DAVIES: Yes, once, as you say, once again, president Trump has returned from the brink of turning some of the rhetoric, harsh rhetoric begun to see from him with respect to Russia, into concrete actions. He's still not done that.

I think if you're Europe, you draw some comfort from the fact that president Trump's individual relations with the leaders of the most important European states remains very warm.

Whether that's Prime Minister Starmer, President Macron, Prime Minister Meloni and so on. And now, Chancellor Merz in Germany.

So there does seem to be traction, engagement. We saw some -- a very encouraging NATO summit in June, where it seemed president Trump had been the -- again, returned to the fold, so to speak, willing to see transatlantic security essentially in terms reassuring to Europe.

But you never know with president Trump.

It's who does he last speak to?

Where will his mind go?

He's seen as zigzagging since he returned to the White House in January. Sooner or later, sooner or later, president Trump will have to decide in some definitive, irreversible way what his view really is on the outcome of war. And that's when the moment of truth will really arrive.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, although it may be too late from a Ukrainian point of view.

We'll have to leave it there. Nigel Gould-Davies, thank you so much for speaking with us. Really appreciate it.

GOULD-DAVIES: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Well, the skies are not very friendly for Canada's biggest airline and its flight attendants. Coming up, how their dispute is causing major disruptions for thousands of travelers. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Air Canada flight attendants are now officially on strike. The threat of a walkout had already forced thousands of travelers to change their plans and now could get even worse. As Paula Newton reports, the airlines' entire operations are grinding to a halt.

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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this labor dispute will represent a significant disruption to air travel, not just here in Canada but beyond.

So many people using Air Canada, not just to fly in and out of Canada but to get to places like Asia, Europe and South America. Right now, Air Canada said it has no choice, it must shut down its entire passenger service.

They are in a labor dispute with the flight attendants, the flight attendants saying that they no longer can put up with the fact that they are not paid for things like delays, that they're only paid exactly when they are flying in the air.

Air Canada calling on the government in Green (ph) to send both parties to binding arbitration. So far, the government has not relented.

Business groups say that, look, the economic damage to Canada, already in such a vulnerable position because of the terror war with the United States, that the damage to the economy here will be extensive.

And really, at this point in time, every day that goes on, Air Canada warns, even if there is a settlement, it will be more difficult to bring the airline back to full capacity. Really, it won't happen in a matter of hours. They're saying it would take at least days.

What does that mean?

It means that the disruption to air travel, not just here in Canada but beyond, will continue for the foreseeable future -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.

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BRUNHUBER: The first Atlantic hurricane of the season is now a category two storm and is expected to grow into a major hurricane this weekend. Erin has sustained winds of 155 kilometers per hour.

Outer bands of the storms are already beginning to impact the Northern Leeward Islands. Heavy rainfall is also expected in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Forecasters predict the storm could reach category four by Sunday.

Massive flooding has caused devastation across parts of Pakistan, India-administered Kashmir and Nepal. In northern Pakistan, at least 321 people are dead after heavy flooding ripped through the region on Friday. The country's meteorological department issued another alert warning of possible flash floods.

And in India-administered Kashmir, 60 people are dead and more than 200 are missing as a result of the flooding. Witnesses say the downpours swept away cars and damaged buildings. This also comes as more than 40 people were killed in Nepal.

Residents of a Portuguese village joined firefighters on Friday to turn back a blaze that was threatening homes. Five large fires are burning in central and northern Portugal. Thousands of firefighters have been deployed to these areas.

Meanwhile, 14 major fires continue to burn in Spain as high winds and heat fuel the flames. At least seven deaths have been reported and an area the size of London has burned. Residents of a Spanish village also helped with firefighting efforts by gathering water to put out the flames.

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A British cyclist wasn't satisfied to set a world record, so, the next day, he broke it again. Matt Richardson did it in the men's 200 meter flying start at a track in Turkiye. It was just 24 hours after he became the first man to clock in at under nine seconds.

He shaved off .008 second from his day-old record. British cycling, says Richardson, just felt like he had more in the tank.

Well, there were tears on the way to triumph for Liverpool, opening their 2025 season at Anfield with a 4-2 win over Bournemouth. Fans paid an emotional tribute to the late star forward Diogo Jota, before witnessing a six-goal thriller tied at 2-2.

Federico Chiesa came off the bench to put Liverpool ahead in the 88th minute. Liverpool star Mo Saleh went on to score in the fourth minute of stoppage time. A big victory in front of Jota's family and the ecstatic Liverpool home crowd.

Well, Belgium is known for waffles but one group of Belgians have created a very impressive omelet. Have a look at this.

The World Fraternity of The Knights of the Giant Omelette led the effort. They held a mass to bless the ingredients used to create the massive masterpiece. And they broke thousands of eggs and fried a lot of bacon. The group's grandmaster says it's part of an ancient tradition.

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DAVID PALUDETTO, GRAND MASTER, BROTHERHOOD OF THE GIANT OMELETTE (through translator): The tradition dates back to William I of Aquitaine who, after Lent, was very hungry. His cook made him an omelet with bacon pieces inside.

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BRUNHUBER: For the final step, they put it all in a pan four meters wide. Belgians started the giant omelet event in 1973 and eventually it spread to towns in Argentina, Canada, France and the United States.

Well, that wraps up this edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "Blueprint: Angola" is next and there's more CNN NEWSROOM in about 30 minutes with Polo Sandoval in New York.