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Trump And Zelenskyy Hold Post-Meeting Press Conference; What's Next For Global Economy In 2026?; Migrants With No Criminal Record Detained By ICE; Round One Of Voting Ends In First Myanmar Election Since 2021 Coup; China Launches Major Military Drills Around Taiwan; Biggest Health Stories Of The Year. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired December 29, 2025 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead on "CNN Newsroom," high stakes talks between the U.S. and Ukraine. While leaders say they're closer to a peace deal, difficulties remain. A global economy influx from tariffs to market upheavals to affording the necessities. We will take a look at what's in store in the new year. And later, the battle of the sexes on the tennis court. A nod to the legendary match over half a century ago.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church."
CHURCH: Good to have you with us. U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are citing some progress, but no major breakthrough after the leaders held talks at Mar-a-Lago on efforts to end Russia's war on Ukraine.
Several key issues remain in the negotiations, and Mr. Zelenskyy said teams from the U.S. and Ukraine could meet as early as next week to work out the remaining points in the peace plan.
President Trump planned to speak again with Russian President Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We discussed a lot of things. As you know, I had an excellent phone call with President Putin that lasted for over two hours. We discussed a lot of points. And I do think we're getting a lot closer, maybe very close.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: We discussed all the aspects of the peace framework, which includes, and we have great achievements, 20-point peace plan, 90 percent agreed, and U.S.-Ukraine security guarantees, 100 percent agreed. U.S., Europe, Ukraine security guarantees, almost agreed. Military dimension, 100 percent agreed. Prosperity plan being finalized. And we also discussed the sequencing of the following actions. And we agree that security guarantees are the key milestone in achieving lasting peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: But President Zelenskyy is also underscoring that the question of Ukrainian territory remains unresolved. President Trump acknowledged the fate of the eastern Donbas region, which Russia has demanded Ukraine surrender, remains an outstanding issue.
CNN's Kevin Liptak is in West Palm Beach, Florida covering the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy emerged from their three-hour plus meeting down here in Palm Beach sounding optimistic, sounding confident, but neither of them announcing any major breakthroughs that would suggest a peace deal for Ukraine is happening in the immediate future.
And what President Trump said is that there were -- quote -- "one or two thorny issues" that remain and acknowledged that there could be some issue that no one is thinking about that could derail this whole process down the line. So, optimistic but also somewhat realistic about where the state of these talks is.
President Zelenskyy says heading into Mar-a-Lago that they were about 90 percent there. He kept that figure when the meeting was over, suggesting that there is still that 10 percent remaining for the two sides to work out.
And when President Trump was asked about those thorny issues, he said one was, of course, the idea of land concessions and that remains an issue for the two sides to continue talking about. President Trump even said that he was willing to go to Ukraine and speak to that country's parliament if he thought that it would get that particular issue over the finish line although he said he didn't think it would be necessary.
The other issue is the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant currently occupied by Russia. And what President Trump said is that was a topic of some lengthy discussion in a phone call that he held earlier on Sunday with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
And so, still many issues remain. President Trump said that he though we would know in about a few weeks' time whether this peace deal would be successful. That is, of course, a timeframe that the president uses repeatedly when he isn't quite sure when a resolution might be at hand. And what Zelenskyy said is that President Trump would convene European leaders in Washington next month to continue discussing all of these.
[02:04:58]
And so, optimistic words out of this meeting today. President Trump certainly had a lot of praise for President Zelenskyy which, of course, hasn't always been the case after that disastrous meeting in February. The tone -- the tone certainly was much better today. President Trump repeatedly praising Zelenskyy as brave, working very hard to try and get something finalized in all of these. But ultimately, a peace deal remaining elusive even after this high-stakes summit down here in Florida.
Kevin Liptak, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Joining me now is Vladimir Milov, a former deputy minister of energy in Russia and a former advisor to the late opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. Appreciate you joining us.
VLADIMIR MILOV, FORMER RUSSIAN DEPUTY ENERGY MINISTER, FORMER ADVISOR OF ALEXEI NAVALNY: Hello. Great to be with you again.
CHURCH: So, President Trump and Zelenskyy wrapped up talks in Florida with no breakthrough. Both leaders conceding that despite progress being made, major issues remain, including land concessions in the eastern Donbass region. Trump says they're getting closer than ever to a solution on that. But you know Vladimir Putin personally. How likely is it that he will ever agree to a peace plan?
Well, whatever comes from this West Palm Beach summit between President Trump and President Zelenskyy is very different. You cannot imagine a starker contrast from what you've been hearing coming out of Moscow in the past two or three weeks because Vladimir Putin and his closest aides, ministers, advisors, they've been very vocal lately.
And this is as sharp a contrast with what you heard from yesterday's talks as you can get. Russia has been much harsher, much more aggressive, much less willing to incline for any sort of compromise in the past few weeks.
And, you know, this talk about 95 percent of issues being resolved, it's like somebody buying Christmas presents for their kids and saying folks, I bought you cookies, candies and all that stuff but sorry, I haven't bought you an iPhone, right?
So, this issue of Ukraine's sitting control over Donbas to Putin, that's the one ultimate crucial issue. I think you might as well disregard everything else. Everything else is not as important as this story about Ukraine withdrawing its troops from Donbas, which is exactly what Putin wants. And Putin explicitly said that he would not move an inch on the negotiations before this question is resolved.
CHURCH: But that's the thing, isn't it? So, Russia wants all the Donbas region and appears unwilling to compromise in any way while Ukraine refuses to surrender that land. So, where do negotiations go from here?
MILOV: You have to understand the importance of this particular area of Donbas. This is not just swapping some one piece of square kilometer in area to another piece of land area. This is the fortified region with several important cities which Ukraine has been holding off for nearly 12 years now against Russian aggression. And if Putin were to take that region militarily, it will take years and probably hundreds of thousands of lives, Russian lives, lost. So, he wants to take it for free through political means. And if he does so, if Russia gets control over these areas, it opens a very short and narrow way for military offensive on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and other major Ukrainian cities.
This is no question why Putin wants it so badly. It would mean a major risk of Russia replenishing, regrouping, and attacking Ukraine in a few more months after getting control of these territories. No wonder Ukraine does not want to surrender them, and European colleagues understand that as well, which is why as long as this thorny issue remains the point of contention, I do not really see peace talks moving anywhere forward.
CHURCH: Right. So, there's no compromise here. There's no possible way of any decision being made when it comes to territory. It's what you're saying.
MILOV: Sure, sure. All of these issues. You know, the size of Ukrainian army, security guarantees, when we talk about that, you know, in the financial world, there is a term bankable. Would anybody bet their money after what we know happened with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, 2008 pledge for Ukraine to be admitted into NATO? Would anybody bet a single penny on any security guarantees for Ukraine for the future?
But all of these issues are really secondary. And as long as there is no resolution on the fundamental question of Russia's desire to take all of Donbas, I don't see any real progress in all of these talks.
[02:09:57]
CHURCH: And Vladimir, what's your response to the fact that President Trump didn't condemn the attacks by Russia on Ukraine's infrastructure and residential buildings over the Christmas period and also suggested that some of Putin's demands are legitimate? What do you say to that?
MILOV: But this is nothing new. This has been happening, you know, even before President Trump took office on January 20th of this year. He was really buying off and publicly translating some of the Russian rhetoric, justifying the aggression. He has been very soft in condemning Russia's aggressive acts of genocide against Ukraine. So, this is really nothing new about that.
We saw that in Anchorage. We saw all this, you know, entourage of the summit. Trump was not meeting Zelenskyy on the red carpet, applauding him, as he did with Putin in Alaska. So, all of these, you see that Trump is somehow biased. He's more inclined to listen to Putin than Zelenskyy. But then, again, this is nothing new.
CHURCH: Vladimir Milov, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
MILOV: Pleasure. Thank you. CHURCH: Well, President Trump and the Israeli prime minister are expected to discuss the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan in the coming hours. Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in West Palm Beach, Florida Sunday ahead of Monday's meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
On the agenda, the disarmament of Hamas, rebuilding Gaza, the establishment of post-war governance in the enclave, and the creation of a "Board of Peace" to be led by President Trump. He has been urging both Israel and Hamas to work towards phase two of his peace plan. But both sides continue to accuse each other of violating the deal.
Well, more than 30 million people in the United States are under winter weather alerts across the Midwest and Northeast. Winter storms are disrupting flights and causing treacherous driving conditions during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.
Blizzard warnings are in effect for at least two million people in the Midwest with heavy snow and wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour, creating whiteout conditions and knocking out power. That includes Iowa, where state patrol officers could barely see out the windshield while responding to a 14-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35. And in Illinois, severe thunderstorms and even tornadoes caused widespread damage Sunday. Roofs were torn off homes and debris littered the streets as emergency crews and residents surveyed the aftermath.
After a year where President Trump's tariffs roiled markets around the world, what's next for the global economy in 2026? We will get an expert take on what to expect. That's next.
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[02:15:00]
CHURCH: It was a rocky year for the global economy in 2025 as it dealt with the impact of President Trump's tariff policies. In April, the U.S. president kicked off a series of punishing tariffs against a wide variety of countries in what he called -- quote -- "liberation day." Many of the tariffs were later delayed or altered, leading to months of uncertainty that roiled markets. So, what can we expect for 2026?
Brian Moynihan, the chief executive of Bank of America, pointed to signs of hope for the year ahead. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN MOYNIHAN, CEO, BANK OF AMERICA: At the end of the day, people are spending. They have good credit quality. They are employed. And we can see wages growing as people's paychecks come in at a 3 percent clip. So, it's pretty solid right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Rana Foroohar is a CNN global economic analyst. She's also a global business columnist and associate editor at the "Financial Times." Good to have you with us.
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST, GLOBAL BUSINESS COLUMNIST AND ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT FINANCIAL TIMES: Great to be with you.
CHURCH: So, Rana, after nearly a year of President Trump's second term in office and as we head into the new year, how would you assess the state of the U.S. economy and where do you see it going in 2026?
FOROOHAR: So, I would say that we are very much in a K-shaped economy. You may have heard that term used to describe the fact that there are two American economies. One of them is doing very well. The economy that is made up of asset owners, people with stocks, people with homes, you know, they're still doing very well.
Home prices are up. Stock prices are still relatively high even with all the headwinds we've been facing. And people are spending, you know. The fact is that over half of consumer spending in the U.S. is done by the top 10 percent of the population, the most wealthy people in the country. So, that group of folks is doing really well.
Unfortunately, many of the rest of Americans are not. The job market is weakening. You are seeing inflation really bite, particularly for people that are in the sort of lower 25 percentile in terms of income. And those folks are not doing well. You know, you're seeing real hardship.
President Trump's big, beautiful bill actually gave tax breaks to the wealthier part of the population, whereas people that were depending on food stamps, people that are depending on Medicaid benefits, they're seeing their standard of living go down.
So, it is a very, very bifurcated economy and how you see it depends very much on where you're sitting.
CHURCH: Right. And, of course, President Trump says that pricing will be the prominent issue for the midterms after previously calling the issue of affordability a democratic hoax. How likely is it that Trump can bring those prices down for Americans who are hurting right now?
FOROOHAR: I think it's pretty unlikely, Rosemary. I mean, if you look at where inflation was when he took office, where it is now, there hasn't been much of a shift. If anything, you've seen prices going up a bit.
One thing that we are seeing is that a lot of small and mid-sized businesses are really having trouble with the tariffs. Some larger companies are able to kind of mitigate those price pressures and not pass on those prices as much to consumers. But small and mid-sized businesses are really hurting. Many of them have begun laying off people. That has a bigger effect, of course, on consumer spending.
You also have just a lot going on in the world that the president really isn't in control of. You know, you may see the Supreme Court striking down his tariff plans.
[02:20:00]
That would be an interesting outcome for this year. It's certainly something I'm watching. You've also got the appointment of the Federal Reserve chair coming up in a few months.
CHURCH: Yes. Let's --
FOROOHAR: It's very likely --
CHURCH: Yes. I wanted to talk about that --
FOROOHAR: Yes.
CHURCH: -- because Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell finishes his term in May. And President Trump is expected to announce his pick very soon, isn't he, with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett seen as the most likely choice. We don't know for sure, of course.
FOROOHAR: Yes.
CHURCH: How worried are most economists about the potential for politics to overshadow data when Trump's pick for the Fed chair is eventually installed?
FOROOHAR: I think people are pretty worried, you know. I mean, you can -- you can make an argument, as Hassett has, that we should be cutting interest rates. I mean, he's really quite a dove relative to some others in economic policy circles. But this appointment has been so politicized. You know, you've had the president really coming out and saying, yes, the Fed chair should be doing what the White House says. Some of the walls that you had between the White House and the Federal Reserve have just been breaking down.
I think this is something that global investors are very, very worried about. If you have a sense that America doesn't have an independent central bank and that the Fed chair is doing the president's bidding, I think that that would really have pretty serious ramifications in the marketplace.
CHURCH: Well, watch to see what happens there. Rana Foroohar, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Happy New Year!
FOROOHAR: Happy New Year to you.
CHURCH: This year, federal immigration agents have detained nearly 75,000 migrants with no criminal background. Three parents were among the thousands detained in what the Trump administration dubbed "Operation Midway Blitz," the federal immigration crackdown in the Chicago area. They're active in their communities with no criminal history, but they were held for weeks until judges ordered their release.
CNN's Whitney Wild spoke with them about their uncertain futures.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNKNOWN: Hey, please, leave her alone. She's just working here.
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are moments of heartbreak -- UNKNOWN: She got babies, bro. Please.
WILD (voice-over): -- and homecoming --
(CRYING)
UNKNOWN: Mommy! Mom!
WILD (voice-over): -- for Patricia Quishpe, Veronica Escobar, and Victor Madrid. All three are migrants, parents who appear to have no criminal history and yet were among the thousands arrested by federal agents during "Operation Midway Blitz."
UNKNOWN: Leave her alone. Leave her family alone.
WILD (voice-over): They were detained hours from their homes, then released by federal judges. Attorneys say mass arrests are designed to intimidate migrants into leaving the U.S.
VERONICA ESCOBAR, ARRESTED DURING "OPERATION MIDWAY BLITZ": When I get there, they pushed me a lot. You have to sign. You have to sign. You got to sign this. And I was really (INAUDIBLE).
WILD: What did they say?
ESCOBAR: It is for the partition thing.
WILD (voice-over): Veronica spent 38 days in detention after her arrest outside this gas station on her son's 8th birthday.
WILD: Because you've been here for 19 years. Did you ever think that you would be one of the people that they would target?
ESCOBAR: No. No because they say they're there for criminals. And I was not a criminal. Never. Hey, I'm a single mom. (INAUDIBLE).
WILD: Did you ever come to a moment where you thought maybe this isn't worth it, maybe I should leave?
ESCOBAR: (INAUDIBLE) so many times. But I was (INAUDIBLE). I don't want to leave without my kids. I can't. I can't.
WILD: How did you feel when you finally walked out and you knew that you were going home?
ESCOBAR: And he was like, you're going to be released, so who's going to pick you up?
(CRYING)
WILD (voice-over): Patricia also has an eight-year-old son. She sought asylum from Ecuador and has a work permit. Yet in October, she was arrested at a flea market.
UNKNOWN: Leave her alone, man. PATRICIA QUISHPE, ARRESTED DURING "OPERATION MIDWAY BLITZ" (ON SCREEN TEXT): They told me to sign. But I didn't want to sign when they processed me. And I told them I didn't want to sign.
WILD: What was the hardest part about being in detention?
QUISHPE (ON SCREEN TEXT): The way we were treated. They took me out in handcuffs and chains. So, for me, that's very traumatic because I've never experienced that.
WILD: What is giving you hope now that you're home?
QUISHPE (ON SCREEN TEXT): I have no words.
VICTOR MADRID, ARRESTED DURING "OPERATION MIDWAY BLITZ" (ON SCREEN TEXT): These are the moments you remember most.
WILD (voice-over): Victor is a Colombian citizen who moved to Venezuela, then fled the violence there. October 1st, federal agents arrested him while he sold street food.
WILD: How did you feel when you made that call to tell your family that you had been taken by ICE?
[02:25:02]
MADRID (ON SCREEN TEXT): I picked up the phone. And it took me several minutes. I didn't know how to speak or how to break the news to my wife. You don't know what's going to happen to you. And they don't tell you. What also overwhelmed me was the transfer, the chains they put on me. I've always been a hardworking person, always there for my family. I'm not a criminal.
WILD (voice-over): As Victor heads to an ICE appointment, we ask if the stress is worth staying.
MADRID (ON SCREEN TEXT): We feels safe here and we want to stay here.
WILD: Are these arrests about public safety?
MARK FLEMING, ATTORNEY: No. It has never been about that.
WILD (voice-over): Mark Fleming is an attorney who represents hundreds of other detainees in a class action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's detentions. Fleming says more than a thousand people arrested chose to leave the United States.
FLEMING: They gave up because the vast majority of those people were being trapped not only in mandatory detention but in squalid, overcrowded conditions.
WILD: So, basically, the administration is putting them in conditions that are so horrible, making their life so miserable that deportation sounds like the relief.
FLEMING: It's the only option now.
WILD (voice-over): Despite an uncertain future, Patricia, Veronica, and Victor say their only option is to stay.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WILD (on camera): Veronica had applied for deferred action for childhood arrivals, but was denied. Victor and Patricia both have immigration court dates in 2027. Finally, we reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for our story, but we did not hear back.
Whitney Wild, CNN, Chicago.
CHURCH: Still ahead, Myanmar just wrapped up the first phase of voting in parliamentary elections. But critics say the vote will not bring the country closer to democratic rule. We will find out why. That's just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:30:28]
CHURCH: The first round of Myanmar's controversial election is over. The next two rounds will take place in January.
The country's military junta seized power from the elected government nearly five years ago. The groups leaders say the vote will restore democratic rule. But critics and human rights groups say that is highly unlikely. Entire sections of the country will not get to vote because of the civil war sparked by the coup.
CNN's Ivan Watson joins me now from Yangon in Myanmar.
So, Ivan, what is the latest on this first round of voting? And, of course, what's been the international reaction to it?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, the acting president of the country, the General Min Aung Hlaing, who overthrew the elected government in 2021 and plunged this country into a civil war, he insists that this is a free and fair election. One voter I spoke with yesterday at a polling station said actually, there is much less freedom of choice than there was five years ago before the coup. So, clearly, some differences of opinion here.
But the first round of the first phase of this voting was completed on Sunday, though there will not be any voting whatsoever in large parts of this country where the civil war continues to rage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WATSON (voice-over): At polling stations across Myanmar's largest city. This song, played on a constant loop an anthem urging citizens to vote Myanmar's military is holding an election in the midst of a brutal civil war. The conflict triggered nearly five years ago when the military staged a coup overthrowing an elected government and violently crushing subsequent protests.
This voter told me he hopes the election would help Myanmar chart a way out of its difficult situation. "My family live in the countryside where it's not safe," he says. "I want the fighting to stop and wish for peace."
The situation in this Southeast Asian country is dire. The U.N. predicts more than 12 million people will suffer from acute hunger in 2026, with some 4 million people displaced by the war.
Meanwhile, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights calls the election a sham.
TOM ANDREWS, U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN MYANMAR: There has been an escalation of the use of sophisticated weapons of war. A helicopter, gunships, jet fighters attacking civilian targets in the run up to this election. If the junta is successful in getting the international community to in any way recognize this as legitimate, then it will be able to entrench its brutality. And things in Myanmar are going to get much, much, much worse.
WATSON (voice-over): The military government concedes it can't hold the election in large parts of the country, now controlled by armed opposition groups.
WATSON: Is it difficult to have an election when there's a civil war.
WATSON (voice-over): "In Yangon, it's safe," says Myo Thein.
MYO THEIN, SPOKESPERSON AND CANDIDATE, USDP: No problem, no problem.
WATSON (voice-over): He's running for office with the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party.
WATSON: You lost in the last two elections.
THEIN: Yeah.
WATSON: Do you think you have a better chance in this election
WATSON (voice-over): He has reason for optimism. The party whose candidates beat him twice can't compete in this election.
WATSON: These are the offices of the National League for Democracy, or NLD party. Now, it won conclusively in national elections that were held in 2015 and 2020. But since the coup, many of its leaders have been arrested and thrown in jail.
WATSON (voice-over): The U.K. and European Union say this election is neither free nor fair. But a Myanmar military government spokesman calls their criticism irrelevant.
The junta, trying to generate excitement for this controversial process. Two more phases of the election are scheduled to take place in other parts of the country next month.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATSON (on camera): Now, Rosemary, just my own personal observation, having covered the 2015 election here, is that there was just less energy and excitement at the polls that I visited on Sunday.
[02:35:09]
The pro-military party candidate that I interviewed in that report, he has told us this morning, he's claimed victory in his run for a local office.
There haven't been any formal official results published just yet. I didn't bump into any of the election observers that I encounter often when covering elections around the world, though there was a representative from Russia's Central Electoral Commission who met with the Myanmar government earlier this week and passed on a statement, according to Myanmar state media saying that Russia was welcoming this election but conspicuously absent were election observers from places like the U.S., Europe, Australia and the traditional Western world.
Again, the military ruler of the country insisting that this is a free and fair election despite some contrasting opinions from some voters that I encountered on the streets yesterday -- Rosemary.
CHURCH: Very important point. Ivan Watson with our live report from Yangon in Myanmar -- many thanks.
Well, China's military says it has launched military exercises around Taiwan in a, quote, "serious warning against the island's push for independence."
CNN's Mike Valerio has the latest from Beijing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: China's military says these exercises are aimed at testing combat readiness and the ability of Chinas armed forces, to, quote, "blockade and control key ports and critical areas." So, to that end, we have China's People's Liberation Army, the eastern theater command adding Monday morning that live fire drills are going to happen in five maritime and airspace zones around the island.
But what is key here is answering the question of what message China is sending. And in short, analysts agree that Beijing is extremely frustrated with two recent developments in particular. First, there's the new landmark $11.1 billion arms deal, advanced weapons that Taiwan is buying from the United States. That's one. And then the second thing is Japan's prime minister not backing away from comments she made in November, suggesting that Japan could militarily respond if mainland China were to take Taiwan by force.
Now, at the heart of all of this, of course, are the people of Taiwan. Listen to a couple, just a few of the sentiments we heard earlier today. Listen. LIN WEI-MING, TEACHER: I think these drills are just meant to scare us, to intimidate us. Similar drills have happened before. As ordinary citizens, I think all we can do is take care of ourselves, do our jobs well, and live our lives well.
VALERIO: Taiwan's presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said the drills, quote, "blatantly undermine the security and stability status quo of the Taiwan strait and the Indo-Pacific region and openly challenged international laws and order."
Shi Yi, spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command, said on Monday, quote, this exercise serves as a serious warning to Taiwan independence, separatist forces and external interfering forces. That is a not so veiled reference to Japan and the United States.
Mike Valerio, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Major changes to public health funding, staffing and research under the Trump administration have been making headlines in 2025. Just ahead, we will look back at some of the biggest health and medical stories of the year.
Back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:41:52]
CHURCH: The battle over public health took center stage this year in a whole new way.
CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, takes a look at the top health and medical stories of 2025.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: 2025 was a veritable battleground for public health as it faced challenge after challenge.
(CHANTING)
GUPTA: Mass layoffs, an armed attack on the CDC, and as misinformation gained momentum, once forgotten viruses took hold on U.S. soil. But as always, with science and medicine, progress does persist.
It is impossible to ignore the impact of MAHA. It's been the rallying cry of HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: The real overhaul is improving the health of the entire nation to Make America Healthy Again.
GUPTA: The main driver of the movement, reducing chronic disease, and a lot of efforts to that end like condemning ultra-processed foods and taking action on artificial food dyes. Those have been largely applauded by public health experts. But other targets of the MAHA movement, those have them worried.
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): We currently have our current vaccine schedule based upon a lot of people who know a heck of a lot, looking at things not to make mandates, but to make recommendations.
KENNEDY: It makes no sense to have fluoride in our water.
GUPTA: This year, we saw some states take steps to ban fluoride in their water supply. Dentists and other public health experts worry that its removal will increase cavities, especially for people without access to regular dental care. But, supporters of these bans point to studies that found children exposed to higher fluoride levels have lower IQs and more neurobehavioral issues. But, as with so many things this year, there is important nuance.
Those studies looked at levels much higher, almost double than the levels found in the majority of public water systems. In fact, another study found that fluoride at the recommended levels in drinking water did not negatively affect cognitive ability.
DR. MARTY MAKARY, FDA COMMISSIONER: There may be no other medication in the modern era that can improve the health outcomes of women on a population level than hormone replacement therapy.
GUPTA: In November, the FDA announced that it was taking steps to remove what is known as a black-box warning for many hormone treatments for women with menopause symptoms. Now, while this change is expected to give women more options for treatments, I do want to stress that it needs to still start with a conversation with your doctor.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": President Trump and Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today publicly linking the rise in the number of cases of autism to the use of acetaminophen or Tylenol by women during pregnancy.
KENNEDY: Today, the FDA will issue a physician's notice about the risk of acetaminophen during pregnancy and begin the process to initiate a safety label change.
[02:45:01]
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it.
GUPTA: Now, the FDA was much more nuanced in its warning, saying that pregnant women should use the lowest effective dose for the shortest necessary duration and only when treatment is required. However, there is decades of evidence that Tylenol or acetaminophen is among the safest options for pregnant women dealing with fever or pain, and that it does not cause autism.
DR. EDITH BRACHO-SANCHEZ, PRIMARY CARE PEDIATRICIAN: I understand the risks of a fever and pregnancy, which is risk of miscarriage, risk of birth defects, and I said, no way am I taking that risk.
TIM ANDREWS, RECEIVED A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT FROM A PIG: It may shorten your life, but you're going to do something for humanity.
GUPTA: This year, we follow the courageous journey of Tim Andrews, the fourth living patient in the United States to get a genetically- modified pig kidney transplant. It's a process known as xenotransplantation.
ANDREWS: And the little pig is right there, so I can pat it.
GUPTA (voice-over): Tim lived with a pig kidney for a record 271 days and while they did have to have it removed, his case helps move this field farther into the future, especially as larger-scale human clinical trials are just on the horizon.
GUPTA: When do you think this might be available for the average person?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think less than five years.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We just learned that Robert Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will announce huge layoffs today, some ten thousand jobs across the agency, and this comes on top of some ten thousand employees who left the department voluntarily.
GUPTA: Thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in research funding stripped, it's almost unimaginable to predict the long-term impacts of the Trump administration's cuts to public health.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to make it more challenging to bring the best new treatments for children with cancer.
GUPTA (voice-over): And the cuts extended beyond America's shores.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
GUPTA (voice-over): Global programs like Gavi and USAID, also had funding pulled by the administration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please just give us medication. We still want to survive.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: In Milwaukee, one kid was found to have really elevated blood lead levels and that sparked this whole public health investigation.
GUPTA: And that Investigation led them to Milwaukee's public schools and several other children who had elevated blood lead levels. For the first time, they were able to link lead poisoning in children to the city's aging schools. The problem we found when traveling there is that most of the school buildings were built before 1978. That's before lead paint was banned. And to further complicate the city's efforts to handle this crisis, those cuts I was just talking about, that left the city without federal support.
DR. MICHAEL TOTORAITIS, MILWAUKEE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH: Investigation into the potential chronic exposures of students at the districts is a part that we were really looking to the CDC to help us with. And unfortunately, HHS had laid off that entire team for childhood blood exposure. These are the best and brightest minds in these areas around lead poisoning and now they're gone.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The FDA just did something that could be a game-changer for people living with pain.
GUPTA: For the first time in more than 25 years, the agency approved a new class of pain medication. It's called Suzetrigine. It's not an opioid. It works by preventing pain signaling nerves around the body from firing in the first place, so that message of pain never makes it to the brain. And even cooler, this medication was actually discovered after researchers learned about a family of firewalkers in Pakistan that lacked a gene allowing those pain signals to be sent. Those people, they could walk on hot coals without flinching.
A new FDA-approved blood test could help diagnose Alzheimer's by detecting certain biomarkers of the disease. It will still need to be used alongside other diagnostic tools like neurological exams and brain imaging, but preventive neurologist, Dr. Richard Isaacson, says that he thinks blood tests will be a great new option for screening.
DR. RICHARD ISAACSON, NEUROLOGIST: I believe this is a screening test that may predict if a person is going to be more likely to be on the road to Alzheimer's or dementia in 10 20, 30 or 40 years.
GUPTA (voice-over): And that means patients, including myself, who went through a battery of tests with Isaacson, can get a baseline for their risk and they can also track their progress while applying certain lifestyle interventions.
ISAACSON: Your numbers went from "eh" to now working faster and better than your age, that you're actually six years younger in your age.
GUPTA: Six years younger?
Have you ever seen measles before?
DR. JENNIFER SHUFORD, COMMISSIONER, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES: No, and I'm an infectious disease physician.
GUPTA: Wow.
SHUFORD: I've never diagnosed a case.
GUPTA: That's incredible.
SHUFORD: It's because, you know, measles was declared eliminated --
GUPTA: Right.
SHUFORD: -- from the United States back in the year 2000 because of the effectiveness of that vaccine.
GUPTA: A measles outbreak that started in Texas earlier this year.
[02:50:02] It signaled a worrying trend as cases continue to grow across the country, putting the U.S.' elimination status in jeopardy. But this is also symbolic of the larger fight over vaccines, especially as the RFK-appointed members of the highly influential Vaccine Advisory Committee to the CDC has pledged to re-examine the entire vaccine schedule, even for shots that have long-established safety records.
DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER AT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: The ACIP is full of people who are anti- vaccine activists and science denialists, so you know that the decisions that they're going to be making are not science-based.
GUPTA: As always, we'll continue our reporting and we'll bring you everything you need to know when it comes to your health in 2026. See you next year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Dubai hosted a modern day battle of the sexes tennis match this weekend. Just ahead, why this high profile exhibition didn't have the impact of the original? We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: This weekend in Dubai, event organizers build a high profile tennis exhibition match as a modern day battle of the sexes, but it didn't have the cultural stakes of the 1973 original, which has gone down in history as a defining moment in the sport. This event landed more as a spectacle than a statement.
CNN's Don Riddell explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: It's been 52 years now since the famous battle of the sexes, when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome.
More than half a century later, another battle of the sexes. On Sunday in Dubai, Aryna Sabalenka went head to head with Nick Kyrgios. Now to set the scene for you, Sabalenka is on top of her game.
[02:55:01]
She's won four grand slam titles, including the U.S. Open in September. She is the world number one female right now.
Kyrgios, on the other hand, has never won a major title and his ranking has plummeted because of recent injuries. He's actually only played a handful of games this year.
But there's so much disparity between the way that men and women strike the ball that the organizers reduced the size of Sabalenka's half of the court to level the playing field. Neither player was given a second serve. They broke each other throughout the opening set, and although Kyrgios seemed to be tiring halfway through the match, he ultimately won it in straight sets six-three, six-three.
ARYNA SABALENKA, WOMEN'S WORLD #1 TENNIS PLAYER: I think it was a great level. I made a lot of great shots, moved a lot to the net, great drop shots, Nick, great serving. And yeah, really enjoyed the show and I think -- not I think -- I feel like next time I'm when I play him, I already know the tactic. I know his strength, his weaknesses. And it's going to be a better match for sure.
NICK KYRGIOS, TENNIS PLAYER: I had to strap in because she was putting the pressure on. She was hitting some amazing shots. And honestly, I would -- I would love to play her again. And showcase her talent and also what I have left in the tank. But ultimately, it was -- it was a really hard fought battle. And there was breaks back and forth, and I think this is a great stepping stone forward for the sport of tennis.
RIDDELL: This match did not capture the world's attention like the original in 1973, nor did it feel like there was as much riding on the outcome. It was an exhibition match with a twist, but both players said they enjoyed it. They said they'd be open to a rematch, and it's clear that Sabalenka thinks the next time she could win it.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. I will be back with more CNN NEWSROOM in just a moment.
Do stay with us.
