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U.S., Russia, Ukraine to Hold Peace Talks; TikTok Stays U.S. Operations as Joint Venture Deal Finally Sealed; "Sinners", "One Battle After Another" Earns Oscar Nominations. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired January 23, 2026 - 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: Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. will all be at the same negotiating table today in a bid to come to terms to end the war in Ukraine.

European leaders wrap an emergency meeting in Brussels, presenting a united front in the wake of President Donald Trump's threats to take over Greenland.

And a deal to make TikTok sure that it can keep operating in the U.S. is finally sealed.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: Diplomats will try something later today that hasn't been done since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Negotiators from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine will sit at the same table to try to close the gaps in the U.S.-led peace plan.

The Kremlin confirmed hours ago the talks will be held in the United Arab Emirates. That's happening after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy met U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Trump was optimistic on his way home. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: What's happened here is there were times when Putin didn't want to make a deal, times when Zelenskyy didn't want to make a deal. And it was like opposite times. Now I think they both want to make a deal, but we'll find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: But President Zelenskyy said he's not sure the Russian leader wants peace without reaching his military goals. He told CNN that's where Mr. Trump can step in. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We want to stop this war. And that's why I think President Trump can, he really can, because he has dialogue with Putin.

Not everybody has dialogue, just even Doug. He has dialogue with Putin on the same levels. I think America is much stronger than Russia, and you can see the result of this war.

That's why I think the American army is stronger than Russian army, because of our experience with the war, with defending ourselves. And that's why I think he can do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: And joining me now from Redbourn, England, is John Lough, who is the head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategy Center. Thank you so much for being here with us again, I really appreciate it.

So let's start on that trilateral meeting President Zelenskyy announced with U.S., Ukrainian and Russian officials in the UAE. I mean, how significant is that?

JOHN LOUGH, HEAD OF FOREIGN POLICY, NEW EURASIN STRATEGY CENTER: Well, first of all, we don't know whether the negotiators are all going to be in the room at the same time together. The assumption is at some point they will be. And I think if that were to happen, then it would be some sort of diplomatic breakthrough in the sense that a dialogue between the Russians and Ukrainians would be beginning.

But we're not there yet. And the signal from Moscow last night after Putin met with Witkoff and Kushner was that, you know, the Russians are literally sticking to their guns. They believe that they can still achieve the aims of the war.

And I think effectively waiting for the Ukrainians to surrender. And in particular, they want the Ukrainians to surrender territory. So this is the big sticking point and it's very difficult to see how this can be resolved in short order.

So I think we may simply reach the point where the sides can't agree anything right now, agree to come back, give it another go. Perhaps there'll be some maybe increased involvement of President Trump talking to Putin again. And we'll go a few more rounds, because my impression is the Russians simply want to string this out in the belief that they are finally going to break through the Ukrainian lines.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. So you sound pretty pessimistic, some might say realistic.

So let me address the last piece of that, which is President Trump. We heard Zelenskyy saying, listen, we need President Trump to essentially put Putin's feet to the fire. Do you have any more confidence that that might happen at this juncture here?

LOUGH: I don't simply because I think Putin's conclusion is that Trump is not willing to put real pressure on Moscow to bring this war to an end. But, yes, he could introduce more sanctions or he could enforce the existing sanctions. And the Russians are certainly hurting at the moment with the lower oil price, inflation, the budget deficit growing.

[03:05:06]

But Putin seems to think that time is on his side and that the Ukrainians are going to break sooner or later. And he simply seems determined to carry on. So if he doesn't believe President Trump is prepared to apply that pressure, then what's the point of settling now when he thinks that he can get something much bigger further down the road and maybe not much further down the road?

But let's face it, the Russians are about to enter the fifth year of this war. And if they believed it was something that could be over in two to four weeks, they've had a very nasty surprise. And my conviction is that ultimately this war is simply not winnable for Russia, at least not on their terms, because they've turned the Ukrainians against them so strongly.

Their idea that they can, they insist obviously on elections being held as soon as possible. They want to get rid of Zelenskyy and his administration. But the idea that a more sympathetic administration is going to come to power, I think, is extremely naive.

BRUNHUBER: What effect, if any, do you think that what we've seen over the last week taking place over Greenland and sort of the fracturing of the transatlantic alliance, what effect do you think that might have in terms of stiffening Putin's spine going into these negotiations?

LOUGH: Well, it certainly gives the Russians, I think, increased hope that the Collective West, as they call it, is steadily, in fact, indeed rapidly losing its unity. And that the U.S. administration, like Russia, thinks in terms of might is right, that big countries are entitled to have spheres of influence. And of course, what the Russians would love would be the idea that the United States sticks to the Western Hemisphere and Russia has some sort of exclusive sphere of influence in Europe.

But they are smart enough, of course, to know that isn't really realistic and the U.S. still has some form of commitment to Europe and an interest in maintaining close relations with Europe. But at the same time, they can see that within NATO itself, even if the bricks of the structure are there, the cement is not holding in the same way.

So I think this gives them hope that certainly the Ukrainians are not going to be able to integrate into any sort of NATO framework, even if they're not to become members of the alliance. And equally, the European Union as well is losing its cohesion.

So this is all, in a way, grits to their mill. And I think it gives them some optimism that they are going to be able to reassert themselves in Europe in a way that has not been possible since the end of the Soviet Union.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll see whether anything comes of this meeting or whether we'll just see what we've seen more of, which is Russia dragging its heels. John Lough in Redbourn, England, thank you so much for being here with us, I appreciate it.

LOUGH: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Leaders of the European Union have wrapped up an emergency meeting in Brussels. They're presenting a united front against President Trump's efforts to take control of Greenland, but they're also welcoming his decision not to impose tariffs on countries that oppose his plans. The President told reporters aboard Air Force One that his framework of a deal with NATO will let the U.S. do whatever it wants in Greenland.

E.U. leaders are pledging support for the territory to counter potential Russian and Chinese influence. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: Beyond investment, we also intend to deepen cooperation with the United States and all partners on the important topic of Arctic security. In particular, we believe we should use our defense spending surge on Arctic-ready equipment, a European icebreaker, for example, and we should strengthen our security and defense arrangements with partners in the region.

ANTONIO COSTA, EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Yesterday's announcement that there will be no new United States tariffs on Europe is positive. The imposition of additional tariffs would have been incompatible with the trade deal between the European Union and the United States.

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BRUNHUBER: I want to bring in CNN's Anna Cooban, who is live in London. Thanks so much for being here with us. So that emergency meeting, take us through what came from it.

ANNA COOBAN, CNN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS REPORTER: Well, you only have to cast your mind back to a week ago when you could really, you know, this was all organized after Trump had made his tariff threats, and this was really going to be an opportunity for the E.U. to talk about their response, you know, how they were going to retaliate, and also how they were going to respond to the threat against Greenland's security.

[03:09:46]

And so really, after the whiplash of Trump rescinding his threats, you then had this opportunity to take stock of the state of the Transatlantic Alliance, and then we had a diplomat, an anonymous diplomat, talk to CNN yesterday on the sidelines, saying that this was, the past week has just been a whirlwind of absurdity, and that former European Council President Charles Michel told CNN as well that the Transatlantic Alliance as we know it is dead.

It's been, you know, in place since the end of the Second World War, and that the policy of sort of flattering diplomacy and appeasement with the United States over the past year or so. Remember, we've seen Europe and the U.S. locked in negotiations on a trade deal, that that really had gotten Europe absolutely nowhere.

And you've played that clip there from Ursula von der Leyen. She was talking about this upping of defense spending by NATO. Yes, we have seen that last year, the upping from around a 2 percent spending across NATO to now 5 percent over the next decade or so.

It's quite clear that the E.U. is going to be working with the United States on a number of issues. But fundamentally, this relationship has gone through a huge rupture in just a matter of days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have a lot of great things in the deal. And don't forget, they're also good for Europe. Because, you know, when we're good, they're good.

And if we're not good, that's not very good for them. Because we hold it all together. We're holding it all together.

We're all going to work together. And actually, NATO is going to be involved with us. We're going to be doing it in conjunction, parts of it in conjunction with NATO, which is really the way it should be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOBAN: So Trump there really striking a more conciliatory tone than we saw even a few days ago. He backed down from his threat to invade Greenland in the speech he gave at Davos and also backed down from those tariff threats. But I think the European Union has made it very clear that that was a red line, that the compromising of Denmark and Greenland sovereignty, a red line that they were not prepared to let him cross.

And we had a number of different retaliatory tactics on the table, 93 billion euros worth of retaliatory tariffs. We had this so-called trade bazooka that Macron of France was very prepared to use.

This is a wide ranging tool which could have slapped new tariffs on American companies, barred them from access to key parts of the European market. Europe was really speaking with one voice and was speaking far more forcefully against Donald Trump than they ever have before.

And so judging by many of the comments we've seen from European leaders this week, we really are in a very different spot with transatlantic relationships.

BRUNHUBER: Well, I appreciate that. Anna Cooban in London, thanks so much.

Well, good news for American fans of TikTok. Their beloved dance lessons, cooking tutorials and lip sync battles aren't going anywhere. We'll explain just ahead, stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Any lingering worries about TikTok being banned in the U.S. can be put to rest. The hugely popular video sharing platform has now established a majority American-owned joint venture to run its U.S. business. The arrangement revealed just one day before President Trump's deadline for the app's American assets to be spun off from Chinese parent company ByteDance.

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout has the details.

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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: TikTok is officially staying in the United States. The popular Chinese app has sealed a deal for a new majority U.S. joint venture. And U.S. President Donald Trump lauded the deal.

In a post on Truth Social, he thanked his vice president, J.D. Vance, his administration and the Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying this, quote, "I would also like to thank President Xi of China for working with us and ultimately approving the deal. He could have gone the other way, but didn't and is appreciated for his decision," unquote.

This comes after years of uncertainty. It comes after Trump tried to ban the app back in 2020 over national security concerns. And after a law was passed and signed by then President Joe Biden in 2024 that required the U.S. version of TikTok to be spun off from ByteDance, its Beijing-based parent company, or face a U.S. ban.

Now, in a statement that was released on Thursday, the new group said this in regards to national security. It said, quote, "The majority American-owned joint venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users."

Now the joint venture plans to retrain TikTok's algorithm on U.S. user data. Now the U.S. tech giant Oracle will oversee storage of Americans' data. So the user experience on the app is not likely to change for Americans but the algorithm which controls what videos are served, that could shift.

Now TikTok is one of China's biggest high tech success stories. It has over 1.5 billion users worldwide. In the U.S., it's used by more than 200 million people. And the core of its success is its A.I.-powered algorithm that keeps users hooked to their smartphones. It's also why TikTok was threatened with a ban in the first place. U.S. lawmakers have been concerned that China could use TikTok to spy or conduct influence operations on Americans.

Now TikTok in the U.S. will still have links to China. Beijing-based ByteDance will still manage the TikTok shop, as well as advertising and marketing.

Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.

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BRUNHUBER: Security forces gunning down protesters and body bags piling up by the hundreds. Still ahead, Iranians describe the sheer brutality of the crackdown on anti-government protests. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom," I'm Kim Brunhuber. Let's check today's top stories.

A five-year-old boy has become one of the latest children caught up in the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign after he and his father were taken by federal agents outside their Minneapolis area home.

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The family's attorney says they applied for asylum in December 2024. The boy and his father are currently being held at an immigration facility in Texas.

The U.S., Ukraine and Russia are set to begin the first trilateral meeting today on ending Moscow's invasion of its neighbor. The Kremlin confirmed the talks will be held in the United Arab Emirates. The meeting comes after President Vladimir Putin met U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.

E.U. leaders have wrapped up an emergency meeting in Brussels. They're projecting a calm and united front in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's demands to control Greenland. The President says a framework deal with NATO will let the U.S. do whatever it wants in Greenland.

President Trump is sending a mixed message about Iran following a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protesters. He says a large U.S. military armada is headed toward the Islamic Republic. But he also indicated that Iran wants to talk and he's ready to engage it.

Now, this comes as the death toll from the crackdown reached more than 4600 people. That's according to a U.S.-based rights group. Iran has been under an Internet blackout for more than two weeks now. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has been piecing together what's happened since then. We just want to warn you some of the images may be disturbing.

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JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, January the 8th. Just as these incredible images were emerging from protests in Tehran and other cities, Iran went dark.

Under the cover of the digital darkness it imposed, the regime launched one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Islamic Republic.

KIARASH, PROTESTER: I saw the army and they were attacking us. I saw a shotgun, I saw heavy guns. They didn't allow many of the injured bodies to go to the hospital.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): This protester spoke to us from an undisclosed location after leaving Iran. Kiarash is not his real name, but for his safety, we're not identifying him. He's one of the countless Iranians who joined the protests.

KIARASH: The blood was all over the streets. Three bodies collapsed. A girl in my left hand.

Another girl just two steps, she was near me. And a guy who was like four meters forward.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Kiarash took to the streets again after a day spent in Tehran's largest cemetery where scenes like this played out. Surrounded by grief, anger and chaos, he searched through the dead for the body of Nassim, a family friend who was shot in the neck.

KIARASH: I saw two layers of dead bodies. In my eyes, I can say minimum 1500 up to 2000 just in one warehouse. And small bags.

I realized that, oh my God, these small bags, they're children's, many of them.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): His harrowing account is consistent with other testimony and verified visual evidence collected by CNN and human rights organizations from various reported protest sites across the country, pointing to a widespread coordinated armed attack by regime forces turning the streets of Iran into something that resembled a war zone.

UNKNOWN: They were shooting at us from the top of the building and the Ashrafi-Esfahani Bridge. They were aiming with lasers and the shooters were shooting people in the face. They massacred people.

UNKNOWN: We started hearing gunshots and feeling tear gas from behind. In Iran, we call this the scissor. They sent forces to the back of the protests to start hitting people from the back and the front.

UNKNOWN: From 12:00 a.m. Thursday night onward, the type of injuries changed. The live rounds started. I've never seen anything like this.

The sound of heavy machine guns in the city is something you only see in movies.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): The little video that has broken through the regime's wall of censorship not only captures the horror, it also shows the forces and weaponry deployed to suppress protests in major urban centers like Tehran and Mashhad.

A tactic not previously seen on this scale outside of minority- dominated border regions. This is a regime that has never tolerated dissent, one with a long history of crushing protests violently.

But this was like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

MAHMOOD AMIRY-MOGHADDAM, DIRECTOR, IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS: It's a completely different level of violence and brutality.

[03:30:03]

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam has spent his life documenting atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic. He says this crackdown is unparalleled in scope and lethality.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: Everywhere we have had witness testimonies, they have been doing it the same way, using live ammunition, military-grade weapons, with the aim of killing as many as possible, even those injured on the ground.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Iran's leadership has admitted that thousands were killed, but blamed the deaths on rioters and agents of Israel and the U.S. They've released video like this on state media, claiming to show violence committed by protesters. The regime has long used the narrative of a foreign plot to justify its crackdowns, this time it had an exiled opposition and a U.S. president urging a revolt.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: I think that the regime has never been closer to a fall, to a complete regime change. They are doing it for survival, but also to prevent more protests in the coming years. The aim is to traumatize a generation.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Even for those who know the regime's brutality all too well, this is just too much to bear.

AMIRY-MOGHADDAM: I'm so sorry. We have no other option. Those who have lost their loved ones, but they still speak out, and that inspires us.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): The world may never know the real scale of the loss and pain as a scarred nation slowly emerges from the night Iran went dark.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: President Trump is rescinding his invitation to Canada to join the Board of Peace for the reconstruction of Gaza. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney fired back at recent threats and insults from Trump, saying Canada doesn't live because of the United States.

President Trump signed the charter for the Board of Peace at the World Economics Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. The master plan shows areas designated for coastal tourism, parks and sports facilities, data centers and manufacturing, and residential housing.

We'll be right back. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to CNN. This is your Business Breakout.

A quick look now at some of the Asia-Pacific markets. They're up across the board. The Nikkei is up about 0.3 percentage points, the Seoul KOSPI is up more than 0.75 percentage point, the Hang Seng, almost 0.50 percentage point, and the S&P ASX 200 is up 0.13 percentage points.

And checking some of today's business headlines.

Elon Musk says his Optimus robots will be on sale by the end of next year. He spoke yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said last year the humanoid robots would generate $10 trillion in revenue. At Davos, he predicted there will be unprecedented growth in the global economy fed by A.I. as well as by robotics.

Lawmakers in Venezuela backed a plan Thursday that would make it easier for foreign companies to participate in the country's oil industry and this plan is the latest move by acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to meet the demands of U.S. President Donald Trump. Under this new policy, foreign companies could operate their own oil fields at their own cost and risk. Previously, the oil industry was nationalized, which limited involvement from outside agents.

President Trump has filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon. He accused the bank of dropping him as a client in 2021 for political reasons and placing him and his businesses on a banking blacklist. The suit, filed in Florida State Court, seeks $5 billion in damages, JPMorgan denies the allegations and says it will fight the case in court.

Well the blockbuster genre-defying film "Sinners" has broken records at the Academy Awards, earning 16 Oscar nominations.

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Ryan Coogler's vampire horror and period drama surpassed the previous record holders for most Oscar nominations for a single film. Despite critical acclaim and huge success at the box office, "Sinners" didn't win for directing or acting at the Golden Globes earlier this month, but maybe 16 Oscar nods will make up for that.

"Sinners" wasn't the only film racking up nominations. Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" scored 13, setting up a very competitive race for Best Picture. The winners will be revealed when the Academy Awards air on March 15, with returning host Conan O'Brien.

In the last hour, I spoke with Sandro Monetti, editor-in-chief of Hollywood International Film Magazine, and I asked him if he was surprised by how many nominations Sinners earned. Here he is.

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SANDRO MONETTI, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HOLLYWOOD INTERNATIONAL FILM MAGAZINE: "Sinners" has been surprising people from the start. Nobody thought it would make $386 million at the box office, but it did.

[03:40:01]

No one thought it would get 16 Oscar nominations. It did. I tell you what will be the ultimate surprise, if it also breaks the record for the most Oscar wins.

It'll need 12 of those 16 to do that.

BRUNHUBER: It will? Putting you on the spot now.

MONETTI: No, I think it'll probably get four or five. I think back to when "The Color Purple" got 11 back in 1985, and ended up with zero wins. Hollywood continues to surprise us.

Look at what happened to "Wicked." Last year, the first "Wicked" film got 10 nominations. This year, nothing.

Keeps it all interesting, I suppose.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, I mean, that was, I guess, a bit of a surprise, although it didn't have great reviews. You talked about snubs. I mean, was there anything else that surprised you in terms of films, performances that were overlooked?

MONETTI: In terms of performances, I think it's an absolute outrage that Adam Sandler, who's given some incredibly great dramatic performances, the best ever in Jay Kelly this year, he was by far the best thing about that movie, wasn't rewarded for Best Supporting Actor. And I will die on that hill.

Adam Sandler is not just a great comedian, he's a great dramatic actor, too. He's won nine Golden Raspberry Awards. Surely there's room for one Oscar?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Well, if you want to see Harry Styles' upcoming tour here in the U.S., you'll have to go to New York. The much-anticipated "Together Together" tour includes 50 shows, but only in seven cities.

Now, all 30 U.S. states will be at New York's Madison Square Garden. The other stops will be in Amsterdam, London, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Melbourne, and Sydney. The tour to support Styles' upcoming fourth solo album kicks off in May, and ticket sales start later this month.

Well "Kpop Demon Hunters," is the smash hit Netflix movie taking the world by storm. It's now been nominated for two Academy Awards. It's about three K-pop superstars who sell out concerts and also moonlight, as you guessed it.

"Demon Hunters," to protect their loyal fans, is nominated for Best Animated Film, and "Golden" made history as the first K-pop song ever nominated for Best Original Song. The movie has already won trophies at the Critics' Choice and Golden Globe Awards.

Family, friends, and lovers of high fashion will gather in Rome in the coming hours for funeral services for the designer known simply as Valentino. He died Monday at his home at the age of 93.

His full name was Valentino Garvani, and he learned his trade in Paris before founding his own house, which featured elegant designs for glamorous women from Elizabeth Taylor to Audrey Hepburn. He often dressed them in scarlet shades known as Valentino Red.

Well, that wraps this hour of "CNN Newsroom," I'm Kim Brunhuber. "World Sport" is next, and then stay tuned for "Amanpour" at the top of the hour.

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