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Trump to Meet Putin and Xi for Ukrainian Talks Following Zelenskyy's Distrust; Kenyan Cult Leader Convicted of Murdering Almost 200 Starvation Deaths. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired October 20, 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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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome, I'm Lynda Kinkade, ahead here on "CNN Newsroom."

From chaos to curfews, a violent weekend brings new restrictions in cities across France as protests spread to other parts of Europe.

Open to talks amid deadly new strikes, President Trump says he's willing to meet with leaders of Russia and China amid a deepening distrust of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And a promise to meet Jesus, the disturbing story of a Kenyan cult leader now convicted of murdering nearly 200 children by forcing them to starve to death.

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

KINKADE: A wave of violent unrest is raising security concerns across parts of Europe.

In France and Italy, authorities are responding to protests with heightened security measures. French officials imposed curfews in some cities Monday night, including in parts of Paris, after some of the worst rioting in years left two people dead and thousands of people under arrest.

Authorities say they will decide later whether to enforce further curfews on Tuesday night. The unrest began last month with students protesting poor school conditions, as well as a shortage of teachers. It's escalated into violent anti-government riots, fuelled by anger over the cost of living.

And Italy is also taking steps to reduce further violence, after cost- of-living protests in Milan turned violent over the weekend. The government plans to deploy 500 army troops to the city as part of new security measures expected to be announced today.

For more, I want to welcome CNN's Stefano Pozzebon from Rome. Good to have you with us, Stefano.

So, French officials are imposing these localized curfews. Just how effective have they been and what are the expectations today?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they do seem, Lynda, to have been effective. In fact, the situation is much calmer this morning, this Tuesday morning, both in France and in Italy.

And just in the last, this morning, the last hour, the French Prime Minister Le Corneau tweeted or posted on X praising the measures, saying that targeted curfews have contributed to the calm of this night. Yesterday morning, on Monday morning, for example, students were still able to block the access to the Louvre Museum, which is perhaps the most iconic museum in Europe, when instead, at least so far, the situation seems very calm in the streets of Paris.

Le Corneau also left local authorities the authority to decide whether new curfews will have to be imposed tonight, after they were imposed in several of the biggest cities of the Republic, from Lyon to Marseille, Lille and, of course, the capital, Paris.

A similar situation here in Italy, where, like he said, the Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini had announced yesterday night the deployment of 500 soldiers to the city of Milan, and we're waiting to hear what other measures the Meloni government will introduce later today at a Council of Ministers. But it's also a chance, perhaps, to hear from some of the protesters who tried to have their voice heard peacefully.

For example, yesterday, one of our crew was up in Milan to speak with those who were still out on the streets for the third day, and this is what one very young protester told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLA, 16-YEAR-OLD STUDENT: I think that all the young people in this country want a better future, and so they want to fight for their rights, for their future. I think that it's sad, because all the violence gets the attention of our protests, and I'm for a peaceful protest, but sadly there are people who just come here to get in trouble with the police, and they don't care about what we want to say to the government. Please, hear us, and don't focus on everything that we want to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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POZZEBON: And these are the two demands, the two things to highlight, Lynda, from this protest.

Number one is just how young some of the protesters are. Nicola, there, who spoke with our crew up in Milan, is just 16 years old. We spoke with his mother to have the permission to film with him. But it's clearly a very young generation that is taking to the streets. The second one is just how widespread these protests are, especially

outside the traditional institution of protests, trade unions and political parties.

While the students are taking to the streets in Milan and the other big cities of the north, the south of Italy, for example, is dealing with massive transportation problems, given that several of the truck workers are also up in arms. Lynda?

KINKADE: All right, Stefano Pozzebon reporting for us live from Rome. We'll talk again soon. Thanks very much.

And we're going to stay on this tour. I want to welcome Salvatore Marra, the Head of International Affairs at the Italian General Confederation of Labor. Thanks so much for your time.

SALVATORRE MARRA, HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ITALIAN GENERAL CONFEDERATION OF LABOR (CGIL): Thank you.

LYNDA: So why take to the streets? Your union, of course, is one of 100 other organizations. Explain why you're protesting and what the key complaints are.

MARRA: Well, first of all, I want to say that we strongly condemn the violence that's been happening in the streets of Italy these days. And I want to say that on Saturday, more than 100,000 Italians took the streets of Rome to protest peacefully against the lack of action of the government.

I think the student put it very clearly before. We want action on the cost of living crisis. Our wages do not make ends meet anymore, there is increased poverty, students cannot pay their lodgment anymore.

And I think there's a real problem with pensions at the moment as well. So there's a lack of confidence in the future, as a student said.

I just want to highlight that there's 460,000, so almost half a million Italians who left the country in the last four years. Why does this happen? And most of them are young people below 35 with high grades and university-level education.

This is happening because we have too poor wages. We are on precarious jobs and insecure jobs. I want to highlight that every day in Italy, three workers die at work, this is unacceptable.

We want health and safety to be respected. And we want action also on the climate crisis.

As you know, Italy and Europe have had a very difficult summer this year. Heat waves have been hitting hard on us. And there's been very little that's been done by the government.

And we're sorry to say, until the root causes and the real reasons of these protests won't be heard by the government, then the protests will go on. And the root causes are the lack of confidence in the future, especially for the younger generation, who are protesting peacefully even today in front of universities and schools with their tents.

KINKADE: The protests that we're seeing in Italy, of course, have followed the protests in France, which began weeks ago. Are these separate national movements, or are we witnessing a broader European crisis over the cost of living, workers' rights, and the confidence in the government?

MARRA: As European movement of trade unions were, of course, talking to each other and understand what's the situation like, it's a very clear message we're sending. At the moment, workers and the people who have to, you know, work to make ends meet, they're paying the price of the crisis, which is mainly caused by wars. This is the reason why we insist on diplomatic action to stop conflict.

Today, the Ukrainian ports are blocked, and this is leading to an increase of the wheat cost of 28 percent. In the south of the country, as your correspondent in Rome mentioned before, our supermarkets are empty, because trucks are blocking the roads, and there is no food coming in. And the cost of fuel is just increasing every day, despite the action taken by the government and even by the producers.

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This is causing big problems to our economy, so the main message is we need to stop war. The war in Iran is being paid by us, is being paid by workers and people, low earners and pensioners.

So, yes, there is clearly a European connection to the situation we're leading, and this is the reason why there's going to be strikes all over Europe in the next coming weeks. There's going to be a general strike in France on the 5th of November, there's going to be a general strike in Spain on the 11th of November, and we're calling for a general strike in Italy on the 20th of November for action against the cost of living crisis and the rude co-services that lead to these protests.

KINKADE: Yes, it's interesting how all this angst, the cost of living crisis, certainly coming back to the wars you mentioned in Iran and Ukraine. Salvatore Marra, I appreciate you joining us from Rome. Thanks very much for your time.

MARRA: Thank you.

KINKADE: Well, I want to go to the deepening rift between the Trump administration and Ukraine. Donald Trump is slamming the Ukrainian president for, in his words, not helping to end the war, as the U.S. president considers a trilateral meeting with the leaders of China and Russia.

A U.S. official says President Trump believes a meeting with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping could advance efforts to end the war. The official says the talks were proposed by Putin earlier this month, but they would not include President Zelenskyy. Trump is suggesting somebody else should negotiate for Ukraine. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Zelenskyy is not helping matters much, I think he doesn't want to stop it. But I want to see people not die. They're losing probably on average 25,000 to 35,000 soldiers every single month.

All I want to do, I don't care, I want to get the war stopped. Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody's there or not, whatever I can do to end the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Tensions intensified over the weekend after Kyiv launched a major drone attack hitting a key oil terminal in Russia. A move that came in defiance of Trump's demand that Ukraine stop targeting Russian energy infrastructure.

All this coming as Russia ramps up its attacks on Ukraine. The country's emergency service says at least three people were killed and six others wounded in an overnight airstrike in the Kyiv region.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said a Russian drone attack killed six people, including three children in a park. The Ukrainian president said a one-year-old girl was killed along with her mother. An 11-year-old was also among those killed in an attack in the Kharkiv region.

Officials say the drone hit an area of the park that is a popular spot for families to gather.

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CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Russian ballistic missiles and drones rained down in several waves on Ukraine Sunday into Monday. This was the aftermath in Kyiv of a strike on a metro station there.

Even as the rift between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents threatened to get worse. On Sunday evening, President Trump slammed President Zelenskyy in a Truth Social post claiming that he didn't want the war to end. Frankly, it's a claim that we often hear from Russia and that Zelenskyy, quote, "doesn't care about diesel prices in the United States," he also heaped praise on Russia in this post.

Now, meanwhile, tensions over the Ukrainian claims that the U.S. withheld intelligence have also ramped up. President Zelenskyy said in an interview with NBC on Sunday that intelligence was stopped for several days and then restored. He then claimed on Monday morning that, again, Ukraine had had no early warning from partners about ballistic missile launches.

We know U.S. satellite systems play a key role in this. And U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hit back hard, saying he didn't know where Zelenskyy was getting these things and, quote, "there's been no pause."

And now there's another source of tension on top of all of that, a report first in "The Wall Street Journal" that Russia had floated a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Xi to end the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin Tuesday confirming a hypothetical meeting had been discussed. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, also said that there had been talks of such a meeting, but nothing finalized yet.

And we got some pretty strong words from Ukraine's foreign minister, warning that such a move would, quote, "encourage Putin to continue this war." "As long as he continues this terror," said Andrii Sybiha, "there should be no place for him at any table."

Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.

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KINKADE: Iran says it will continue to cooperate with Russia on international issues. The Iranian and Russian foreign ministers held talks in Tehran Monday. They vowed to counter, quote, aggressive U.S. unilateralism and maintain the two countries' growing financial ties.

Well, Iranian media reports that Pakistan's army chief is due to visit Tehran in the coming hours.

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His alma mater has played a key mediating role in the war with Iran. The meeting comes as Iran's military commanders and officials have made it clear it's preparing for another round of war. But it's also warning Washington and its allies to think twice before resuming the conflict.

Yemen's internationally recognized government is urging the U.N. to designate the Iran-allied Houthis as a terrorist organization. It comes as the Houthis claim to have carried out strikes targeting Saudi state oil company Aramco, as well as airports and military sites.

There's much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom." President Trump takes his midterm campaign blitz to Kansas, while the Senate race in the Republican stronghold is suddenly up for grabs.

Plus the Kenyan cult leader convicted of murdering 190 children by forcing them to fast. Disturbing details next.

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KINKADE: We're now just two weeks away from the midterm elections in the U.S., with the Democrats bullish on their chances of winning majorities in both the House and the Senate. President Trump made a campaign stop in Kansas Monday, where no one thought the Senate race would be a dead heat. But polls show incumbent Republican Roger Marshall in a tight race with Adam Hamilton.

The President warned voters against what he called radical Democrats and extremists threatening to hold America hostage.

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TRUMP: Ladies and gentlemen of Kansas, the golden age of America is upon us, but you must get out, you must vote Republican. We cannot let these people take it away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: More now on the President's visit from CNN Senior White House reporter Betsy Klein.

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BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well Kansas has emerged as one of the most unexpected battleground contests in this midterm race, and Democrats here are hoping that they can pull off a victory for the first time since 1932.

President Trump coming here to make a push in the Wichita suburbs for Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who is engaged in a tighter than expected race against the Democrat Adam Hamilton. He's a pastor from a megachurch. And this is a red state in a red county that President Trump carried by 16 points back in 2024.

President Trump framing Hamilton as a radical leftist. He said that Hamilton, quote, "doesn't have our values." He said that he, quote, "doesn't act like a pastor."

But we have seen through this polling that Hamilton has been able to peel off some registered Republicans in this contest. The President's appearance really underscores how Republicans are on the defense, and we are seeing these Republican aligned groups pour millions of dollars into bolstering Marshall's campaign.

President Trump making his closing argument. Listen.

TRUMP: We're going to win the Republican House and the Republican Senate. We're going to do great.

And in this election, I'm asking you to pretend please that I'm on the ballot. Americans are going to stand up and declare that we will defend our culture. We will protect our civilization.

We will preserve our religion, our values and our heritage. And we will never let our nation be conquered or destroyed by people that hate us.

KLEIN: President Trump's presence here in Wichita is part of this overall midterm strategy aimed at bolstering his MAGA base.

And I've talked to a number of undecided voters in this area and even here at this rally, and they are saying that they are concerned about these economic issues. The price of gas, the price of diesel, President Trump's tariff policies. Those are all reasons why Marshall doesn't necessarily have this lockdown just yet. I also spoke with one Republican who is on the ballot, and he says that economic discontent is a major issue that he is concerned will impact Republicans both up and down that ballot. And we saw some signs of that discontent. President Trump interrupted repeatedly by protesters in at least four instances here in Park City, Kansas.

Betsy Klein, traveling with the President in Park City.

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KINKADE: The leader of a Christian cult in Kenya has been found guilty of the murder of 190 children and one adult. Paul Mackenzie was convicted along with about 30 other suspects Monday.

Authorities started digging up bodies in a forest in eastern Kenya in April 2023. So far, they've recovered 429 bodies, so further charges could follow. Mackenzie and his co-accused will be handed their sentence on November 6.

CNN's Larry Madowo has more.

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LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This case is a horrific one. A former taxi driver who declared himself a preacher and launched a T.V. station that reached people across the country and on social media and YouTube as well, convincing hundreds of parents to starve their children to death. And the Kenyan court now deciding that it was in fact a cult and that he had a hierarchy of death.

Children first, and then teens, and then women, and then finally men. And he is charged with the murder of 191 people, all but one children. But in the end, they found more than 400 bodies in this vast forest in Shakahola that's near the Kenyan coast.

This is the moment after eight hours where the verdict came down.

DIANA KAVEDZA-MOCHACHE, KENYA HIGH COURT JUDGE: Final verdict. I am satisfied that the prosecution has proved the case against all the 29 accused persons for the murder of 190 children and one adult, contrary to Section 203 of the Penal Code.

I reject the defense by the accused persons that the victims who were all below the age of 16 years, voluntarily fasted to death.

[03:25:06]

Paul Dengue Mackenzie, convicted on all 191 counts of murder.

MADOWO: That is the leader of that starvation cult, but his other 29 co-accused who are leaders of this cult were also found guilty under Kenyan law.

They can be sentenced to life in prison. They could be sentenced to death, though Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987, or they could serve long prison sentences. The judge recounted gruesome details of how these children were made to starve, and some siblings were forced to celebrate the killings of their siblings.

And the judge went into great detail about why this has the hallmarks of crimes against humanity, talking about the scale of the deaths, the duration, the tagging of the civilian population, the organization of this cult. And some of these children who were not starved to death were suffocated. They were strangled.

They were beaten with blunt objects. And some witnesses in this long trial said that the pastor told them, Paul Mackenzie, that they would be going to heaven with kicks and blows if necessary, that they had to do that. And they were buried in shallow graves which sped up this pace of decomposition so that they could not be found.

And they had enforcers in the community within that cult who made sure that police, the media, that no one in the neighboring community knew what was happening. And that is why, in the end, more than 400 bodies found. There are families still missing, loved ones.

And one of the most heartbreaking. In one family, they lost six children, all under the age of 17.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Thanks to Larry Madowo.

Well, there is much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom." Still ahead, deadly flooding in eastern Spain is forcing thousands of people to evacuate. We'll look at how the rains have cut off entire towns.

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KINKADE: Welcome back, I'm Lynda Kinkade. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

A wave of violent unrest is raising security concerns across parts of Europe. Italy says it's deploying 500 troops to Milan after cost-of- living protests turned violent over the weekend. Officials in France imposed curfews in some cities Monday night after its worst rioting in years left two people dead and thousands under arrest.

Ukraine is reporting an overnight attack in the Kyiv region. The country's emergency service says at least three people were killed and six others wounded in the airstrike. Video from the scene showed firefighters working to put out the flames in a warehouse that was hit.

President Trump plans to campaign today in Greenville, North Carolina. He's urging Republicans to get out and vote in the upcoming midterm elections, which are now just two weeks away. The President spent Monday night rallying his MAGA base in Kansas, where there is no clear lead in the Senate race between incumbent Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton. The Canadian province of Alberta has voted to remain a part of the country, voters cast their ballots Monday on a secession referendum. Separatists argued that the Liberal-led federal government has constrained the conservative oil-rich province through environmental policies. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who grew up in Alberta, campaigned for the Remain side.

Torrential rains have triggered dangerous flooding across eastern Spain, killing at least three people and forcing thousands more to evacuate. More than 600 millimeters of rain has fallen since Saturday, most of it in just 24 hours; the downpour has submerged roads and cut off several towns. Spain's weather service calls it the region's most significant rainfall event in nearly four decades.

An Australian lawmaker is in hospital in a critical condition after being struck by a vehicle in what's being called a deliberate attack. It happened outside the politician's office in northern Victoria on Monday.

Australia's Prime Minister says the driver made a U-turn before striking 65-year-old Helen Haynes. Witnesses rushed to help and then detained the suspect until police arrived. Haynes is an independent politician who has represented her constituents for seven years. Police say several agencies are investigating.

Still to come here on "CNN Newsroom," new allegations in the open A.I. bugging case. What authorities are claiming about the arrested engineer at the heart of the investigation.

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[03:35:00]

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KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Here are your business headlines.

Germany's Chancellor is calling on German businesses to welcome A.I. Friedrich Merz appeared on stage with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during an industry summit; they're expected to announce a deal in the hours ahead. Chancellor Merz's ruling coalition is under pressure to grow the country's economy and prevent the further rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

The escalating hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran- aligned Houthis are proving to be a major setback for the kingdom's economic ambitions. Saudi Arabia has cancelled a major conference known as Davos in the desert after the latest wave of Houthi attacks. The annual future investment initiative will now take place sometime in 2027, according to a statement shared with CNN.

Jon Stewart is staying with "The Daily Show" through to the next presidential election. The announcement comes as late-night television faces cutbacks, including last year's cancellation of Stephen Colbert's show. It's also one of the first major programming decisions from Skydance since acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN and Comedy Central's parent company.

The OpenAI engineer arrested earlier this month for allegedly hiding a recording device in a company conference room was in regular contact with a member of the Saudi royal family. That's according to federal authorities in a new court filing. CNN's Hadas Gold has the details.

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HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: In this new filing, the Department of Justice alleges that Abdulrahman Alfozan, who is a Saudi national, had been in regular touch with an unidentified member of the Saudi royal family since 2025. The Department of Justice says that the two regularly talk to each other over WhatsApp and at various points discuss things like A.I. initiatives in the kingdom with the member of the royal family, at one point writing, Saudi needs you more than the United States, to which Alfozan allegedly replied, 100. They also say that a Saudi military official paid for a flight for Alfozan's wife and child to leave the United States and fly to Saudi Arabia shortly after Alfozan was arrested.

Prosecutors had already alleged that Alfozan had booked for himself and his family a flight on October 12th to go to Saudi Arabia, but obviously he didn't make that flight because he was arrested before then for allegedly planting this listening device in the executive conference room at the OpenAI offices.

Now, the Department of Justice wants Alfozan to stay in detention pending trial. They claim that he is a flight risk. They even say that even though they took away his passports, they worry that he'll be able to get the help from Saudi government officials and get travel documents and be able to leave the country.

They say in this filing, whether the defendant wanted to record OpenAI meetings to enrich himself by enhancing his own business prospects or to provide aid to a foreign government or both, his conduct is criminal and it presents a danger to innovation in the Silicon Valley and a concern for the national security of the United States. Now, Alfozan's attorney have called the detention inappropriate and they have filed dozens of letters of support from his family and associates and his attorney told me that they will be fighting this narrative that is being presented about his client.

Now, Alfozan is scheduled to appear in court today in California where we may get word on whether he will stay in detention or will be released. And I should also note, we have asked the Saudi embassy for multiple times for comment about Alfozan, about his arrest and about the allegations and we have yet to hear back.

Hadas Gold, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well, just when you thought the Victoria's Secret fashion show couldn't get any glitzier, the lingerie brand showcased an item unlike any other. Kylie Jenner modeled the diamond brasserie you can see here. The price tag, a whopping $50 million.

Well, for three decades, Victoria's Secret has designed one bejeweled push-up bra per year known as the fantasy bra. This one was created by Jacob & Company and has 91 large white diamonds, each between 5 and 18 carats. And there's one yellow diamond in the center, which is over 75 carats.

Thanks so much for watching, I'm Lynda Kinkade. "World Sport" is coming up next, then I'll be back at the top of the hour with much more news. Don't go anywhere.

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