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Trump Could Seek Compensation from DOJ; Nicole Foy is Interviewed about ICE Detainment of Citizens; Ivo Daalder is Interviewed about Trump-Putin Talks; Long Lines at Food Banks. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 22, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:20]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

New overnight, a car crashed into the Secret Service gate outside the White House. Now, this happened just after ten last night. The Secret Service says the driver was arrested. No word yet on a motive.

North Korea carried out its first ballistic missile test in five months. Military officials in Seoul say they detected several short- range ballistic missiles fired from an area south of Pyongyang. Now it comes days before President Trump will visit South Korea.

And the Louvre museum is back open this morning for the first time since that brazen daytime robbery. The Apollo Gallery, where the heist took place, will remain closed. French prosecutors say the stolen jewels are worth $102 million. And the manhunt for the thieves is still underway.

And as the president pushes for the Department of Justice to go after his perceived enemies. He may also be looking for literal payback from the DOJ. A "New York Times" report finds the president is demanding the Justice Department pay him $230 million to settle claims that he was damaged by investigations into the 2016 election and by a 2024 investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Now, any settlement would need to be signed off on by top DOJ officials, like Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who worked as Trump's lead criminal defense lawyer. Another DOJ chief who might be involved is Stanley Woodward, who represented a Trump co-defendant in the documents case. President Trump himself says he's owed the money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: The Justice Department, are you asking them to pay you compensation for the federal investigations that happened to you? And how much are you asking for? DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, for -- well, I guess they probably owe me a lot of money for that. I'll probably -- yes, that's true. That's very interesting.

With the country, it's interesting, because I'm the one that makes the decision, right? And, you know, that decision would have to go across my desk. And it's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. In other words -- did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you're paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly. And any money that I would get, I would give to charity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Former federal prosecutor Alyse Adamson joins the chat.

Welcome back.

ALYSE ADAMSON, HOST, "AT-LYSE YOU HEARD IT HERE" PODCAST: Thanks, Audie.

CORNISH: So, first I want to ask, has anyone ever tried to like sue the Justice Department before, in any level, to be like, look, that was wrongful, or in some way?

ADAMSON: OK, at any level, yes. It is common for folks. And this isn't a lawsuit yet. This is going through the administrative claims process. And former defendants, or targets of investigations, can file a claim through this administrative process if they feel like they were wrongly targeted or something went wrong. So, that does happen.

What has never happened, though, Audie, is a former defendant who then files a claim, then gets elected president, and is now seeking to pay themselves $230 million.

CORNISH: Those would be tax dollars, right?

ADAMSON: Yes.

CORNISH: Like, your money, my money, your money. Like, it's tax money.

ADAMSON: That's absolutely right. So, we would all be paying this -- this demand. I mean when I first heard about this, I -- I didn't think this was a real story. I actually thought this was like a fake A.I. generated headline because it's so absurd, quite frankly.

CORNISH: The other thing is talking about the people who would or could sign off in some way. Can you talk about what their roles are? Never mind that they are literally his attorneys in the cases that he's complaining about.

ADAMSON: Yes, exactly. And that's why I say this is absurd, because this is a giant conflict of interest.

[06:35:02] I think that's very important for people to understand. And you just made the critical point. These are folks who served as Donald Trump's personal attorney. So we're talking about Todd Blanche, who is the DAG, the deputy attorney general, and then Stanley Woodward, who I believe is an associate general counsel. He's head of the civil division. And so in this administrative claims process, anything -- any claim over $4 million is going to require one of their signatures. That's in the Justice Department manual.

So, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, would essentially be the person to sign off on his claim. And that, again, is what we call a conflict of interest in the legal profession. It's -- it's an ethical violation. And he, quite frankly, should recuse himself.

CORNISH: That feels like even -- like recusing yourself is sort of a low bar.

ADAMSON: The first step in --

CORNISH: Yes. No. It -- but I guess the thing I'm wondering about is like, is this just a nuisance type thing to further kind of diminish a Justice Department that, you know, in a lot of ways the White House does not respect because of how Trump feels he was treated during those cases.

ADAMSON: I mean, I -- it -- it's hard to say what the motivation is here. I can say what we know is that President Trump has long felt like all of these prosecutions against him were unfair, weaponized. And so, you know, I think it's entirely possible that he made these claims because he honestly believes them, not just because he's -- it's a nuisance claim, but because he really feels like he was aggrieved. We just heard in the soundbite, he thinks that, for some reason, we all owe him $230 million.

The other thing I want to say, though, Audie, is that he's claiming malicious prosecution. That bar is very high. And I just want to remind viewers that --

CORNISH: That bar, meaning, like, you have -- really got to prove --

ADAMSON: To prove malicious --

CORNISH: Yes.

ADAMSON: You really have to prove that they came after him in a malicious way. And his -- Donald Trump's prosecutions weren't dismissed because DOJ acknowledged any wrongdoing or the cases didn't have merit. A -- Aileen Cannon, a judge in Florida, dismissed the Mar- a-Lago case. And then Jack Smith, the special counsel, dismissed the January 6th case against President Trump because President Trump had won the presidency and could no longer be prosecuted.

CORNISH: But does it help that there was clemency for all those -- or not clemency, but that basically all those January 6th folks are like, you're fine now. There's been a kind of -- ADAMSON: Well, that was -- Donald Trump did that himself.

CORNISH: Right.

ADAMSON: He's the one that pardoned him. That wasn't -- that wasn't a recognition that DOJ did anything wrong. The president has broad authority to issue pardons, and he exercised his -- his constitutional right to exercise those pardons.

CORNISH: All right, Alyse, thanks for explaining it. It's one thing to try and get money out of a university. It's another thing to get it out of all of us, basically. So, we'll see how this plays out.

Alyse, thank you so much.

ADAMSON: Thanks, Audie.

CORNISH: We also want to talk about the Trump administration's controversial immigration crackdown because it's resulted in a growing number of U.S. citizens being taken into custody by ICE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's American.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a citizen. He's a citizen.

WARREN KING, CHICAGO RESIDENT WRONGFULLY DETAINED BY ICE: I'm telling him, I'm a U.S. citizen. I'm -- I'm here. I'm legal. I'm born here. So, and they didn't -- they didn't try to here none of that, though.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Scenes like that one in Chicago becoming common. According to ProPublica, there have been more than 170 cases of U.S. citizens being detained at raids and protests since President Trump took office in January. Now, nearly 20 of those cases involved children, including two with cancer. At least four others were held for weeks with their undocumented mother without access to the family's attorney.

So, I want you to look at this video. Leo Martinez, an immigration rights volunteer in California, was driving through a neighborhood monitoring ICE activity when agents rammed his truck and took him into custody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEO MARTINEZ, IMMIGRATION RIGHTS VOLUNTEER: I was shocked to be released so fast. But also, at the same time, from the beginning I knew that I did nothing wrong, and I knew that I hadn't broken any laws. I hadn't done anything outside of the realms of legality. So, that made me feel confident that not only am I doing the right thing, but I'll keep putting my life on the line if that's what it's going to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss this, Nicole Foy. She's an investigative reporter for ProPublica.

Good morning. Nicole.

I want to start just with the fact that it's actually not so easy to tally this number, right, because for a long time -- ICE doesn't really make it all that sort of public what goes on, even before this administration. So, how did you all do this work?

NICOLE FOY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: Yes, this has been actually an issue for several administrations, that they have recommended that -- the oversight agencies had recommended that the government track and correct, because the government has not always been good at determining whether someone is a citizen or not, even if they're arrested for immigration violations.

So, what we did just for this story was to do our best to track through and compile different cases that have been reported through legal filings, through federal complaints that have been filed for damages after false arrests, local news reports and many, many, many videos that have been posted, much like the ones you play -- one of the ones you played, because this is happening around the country.

[06:40:14]

Many people may have seen only one or two come across, or they may have seen some of the things happening in Chicago, but it's been happening all year. And citizens have been having, honestly, pretty disturbing encounters with immigration agents, whether they were trying to prove their citizenship or whether they were detained at a protest or after trying to intervene in some type of arrest.

CORNISH: Can you talk to me about how the Supreme Court ruling around this has led to maybe a bit of an escalation?

FOY: Yes, I -- I think, you know, I don't -- I don't -- I can't necessarily, like, make links of their as far as an escalation, but I think that one of the things that the Supreme Court ruling did permit, even if it's temporarily while the court case in Los Angeles that it was centered on continues on, is this idea of roving patrols and whether immigration agents can use things like location, someone's apparent ethnicity, whether they're speaking Spanish instead of English, whether they're working in a construction job, can kind of use those things in order to determine whether they're going to, you know, raid a Home Depot or raid a worksite. And that's really disturbing for a number of the people who were involved in the case in the first place, but also people in other parts of the country, like a young man who I talked to in Alabama who has had his work site raided in -- his construction worksite raided in Alabama twice now and stopped by immigration agents, even though he's a U.S. citizen, and has had to repeatedly tell immigration agents that he's a citizen, and that doesn't always work.

CORNISH: I want to ask you one more question, which is about the fact that, what we know about this process right now is, you can be detained by ICE, and, who knows, you could be on a flight to somewhere, right? You don't have access to a lawyer. What are some of the fears and experiences that these U.S. citizens were having about getting lost in this system?

FOY: Yes, I think it's exactly right. I think that's one of the most concerning things that, you know, when you lose due process for everyone, when you can't contact a lawyer, when you can't get into court rapidly, you know, it's -- it's not just immigrants that this may happen to. It may also be people who are trying to prove that they -- they are citizens. But there -- there are -- there have been several Americans who have kind of disappeared into the system, many who, you know, it appears that government officials have known that they were citizens, but they were arrested after a protest or not -- allegations of assaulting an officer and have disappeared for days into a detention -- a detention center that they're being temporarily held at, but their family, their lawyer, don't know where they are. This has happened to U.S. citizen children detained with their undocumented parents. It's really disturbing for a number of people who are not just concerned about due process rights, but also making sure that everyone has a -- has -- has this just right to a fair trial and to prove if -- who they are -- they are who they say they are.

CORNISH: OK, this is Nicole Foy. You can read this reporting in ProPublica.

Nicole, thanks for sharing it with us.

FOY: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: And next on CNN THIS MORNING, a waste of time. Another setback in President Trump's quest to end another war. He's scrapping a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think I'd be in a food bank line. I got a raise right before the government shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Long lines as federal workers wait at food banks. Who do voters blame for the shutdown?

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[06:48:24]

CORNISH: A plan for another summit between President Trump and Russian Leader Vladimir Putin now seems to be on hold. The two spoke on the phone last Thursday, and Trump announced he would meet Putin again soon. But now those plans seem to be off after a call this week between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia's foreign minister failed to make a breakthrough in peace talks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time. So, I'll see what happens. But we did all of these great deals, great peace deals. They were all peace deals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Peace in Ukraine remains out of reach, however, as Russia continues its deadly bombing against civilian targets. Overnight, another six people were killed, including a six-month-old. The Trump administration had been hoping its ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas would give momentum to talks in Europe, something our next guest believes is the president's signature foreign policy success of his second term. And he writes this in "NOTUS," quote, "working with Arab leaders, Trump pulled together many of the existing ideas to end the war in Israel and facilitated a process that may bring peace to the region."

Ivo Daalder is the former U.S. ambassador to NATO. Joins us now.

Good morning, Ambassador. Thank you for being with us.

AMBASSADOR IVO DAALDER, CONTRIBUTOR, "NOTUS" PERSPECTIVES: Good morning. Glad to be here.

CORNISH: So, I want to come to that sort of overall foreign policy picture in a minute. But first, canceling the meeting with Putin, calling it potentially a waste. Is that a wise move?

DAALDER: Well, it was a waste to propose it.

[06:50:00]

And, in fact, this is what happened. When Vladimir Putin called President Trump before President Trump's meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on Friday, the single reason what Putin wanted to do was to make sure that the meeting with President Zelenskyy didn't go well. It didn't go well. Zelenskyy had thought that he had -- was going to come and get long range missiles from the United States. Instead, the president of the United States started to repeat Putin talking points about how the war should be ended by Ukraine giving up more territory that it still controls and has controlled since 1991, since it's been independent, and for the last 11 years in war.

And out of that came -- this conversation with Putin and Trump came this idea from President Trump to meet in Budapest. It turned out that then there was nothing going to be agreed because -- just as there wasn't in Alaska, because the differences between Ukraine and Russia are too big to -- to bridge, even by someone as dedicated to -- to making peace in the world as President Trump says he is.

CORNISH: I want to play something for you. The former NATO Secretary General, Stoltenberg, was talking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He was talking about the state of talks, as we are. I want to get your reaction to his take about where things are. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENS STOLTENBERG, FORMER NATO SECRETARY: I don't think we can change Putin's mind. His aim, his -- his goal is to control Ukraine. But I do think we can change Putin's calculus, that he will realize that the price he has to pay to control Ukraine is too high. And the only way to do that is to deliver military support to Ukraine, because what happens around the negotiating table is so closely linked to -- to the situation on the battlefield.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Do you think that's true? Because I think the audience is seeing a bigger divide between the battlefield and the negotiating table.

DAALDER: Well, I do think it's true that the key to peace lies in Moscow, not in Kyiv. And that is one of the problems that President Trump has had. He thinks that the key to peace somehow lies in convincing President Zelenskyy to stop fighting. President Zelenskyy has said, I'm willing to accept a ceasefire.

The problem is that Vladimir Putin is not willing to do so. So, the only way this war ends is to put sufficient pressure on Russia that it understands that it is better for it to stop fighting and to see -- find a negotiation to end this war, than to continue fighting. And that means real pressure on Russia, military pressure on the battlefield, and economic pressure through sanctions and -- and other means.

And on both those scores, the president of the United States has been reluctant. He has not put any economic pressure on -- on Russia. In fact, Russia is one of the very few countries in the world that has no tariffs on it, no U.S. tariffs on it. And the kind of military equipment that he's willing to provide is both limited, and he's not willing to provide it directly. He's asking the Europeans to pay for it. That is the problem. And it's been the problem all along.

The only way to get peace is to have Mr. Putin sue for it, rather than figuring out a way to pressure Ukraine to -- to surrender, which Ukraine is not going to do.

CORNISH: I hear you identifying a couple things there. One, whether the U.S. is willing or able to use its leverage against Russia in one way or another. And it brings me to the idea of Trump himself and his foreign policy. He obviously feels that the initial phase of this ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is a great victory. Are there any lessons to be taken away from how they dealt with the issue in the Middle East that could be applied to Ukraine? And after all these years, what would you consider the Trump doctrine when it comes to foreign policy?

DAALDER: Well, with regard to -- to the ceasefire negotiations that I think is so far the greatest success of the Trump presidency in his second term, what President Trump did is do two things that he hasn't done with regard to Ukraine. One, he created and solidified a coalition of states to put pressure on both parties to come to the table. So, he brought the Arab leaders together. He brought Qatar and Egypt and Turkey together in order to press Hamas. And then importantly, he used the leverage that we have in the United States as Israel's most important ally. Leverage that he actually gained in his first term when he made a number of decisions that were seen in Israel as highly favorable to Israel and used that leverage to force Bibi Netanyahu to do the one thing that Netanyahu had not been willing to do for two years, which is to stop fighting. And that's how he got the deal.

So, for Ukraine, that would be the same thing. Real pressure on -- on Vladimir Putin, who wants an economic relationship, who wants normalization with the United States.

[06:55:00]

And so put the leverage and pressure on Ukraine. But also work very closely together with the Europeans and the Ukrainians in order to forge a common path. And the difficulty is, of course, that President Trump has not been working with the Europeans, or when he does, he talks to Vladimir Putin and then changes his mind. So, that is how I think one should find a way to -- to change the dynamics in the Ukraine-Russia context that one can learn from the Gaza experience.

As for the doctrine, aside from the fact that the president wants to be a peacemaker and be seen as someone who brings peace around the world and gets a Nobel Peace Prize, I think what we're really seeing is a combination of 19th century focus on the western hemisphere and early 20th century America first. This president is -- is laser point -- focused on defending the American homeland, against drugs, against immigration, and what he calls the threat from within. And he's focused less on Europe, less on Asia, much more on the western hemisphere, just like the Monroe Doctrine, or as some call it the dunroe (ph) doctrine say (ph).

CORNISH: Ivo Daalder is the former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Thank you for your time.

DAALDER: My pleasure.

CORNISH: So, as the government shutdown enters its fourth week, lines growing longer, temperatures getting -- tempers getting shorter, air travelers feeling the pain. Staffing shortages are leading to longer wait times at security where TSA agents are not getting paid. And a shortage of air traffic controllers is causing delays. Food pantries are stressed, with roughly 1.4 million federal employees furloughed or working without pay. Demand is on the rise, and so those lines are stretching for blocks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNETTE HACKER, FOOD BANK OF IOWA: The gap that lack of SNAP of benefits will create is immense to fill. What we're seeing is just a foreshadowing of what's ahead with more and more cuts to SNAP in the next couple of years. The charitable food system cannot fill this gap, no matter how hard we try.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, who's to blame for the shutdown and the pain that it's causing? A new Reuters poll finds 50 percent of Americans blame Republican congressional leadership, while 43 percent see top congressional Democrats as the culprits.

The group chat is back.

One of the reasons why I wanted to play the person from the food bank in Iowa is because I think there is an argument that this is a Washington problem. Who cares about federal workers. This is not something that is affecting me in my regular life, the average person.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. No. I mean, it is, obviously, affecting all sorts of Americans all around the country. Here in D.C., places like Virginia, but also places like Iowa, the heartland. This is Trump country. And people who rely on government benefits.

You know, this administration is trying to lessen the blow and kind of rearrange money here and there. But at some point, that money, too, is going to run out.

At 34 days is the record for a government shutdown. I think this probably is going to beat it. It's already the second longest government shutdown.

CORNISH: Yes.

HENDERSON: And the core issue is something else that might -- that will -- will definitely affect Republicans, which is the health care subsidies --

CORNISH: Which is the health care subsidies, yes.

HENDERSON: Which is really impactful for folks in red and blue America.

CORNISH: Antjuan, should Democrats just, like, kind of take the win, so to speak, and say to Senator Thune, thank you for making an offer about health care subsidies. Let's do this.

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: No, because people seriously are concerned about the future of our country and -- and the issues that matter.

CORNISH: If you get what you want, then why not?

SEAWRIGHT: Audie, 18.2 million Americans in red states will be impacted by these subsidies. In nine -- eight days I think it is the food banks, the SNAP benefits will run out. Keep in mind, Republicans have implemented the largest cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs in this country. So, Republicans bear the responsibility. CORNISH: Well, in this case, it could be a mixed bag. Charlie, I'm

wondering if all those years in the past of being the source of the government shutdown is making it harder for Republicans to outsource the blame now?

CHARLIE DENT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASPEN INSTITUTE CONGRESSIONAL PROGRAM: Yes, I think it is. But let's be honest, there are no winners in a government shutdown. And the longer this drags on, the more painful it is. And, you know, I do think that the Democrats should take the off ramp that Thune gave them. They want the votes on the health care subsidies. Why not take the win? I simply don't understand that. They should do it.

And, frankly, what's most troubling of all about this shutdown is there's no sense of urgency to resolve the situation.

CORNISH: I've noticed that. Yes.

DENT: I -- I mean, I --

CORNISH: Washington is a little too chill about it in terms of Capitol Hill.

DENT: Yes. In 2013, we had a 17-day shutdown. And we were there from right up until September 30th through the whole shutdown. Nobody left. Everybody was there the entire time.

[07:00:02]

This was a crisis. And it's just going to get worse. And, sadly, it doesn't feel like there's a resolution in sight.

CORNISH: OK. Well, on that note, Charlie, I'm going to offer people this.

DENT: Good morning.

CORNISH: It means your lawmakers are back. You can talk to them about what's going on.

Thank you all for being in the group chat today. Thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish. And "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts now.