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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump To Meet With U.S. Forces At Military Base In Qatar; Zelenskyy Arrives In Turkey Ahead Of Possible Russia Talks. Aired 5- 5:30a ET

Aired May 15, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with breaking news.

President Donald Trump is wrapping up his visit to Qatar with a meeting with U.S. troops at a military base in the region.

You are looking live at the Al Udeid Air Base, just outside of the capital of Doha. That's where the president is just about to arrive any moment now. Of course, we'll take you there once we see the president.

But while there, he is expected to hold a campaign style rally before heading to his third and final stop of his Middle East tour, the United Arab Emirates.

Let's get straight to CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who is also at that base.

Jeff, as we spoke about in the last hour, it's quite a large crowd for the president here. The warm up acts have already begun. Give us a sense of what we can expect today.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rahel, President Trump is making his way here. And as you can see behind me, it is a campaign style rally. The flag of the Qatari government, of course, and the American government and peace through strength, this really is one of the key U.S. allies in the region. But before the president speaks today, we are told hell be taking a tour of some of the specific facilities here. So it will be a little bit of time until we see him.

But he was already at work this morning in Doha, holding a leading a meeting with business leaders. And of course, one of the challenges hanging over this entire trip has been the unresolved conflict in Gaza. President Trump has been for months talking about trying to rebuild Gaza. Of course, a very controversial idea. But he said this just a short time ago in Doha.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gaza has been a territory of death and destruction for many years. And, you know, I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good. Make it a freedom zone. Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone. Have a real freedom zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So calling it a freedom zone certainly may be welcome news to some, but how that path would get there is definitely an open question.

President Trump not visiting Israel on this Middle East tour and really not weighing in on this unresolved conflict. Of course, more deadly strikes overnight. So, the bigger question facing the Trump administration and indeed the president, what will they do to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to work toward more of a peace deal there?

Meanwhile, Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Turkey, we are learning that that President Putin, not attending President Trump had teased all week that he would like to go and personally mediate a conversation between President Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That, of course, will not happen. So that is another major challenge facing the president.

This has been a week of dealmaking, announcing economic deals. But certainly, the geopolitical challenges in this region that are also facing the Trump administration so key to his second term as well.

But we are awaiting his arrival here at the air base. Some 10,000 troops are here. It's the U.S.'s largest air base in the Middle East. And many of them I've spoken to this morning are eager to see their commander in chief -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: And, Jeff, to your point about some of the geopolitical challenges on his agenda -- I mean, Iran, perhaps chief among them, the president, sort of pleading with Qatar to assist here, asking Qatar, I hope you can help with the Iran situation. It's a perilous situation and we want to do the right thing.

Talk to me a little bit about that.

ZELENY: There's no doubt that President Trump really at every stop along the way on this trip, beginning in Riyadh earlier in the week and now in Doha, moving on to the United Arab Emirates later, the nuclear talks in Iran, which have restarted, is a major challenge. But how the president, how President Trump speaks about Iran, saying they're close to a deal just simply is not the reality.

There is the very infancy of talks of how to bring an end to the nuclear program there and Iran, in fact, calls some of President Trump's threats, in their view, naive. So, this is at the very beginning of a process, certainly nowhere near the end of trying to resolve the Iran nuclear challenge. But the president has been clear. He said Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, even as he is trying to extend a hand to their economic assistance and other matters to try and bring these nuclear talks to more of a progression here. But no doubt, Rahel, all the challenges facing the Trump

administration. I'm thinking back to his first trip in the region, his first trip as president eight years ago. Of course, the region, the world. And he has changed so much since then. But the progress and success of his second term will largely depend on how he carries things out beyond this.

[05:05:02]

Syria, perhaps, is the biggest development of this trip. Removing sanctions on Syria. The president meeting yesterday with Syria's new leader.

So, certainly, the follow up there from the Trump administration will be critical for the next steps there as well -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: Yeah. And, Jeff, just remind us, I mean, you're right that the Syria of it all has been the most, I think, remarkable development of this trip so far. And it's not just the removal of sanctions that have been in place for more than a decade, but it's also this meeting with the new Syrian president. That perhaps not long ago would have been unthinkable considering his past.

ZELENY: No question about it. I mean, the images yesterday were really quite extraordinary. And American president meeting with Syria's new leader the first time a U.S. president has met with the Syrian president in 25 years. But this is just about six months or so on from the ouster of Bashar al Assad.

So, the Syria is very much at a crossroads, the beginning of a turning point. But President Trump agreeing to have that meeting with president al-Sharaa, saying he views him as a strong leader, but his past obviously is very key. Only a few months ago, he effectively had a bounty on his head by the U.S. as an ISIS fighter. But the president, clearly willing to overlook that for the prospect of development and peace in Syria.

And again, that is something controversial as well to Israel. The president not going to Israel. It's a bit of a snub to Prime Minister Netanyahu, but making these developments towards Syria also seen -- it has really raised questions of what the U.S.-Israel relationship is now. Is it frayed with Prime Minister Netanyahu?

So, of course, those will be questions that are answered in the coming days, but, Rahel, I'm interested in seeing this speech. It's a combination of a campaign rally, which we've seen so many of across the country last year. And I think we'll see more of it here today in Doha.

SOLOMON: Yeah, it's an interesting point. I mean, even in his comments in the region, they've been sort of geared toward the audience there in the Gulf states, but also in American audience. We heard him over the -- over the last few days talk about American enlistment in the military, just very domestic issues, despite being there in the Gulf region.

Jeff Zeleny, we hope to see you later in the hour reporting live for us here in Qatar. Jeff, thank you.

We're going to have more on President Trump's Middle East tour throughout the hours ahead. So please stick with us here.

Right now, meantime, we are waiting to hear if Russia and Ukraine will go through with peace talks that were scheduled for today in Istanbul. Now, this would be the first face to face meeting between the two sides since just after Russia's invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago. But it's still unclear if the negotiations will even happen.

A source says that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make a decision on the talks after meeting with the Turkish president in Ankara, the Kremlin already said that President Vladimir Putin will not take part and sent a lower-level delegation. President Trump will not be there as well.

The U.S. secretary of state, who is also in turkey, weighed in earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The big issue on everyone's mind is what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. The president of the United States has been abundantly clear he wants the war to end. He's open to virtually any mechanism that gets us to a just, enduring and lasting peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Okay, let's get to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, who is following all of this live from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Nick, you know, when you and I spoke, I believe it was yesterday, we talked about will he or won't he in terms of the Putin of it all and will he attend these talks? I guess we have our answer now. I think the question now is how seriously, can these talks be taken if Putin isn't at the table?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I mean, ultimately, we are seeing events playing out in the way that Russia described. They potentially would. The Russian narrative unfolding here. We're just getting pictures of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his plane landing in Ankara, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish presidency putting out a statement saying that their basis for this essentially is a ceasefire followed by negotiations.

Zelenskyy, a source close to him, has suggested that he will indeed talk to Erdogan first and then decide on the next steps. But it was Zelenskyy who turned this into the potential for an extraordinary summit, or possibly a three-person, three-president summit. That is something at this point that Putin has clearly rejected.

Trump threw himself into the mix here, essentially offering his role as an assistant, saying that he might, he will welcome the two leaders attending, that kind of escalated this into that. "Will he or won't he" for Putin. But here's what we heard from President Donald Trump earlier today on the fact that Putin at this stage won't be going, and neither will he.

[05:10:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I actually said, why would he go if I'm not going? Because I wasn't going to go. I wasn't planning to go. I would go, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he's going to go if I don't go. And that turned out to be right.

If something happened, I'd go on Friday if it was appropriate. But we have people right now negotiating, and I think that I just hope that Russia and Ukraine are able to do something because it has to stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: That's the extraordinary diplomatic choreography.

Now, let me just explain where everyone is physically at the moment. Zelenskyy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, meeting President Erdogan of Turkey.

We have a delegations of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya. The Ukrainian foreign minister has now (AUDIO GAP) Ankara. The Russians have sent a very low-level technical delegation, that's their terminology for it, to Istanbul. They have said through their foreign ministry spokesperson that potential talks there are delayed until the back end of the day.

The issue really here is a decision point for Ukraine. Do they send a delegation to meet with the Russians? That would be the first direct talks they've indeed had since the early days of the war, where also in Istanbul, talks occurred and Russia set forwards very maximalist goals that Ukraine simply couldn't agree to. That was after Russia's full-scale invasion.

Does Zelenskyy turn and go back to the war that he needs to fight here? Indeed, appears that senior U.S. officials at the last we heard may well be going to Istanbul on Friday, that potentially widens the window for diplomacy to indeed occur. Do those senior American Steve Witkoff, a key envoy for President Trump, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security advisor, interim, do they meet with that Russian delegation or with the Ukrainians in Istanbul on Friday? Does that meeting still go ahead?

Look, anything could still potentially happen. It's important not to rule out the possibility Putin might change his mind, although there have been very categoric at the Kremlin that he won't be making a surprise trip. But this is a moment, I think, which many had predicted last Saturday when European leaders came to Kyiv, laid down an ultimatum for a ceasefire on Monday that's passed and Putin shifted all attention to talks in Istanbul, direct between Ukraine and Russia for Thursday, which this point have yet to happen. Many felt potentially this was about essentially trying to expose exactly Moscow's goals here.

They didn't want the ceasefire. They did propose the talks. The talks may or may not happen, but ultimately, too, they're not the breakthrough or the substantial talks that the White House have wanted, or indeed, the ceasefire that the White House have proposed.

And so, the question now is how firmly will Trump back what the Europeans and Ukraine have called for, which is massive sanctions? Trump toyed with the idea that he was still thinking around secondary sanctions. That's essentially punishing people who do business with Russia in a prohibited fashion.

Ultimately, you could hear him there trying still to tap dance around this. He's going to have to make a decision, I think, at some particular point as to whether what we've seen this week is Russia rejecting their peace initiatives or not. Certainly, the Europeans will be pushing him to do that. Whether he does or not is ultimately the decision point, I think, for how this conflict progresses in the months ahead -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: Nick, as we watch these live pictures in Ankara there, I'm not sure if you can see. And we await the Ukrainian president likely to deplane any moment now.

You know, in the midst of the will there they wont they what time will it happen, who will be there, both sides, Nick. Ukraine. Russia, both sides, despite these -- these talks potentially happening today, accusing the other of overnight drones.

WALSH: Yeah. Look, I mean it's important to point out all of this frankly theatrical will he/won't he diplomacy going on, there is a war happening. Yes. Where you know, over 100 drones are flown by Russia, often at civilian targets. Every single night. We have sirens on here repeatedly throughout each day in Kyiv.

And indeed, too, there are assessments from U.S. officials that Russia is amassing for a new offensive in the east. We saw some of that ourselves last week, showing drone footage that showed dugouts, a tree line, essentially, this drone footage went on for 20 minutes, showing thousands of armored vehicles, tents, dugouts prepared just out of drone range, really, for the Ukrainians attack drones then building up, clearly not there for a summer of peace or relaxation.

And so, I think many are asking themselves, why is it exactly that the kremlin are stringing this out? Why don't they just agree to a ceasefire and then claim Ukraine violated it? Why are they so set upon persisting with the ability to pursue their military maneuvers without having seen to have violated some kind of diplomatic agreement?

[05:15:00]

And it may well be this, that they are waiting for the ground to harden here on the front lines, amassing larger amounts of troops, waiting for the White House's patience with this whole process to begin to expire, essentially, so they can then make a more significant military move -- Rahel. SOLOMON: And, Nick, as we watch these pictures of the Ukrainian president, descend the stairs there as he arrives in Ankara, Turkey -- Nick, talk to me a little bit about the role that Turkey is playing and has played, quite frankly, in some of the world conflicts that we've seen in the last few years, just sort of as a -- as a power broker and some of these conflicts around the world in sort of diplomatic talks, the role of Turkey here.

WALSH: Yeah. I mean, look, its important to point out that Turkey is a NATO member, but one that still has a sort of on/off reasonable relationship with the Kremlin and so is able to have its foreign minister reach out to Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and discuss how indeed this might work, if indeed there was to be a higher level meeting in Istanbul, is also able at this point to, to welcome Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a significant say in what happens around the Black Sea, too, and indeed may in the future be involved in any sort of reassurance, force or monitoring along the front lines here, if the ceasefire kicked in.

Erdogan has shown his ability to sort of straddle all these different viewpoints and act as an interlocutor between them. He, of course, at this point has the same public position about what should happen next diplomatically when it comes to the war, which is a ceasefire followed by negotiations, but also to remember, Turkey will be significantly edified by the decision to lift sanctions against Syria. While that occurred in Saudi Arabia, Erdogan was on the call virtually when the meeting between al-Sharaa, the new Syrian leader and Trump indeed occurred.

And it was Turkey that significantly backed that sweeping move by the Syrian opposition movement to kick the Assad regime out of power. So, certainly, we have a President Erdogan here significantly edified by that removal of sanctions, the ability for Syria to open back up again to the outside world for investment to come in, that removes an enormous headache for Turkey, potentially with many Syrian refugees able maybe to go home and perhaps a prosperous economy to open up to itself. But I think were seeing images now here of Zelenskyy's arrival.

And, look, this is a -- let's listen in to Zelenskyy speaking now.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): -- President Erdogan and the wider delegation of Turkey, we are in contact with the American side. I believe they will also be in Turkey at the higher -- at a higher level.

We will look at the level of the Russians. It is not known to me officially, but it looks like it is some kind of ersatz. We shall see at our -- what our steps will be after the conversation with President Erdogan. I think we will have a few hours for important conversations and important decisions. We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and their mandate. Or are they capable of making their own decisions?

Because we all know who makes decisions in Russia. Thank you. We will stay in touch and we will definitely approach the press after

meeting President Erdogan. We shall see about the format. I will definitely be there.

WALSH: So clearly, there are no firm decision made. Zelenskyy is in Turkey, clearly. He's pointing out the fact that the Russians have not sent a delegation comparable in seniority to that which he has brought, to that which the Americans are likely to have together for Friday.

Remember, Marco Rubio is already in the country at that NATO meeting. So, pressure potentially there for Moscow to send a more potent delegation. But ultimately, he faces a decision now as to whether this marks a moment which he should leave. Does he wait to meet more of the Americans tomorrow? Does this become a U.S. Ukrainian summit in Ankara or Istanbul? And exactly what happens to the delegation that is currently in Istanbul, awaiting someone for them to talk to?

It's a key moment for his diplomacy, for the Trump administrations diplomacy here, and also to one in which Russia really, I think, has to show its hand. Do they send Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, who is ultimately, I think, the person on comparable level who could meet with Rubio and indeed, Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, that unclear at this stage.

But as we see at the moment, things are following the Russian narrative or the Russian timetable proposed by Putin at the weekend.

Back to you, Rahel.

SOLOMON: Yeah, Nick Paton Walsh, appreciate the reporting. You being with us this morning. Thank you. Live for us there in Kyiv.

We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:24:26]

SOLOMON: All right, welcome back.

President Trump will be meeting with U.S. forces in Qatar this hour. Really? Any moment now, we expect let's go back live to our Jeff Zeleny, who is traveling with the president and is at the Al Udeid Air Base, just outside of the capital of Doha.

Jeff, remind us, for those who may not be aware of the significance of this air base, both in the region and its importance for the U.S.

ZELENY: Rahel, it is, of course, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East. Some 10,000 or so troops are housed here. A small section of those are -- have been selected to attend this speech with the commander in chief.

[05:25:03] Others are in the distance, which you cannot see on camera here. But the cabinet secretaries have taken their seats. And so, we believe this will be starting shortly.

But you're right about the significance of the Udeid Base here, certainly over the last two decades. And it's a fairly extraordinary chunk of American history in -- after the nine over 11 attacks, of course, this base rose to prominence, and it was the central base for U.S. action in Afghanistan as well as later the invasion of Iraq.

Of course, U.S. troops were not welcome in Saudi Arabia, neighboring Saudi Arabia. So, the Qatari government has an arrangement with the U.S. military, and that was just extended for another 10 years. So, this is a joint base, sort of half Qatari, half American. And it was also very central in the evacuation of Afghanistan refugees during the Biden administration, of course, so controversial, so messy. When the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, many refugees were taken here to Al Udeid Air Base and the processing began.

So, Rahel, it certainly is steeped in history, but also very much in the present day. The geopolitics facing this president and the Trump administration are front and center on this trip, but it is also sort of a mix because of the campaign trail meets the commander in chief. We've been to so many Trump rallies, of course, and it feels like that by design. The same playlist, the same warm up acts.

But American comedian turned podcaster Theo Von was warming up the crowd here just a short time ago. The Qatari government sponsored him to come talk to the troops. He was making some jokes about the president, he said, making some jokes about his golden orange hue, his suntan. So, certainly, Lee Greenwood also has been here, and we expect him to perform as well.

So, a mix of a campaign-style rally with the commander-in-chief's serious message -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: Absolutely.

Jeff, we'll continue to watch. Jeff Zeleny, reporting live for us here in Qatar -- Jeff, thank you. Pleasure to have you this morning.

We're going to have more on President Trump's Middle East tour throughout the hours ahead. So, stick with us.

In the meantime, we're going to take a short break and well be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)