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One World with Zain Asher
Multiple Online Services Hit by Major Tech Outage; Amazon Web Services Outage Triggers Major Disruption; Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Holding After Deadly Attacks; Trump Hosts Australian PM at the White House; Trump Calls Massive "No Kings" Rallies "A Joke"; Trump Calls to Freeze Ukraine- Russia War. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired October 20, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAIN ASHER, CNN HOST, ONE WORLD: President Trump is welcoming the Prime Minister of Australia to the White House this hour. "One World" starts
right now. Australia's reserves of rare earth minerals could be top of the agenda for these two world leaders. We are live at the White House with
very latest on that.
Plus, the world is getting back online after a global internet outage impacts hundreds of popular websites, streaming platforms and gaming sites
as well. And police in France are racing to track down priceless drools stolen in a brazen weekend heist at the Louvre.
All right, coming to you live from New York. I'm Zain Asher. You are watching "One World". Any moment now, President Donald Trump will welcome
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the White House, even though the two countries are longtime allies, this is the prime minister's first
formal meeting with the U.S. President since Trump's reelection.
High on the agenda will, of course, be trade and tariffs, as well as Australia's supply of critical minerals and the AUKUS pact, which would see
Australia by U.S. nuclear powered submarines. It's currently under review by the Trump Administration. Let's go live to the White House now, where we
find out CNN's Alayna Treene.
So obviously, in the awakening, in the wake of China, sort of restricting access to its rare earth minerals, you're seeing sort of Australia step up
and sort of try to be a major supplier for the U.S. Just walk us through what is going to be discussed here.
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, I think rare earth minerals, for sure, Zain, is going to be one of the top priorities, particularly on
the part of Australia, as they're trying to, kind of, you know, not show off to Donald Trump, per se, but they want to bring them to the table in a
way, particularly after, you know, we've seen them be hit with tariffs.
Australia currently faces 10 percent tariffs on all exports to the United States. They want to try and find a way in with the president. And
Australia does possess many of the rare earth minerals that the United States is looking for. I was reading about it just earlier to make sure I
had the numbers right.
They've been working on a proposal Australia to export these critical minerals to the United States. And essentially, they can supply more than
30 of the critical minerals that the United States wants and needs. It actually put together a budget Australia around all of this.
It would be some 780 million U.S. dollars in critical minerals that they would potentially be willing to try and deal with the United States on. So
that's going to be a main topic. But another one is also defense, because back in 2021, when the Former President Joe Biden was in office, Australia,
the United Kingdom and the United States all got together and put and joined a trilateral defense agreement.
The key feature of the agreement has to do with nuclear submarines and the creation of a new generation of nuclear-powered submarines as well. The way
that the agreement works out is that, essentially, the United States needs to send Australia three Virginia class nuclear powered submarines by the
2030s and then Australia is supposed to put together and construct new nuclear submarines as well.
So that's something that's going to be discussed. Part of the reason that is up for discussion is because the Pentagon is currently reviewing that
deal to what essentially people are saying is to figure out if it's quote, unquote, America First, something that has caused some anxiety among the
Australians.
So, a lot of high-level issues, but overall, I mean, Australia is one of the United States top allies this current leader, Albanese. He is someone
who is part of the center left party, the Labor Party in Australia. But he has spoken with Trump a number of times. Despite this being his first
formal meeting with President Donald Trump here at the White House, they've had four calls ever since Trump was elected in November.
They also met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September. And so they are familiar with each other, but this will be a
good moment for the Australians to kind of bring up their case on a number of these issues and try to form a stronger alliance with the United States,
particularly with President Donald Trump, and see if they can do anything about those tariffs.
ASHER: Yeah, Australian media have actually been criticizing their prime minister for not scheduling this meeting sooner. But as you point out, it
is the first time the two are meeting since Trump got reelected.
[11:05:00]
Alayna Treene, live for us. Thank you so much. Have much more on this later on the hour with Atlantic Council's Markus Garlauskas. He's the Director of
the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. And we'll bring you that bilateral meeting between the U.S.
President and the Australian Prime Minister as soon as it happens.
All right, Amazon Web Services are keeping customers updated as it investigates a widespread, hours long outage experienced by banks,
airlines, media, popular apps and websites earlier today. Officials say the root cause of the outage at this point is still unclear.
Some heavy hitters were affected, including Amazon, AT&T, Canva, Delta, United Airlines as well, Hulu, Disney +, McDonald's, Fortnite, Pokemon, the
list goes on Roblox and Snapchat as well. That's according to down detector.com. Our Tech Reporter, Clare Duffy takes a closer look at what
exactly happened here.
CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: -- this happened. It's helpful to understand what exactly Amazon Web Services is. This sits at the heart of
so much of the internet. Now, whereas businesses used to run their own servers, computers to operate their online services.
Now, millions of businesses rent that server space from Amazon Web Services. This is more affordable. It's easier for businesses. As long as
Amazon doesn't have an outage like it did today. This outage was reported around 03:00 a.m. Amazon now says that it has identified the issue and
fully mitigated the outage.
This lasted in total about three hours, but you get a sense of just how fragile the internet ecosystem can be when one of these major players has
an outage like this. This took out services ranging from United and Delta Airlines, Snapchat, Facebook, Fortnite, the AI firm, perplexity, Coinbase,
even UK government and banking websites, all are reliant on Amazon Web Services.
And all had their services impacted because of this outage today. Now, Amazon says things should be working mostly normally by now, a statement
from the company said most AWS service operations are succeeding normally now. Some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution.
Additionally, some services are continuing to work through a backlog of events. The company also encouraged customers to clear their cash to try to
get these websites operating normally again, but consumers should be able to use the internet as of about 10 o'clock Eastern, mostly normally today.
Back to you.
ASHER: All right. Thanks to CNN's Clare Duffy for that report. Joining us live now from Washington is CNN Media Analyst Sara Fischer. Sara, thank you
so much for being with us. So just in terms of what exactly happened here and noticed on AWS status page sent.
Essentially it was experiencing problems with its DNS its domain name systems, and that's essentially what translates website addresses and
website names into IP addresses so they can actually load. Just walk us through in more detail what actually went wrong here.
SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah, that's a very important distinction, because when you have a big disruption like this, one of two things is
true, either this was sort of an error on ambient and it was human error, or it was a software upgrade -- it's likely what is gone here, down here,
or its external actor, a distributed denial of service attack.
That second type of attack, which it does not seem like this was, is very hard to mitigate. And so, it's a good thing that this looks like it's an
AWS issue, because that means that they're able to mitigate it quickly. And to your point about them identifying it, they said very shortly after these
websites went down.
That they figured out what the heart of the problem was, which meant that they had a few hours before most of the East Coast in the United States,
which is where most of the impact happened, to sort of work on this and website bring websites back online. Two notes of caution, though, for
consumers, one to Clare's point, clear your cash.
And then two, is some of these websites, particularly streaming sites. They might experience a little bit of latency as they come back online, meaning
they might just be acting a little bit slower.
ASHER: Yeah, one of the things that AWS mentioned is that this was essentially a technical fault affecting one of Amazon's main data centers.
Just in terms of what we can learn from all of this, in terms of building a more resilient ecosystem here. What can be done differently just in terms
of backup systems mean?
What could mean, so many companies suffered as a result, as I just listed, what could be done differently here?
FISCHER: Well, if you're a policymaker, this always begs the question of competition. We have three main cloud serving companies in the U.S. that
serve not just our country, but many around the world, that being Amazon, Google and Microsoft Azure. And so as long as you have concentration,
anytime something goes wrong, you can expect a large portion of the Internet to be impacted.
The other thing is when it comes to critical communications, so emergency services, things, excuse me, linked to cyber security, having those have a
backup in a wired, hard line, meaning a fixed internet connection is critical, because it's very, very hard to disrupt fixed internet
connections in the same way that you would a fully cloud connected internet.
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So, I think the big takeaways from this this is, one, trying to figure out, how can we diversify our cloud computing systems, so that way when one goes
down, the whole internet isn't impacted. But then two, making sure we have backups on hard wire lines, so that we always have a way to get access to
power for critical communications, things like emergency services, banking, payments, health care, hospitals, et cetera.
ASHER: Yeah, such a good point. The fact that there's really three major companies, the sector just needs to be diversified quite a bit. Just talk
to us a bit more about the consequences. Had this actually gone on for longer? I mean, it was only a few hours, but had this gone on for longer,
what would have been the consequences, Sara?
FISCHER: Huge consequences. So, you listed, and Clare listed a bunch of consumer sites, streaming and Snapchat and all of those things are really
important, but there's a lot of enterprise technology that is hooked up to these cloud contracts. You think about airlines.
You think about Amtrak, both Delta and United had mentioned that they were impacted by this. You can imagine things like flight systems going down,
delaying people at airports. You can imagine banks going down, delaying wire services and payments and so had this prolonged, even longer, the
economy would have had a massive impact here.
Luckily, because this was short, the most economic impact that you're likely going to see will be short term stock hits this morning from
companies that were impacted, in particular Amazon, but then services that rely on it. Luckily, though, it does appear that Amazon has gotten this
together, so we're not going to see mass disruptions to things like finance, travel, et cetera.
ASHER: But as you've been pointing out, AWS essentially sits in the middle of everything, so many websites, so many apps rely on it. Talk to us about
the market share that AWS has compared to its competitors.
FISCHER: I mean, it's pretty sizable. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are always battling for it, the top spot. The one thing I'd say about Amazon is
they rely so heavily on that cloud computing unit for growth, because we think of Amazon as an E-commerce company, that's where I go shopping.
Well, actually, cloud computing is where they're making much of their headway as a business. So, for them, it's critical that they can be able to
manage these types of outages and manage them with ease. Another thing I'd say about cloud computing is that there have been alternatives that have
been introduced.
There have been political alternatives that have been introduced, right cloud services that only serve conservative ideologies. There have been
localized cloud servicing companies that have been introduced. None of them have been able to make the head way that these three have, being Microsoft,
Google and Amazon.
And the reason being, they can actually afford to build the infrastructure for cloud computing. Remember, it requires so many data centers, so much
money and energy to keep the lights on that, them. It would be very hard to imagine that somebody could come in and totally disrupt that market at this
point.
ASHER: Yeah, and it's such an important reminder that cyber security isn't just about defending against threats, right? As you point out, it is about
building a much more resilient ecosystem, and also at a time like this, where nobody essentially knows what's going on.
Do you think AWS did a good job of keeping people informed as they move towards recovery?
FISCHER: Yeah, they did. I mean, I got that first update that they had found the heart of the problem, I think, at 02:51 in the morning, Eastern
Time, like within minutes of it going down. And then they had on their engineering and developers blog continuous updates about what was going on
for developers of websites that needed to check in.
So, I do think that they did a pretty good job of communicating to the developer side, the B-to-B side of people who had to fix it. In terms of
the consumer side, what's fascinating here is typically, they rely on their customers to be able to communicate to the users of their apps and services
what's going on.
And that can be a little bit challenging for a consumer. If you were early in the morning to log on to your Disney + and see that it wasn't working.
Log on to your Coinbase account and see that it wasn't working, you wouldn't necessarily have linked them to an Amazon Web Services outages
unless you watch CNN.
So that's where I think there -- could be a little bit challenging is these companies like Amazon, they typically are talking to their B-to-B partners,
but they're not talking directly always to users.
ASHER: That's such a good point. Sara Fischer in Washington for us, live for us. Appreciate it. All right, still to come, a brazen heist at the
louver Museum is sending shock waves through France. We'll have a report from Paris on that just ahead. Plus, a tenuous truce between Hamas and
Israel appears to be holding for now, despite a weekend of violence. Details are ahead.
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ASHER: All right, a U.S. broken ceasefire seems to be holding, despite a new round of deadly attacks. And two key U.S. mediators, Steve Witkoff and
President Donald Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, are back in Israel. They met with the Israeli Prime Minister on the eve of a visit by U.S. Vice
President JD Vance.
The visit follows a flare up in violence. Gaza health officials report at least 45 people were killed in Israeli strikes over the weekend. Israel's
military says it hit Hamas targets after militant fire killed two of its soldiers, Hamas is denying violating the ceasefire.
And an Israeli official says aid deliveries will resume today after they were briefly paused following the violence. CNN's Jeremy Diamond gave us
this update from Jerusalem a short time ago.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: The ceasefire is holding, despite the fact that we saw a day yesterday that could have seen this
collapse altogether. The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes in Gaza yesterday, after it said that Hamas killed two of its
soldiers in an attack in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Following that alleged attack, at least 45 people were killed across the Gaza Strip as the Israeli military unleashed a series of airstrikes in
southern, central and Northern Gaza. The Israeli military says that they went after an underground tunnel route in Gaza and struck at least 15
targets in Southern Gaza alone.
These strikes came after the Israeli Prime Minister held a security consultation with his security team yesterday and vowed to exact a quote
heavy price against Hamas for what Israeli officials were terming a blatant violation of this ceasefire agreement.
Now, in terms of that attack that killed two Israeli soldiers on Sunday morning in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. An Israeli military
official told me that it was RPG fire and sniper fire that was directed at Israeli troops who were behind that yellow line from which Israeli troops
have withdrawn to.
They say that two soldiers were killed, one was severely wounded in this attack, which, again, the Israelis say Hamas was responsible for. Hamas,
for its part, denied any knowledge of this attack, saying that they were committed to this ceasefire. The Al-Qassam brigades, Hamas' military wing,
said that they had no knowledge of any incidents in the Rafah area, and said that their communication had been cut off with their fighters there.
We also saw the Israeli Prime Minister initially order a halt to all aid flows into the Gaza Strip, but then quickly reverse that decision, it would
seem saying that the aid deliveries would resume as soon as those strikes were over. And so today, we are now in a place where those Israeli strikes
have now stopped.
We are seeing the flow of aid resuming into the Gaza Strip again, and Hamas seems prepared to release the body of yet another deceased hostage.
[11:20:00]
In the coming hours or days, it appears that they have located another body of a deceased hostage. And so, for now, the situation is calm once again.
We do know that Jared Kushner, President Trump's son in law, and Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, are on their way to Israel to engage in
meetings, obviously trying to hold this fragile ceasefire together, but also to begin talking about those next steps.
ASHER: All right, thanks to our Jeremy Diamond for that report. All right, still to come here on "One World", we're expecting Australia's Prime
Minister to arrive at the White House any moment now. We'll bring you that as soon as it happens. Plus, millions of Americans turned out across the
country this weekend to say Donald Trump is not a king. Wait until you see what Trump's response was to those protests.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: I want to take you to the White House now. What we're looking at here images from moments ago, President Donald Trump essentially welcoming
the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the White House. One of the major issues that's going to be discussed here is rare earth minerals.
China has been restricting exports of its rare earth minerals. It holds a new monopoly on rare earths, but it's been restricting exports on rare
earths from the beginning of October, Australia is trying to pitch itself as a reliable alternative to that. Another thing that's going to be
discussed is the AUKUS pact, this trilateral security agreement between Australia, the UK and the U.S.
I want to get some perspective in all of this. We're joined now by Markus Garlauskas from the Atlantic Council. He was formerly the U.S. National
Intelligence Officer for North Korea on the National Intelligence Council. Markus, thank you so much for being with us. I want to start by talking
about the relationship between these two men.
[11:25:00]
This is actually the first time they're having this bilateral summit between the Prime Minister of Australia and the U.S. President since
Trump's reelection. They have spoken on the phone four times. I understand it, and also, they did meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Just walk us through first of all, before we get to what they're going to be discussing, the relationship between these two men. And the reason why I
want to start with that is that does appear to be the most important thing for this particular president.
MARKUS GARLAUSKAS, DIRECTOR OF THE INDO-PACIFIC SECURITY INITIATIVE OF THE SCOWCROFT CENTER FOR STRATEGY AND SECURITY: Well, certainly summit
diplomacy requires a good relationship, a good rapport between the leaders, but I think it's underpinned by this long history that Australia, United
States have as allies and training partners.
And so, there's a lot of favorable conditions going into this meeting, lots of opportunity. And I can see that the two leaders will take advantage of
it, and I expect they're going to build a personal rapport.
ASHER: So just in terms of what Prime Minister Albanese is going to be sort of pitching, Australia has a reserve of, I understand, the 31 critical
minerals. The country has graphite, which is used for batteries and electronics. Vanadium, used to make steel, tungsten as well, zirconium as
well.
How does he go about pitching Australia as a reliable alternative to China, given that China has tightened its restrictions on exports of rare earth
minerals?
GARLAUSKAS: Well, in many ways, I think Xi Jinping has done the prime minister a tremendous favor. And all of us really a tremendous favor by
showing how dangerous it is to allow China to have a stranglehold, particularly not on critical minerals overall, but especially on the subset
of critical minerals known as rare earths.
It's a really tiny fraction of the overall trade, less than then 0.5 of 1 percent of U.S. imports are these rare earths, but they're absolutely vital
for so many different things, like cell phones, batteries, even weapon systems. And it's China having a stranglehold on those that's such a
problem.
So, I think it's going to be a pretty easy sell to be able to provide the United States with some alternatives, especially considering the
investments that Australia has been making and its refining capacity.
ASHER: What about the areas where they don't necessarily see eye to eye on and by that, I mean tariffs. I mean the tariffs that the U.S. imposed on
Australia is among the lowest. I mean it was 10 percent still significant, but not as high, obviously, when you compare it to other countries.
And then also you have Australia essentially joining other Western nations, especially several countries in Europe, and recognizing Palestine as a
state. Do we expect those particular issues to come up as well?
GARLAUSKAS: Oh, certainly, they could come up, but I don't expect them to actually dominate the conversation again. There's a lot more common
interest between Australia, United States and between the two leaders than there are differences.
ASHER: And just in terms of one of the other areas, in addition to rare earth, that's going to be discussed here is the AUKUS pact. That is the
trilateral security agreement between the U.S., the UK and Australia. It sort of aims to counter China's growing defense influence across the Asia
Pacific. Just walk us through how that will come up to.
GARLAUSKAS: Well, certainly there's two different aspects to the AUKUS pact. There's AUKUS pillar one which gets the most attention, and that's
the submarine deal. And that is a long-term investment to first provide submarine capabilities in Western Australia from the U.S. and the UK, then
to transition to U.S. built submarines being operated by Australia that they're going to purchase.
And then eventually to have an AUKUS class submarine that's jointly developed, but then Australia will eventually be able to produce on its
own. So, it's a very long-term plan, and it's one that will take a long time to get submarines in the water. But you compare that to AUKUS pillar
two, and that's eight different work streams of advanced capabilities, including things like hypersonic weapons, unmanned vehicles powered by
quantum computing and AI.
These sorts of things that could allow us to be able to field new capabilities jointly with Australia and the UK very quickly with just for
the next couple of years. And so, I expect that a lot of the conversation is actually going to focus on the opportunities in AUKUS pillar two.
Certainly, that's where I would like to see the conversation focus, given the very long timelines and the huge expense of AUKUS pillar one, which is
important but can't be allowed to dominate the conversation on AUKUS.
ASHER: And just quickly, as my last question, just going back to tariffs quickly. I mean, I know you said it's not going to necessarily dominate the
conversation. It will possibly come up. Australia is expected to discuss tariff relief with the U.S. President. Just explain to us how that
conversation is going to go?
Is Trump likely or I mean, I know what I think, but is Trump likely or unlikely to budge when it comes to that?
GARLAUSKAS: Well, President Trump prides himself on being unpredictable and being a tough negotiator.
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So, I think it'd be foolish to try and assess exactly how this is going to go, but certainly I think in this particular moment, President Trump will
see advantage in what Australia can offer in terms of critical minerals overall, and again, specifically, those rare earths.
And I think the advantage that can be gained from being able to get those to counterbalance the leverage that China is trying to apply to the United
States, I think that will allow for a very positive conversation.
ASHER: All right. Markus Garlauskas, thank you so much for joining us here. We're actually going to bring you back on the show as soon as this
bilateral meeting actually begins. So forward to seeing you hopefully in a few moments from now. And here are some headlines that we are watching
today.
Amazon says an issue affecting its cloud computing services AWS created a widespread temporary outage this morning affecting its global clients,
including major U.S. airlines and UK, banks, media, popular apps and websites like Snapchat and Fortnite. The company is still investigating the
reason for the outage.
Donald Trump says he plans to slap new tariffs on Colombia today as punishment for not doing more to stop drug trafficking. He called
Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, an illegal drug leader. Petro has railed against U.S. military attacks on suspected drug votes at sea.
And just hours ago, announced that he would recall Colombia's Ambassador to the U.S. Right, we are in day 20 of the U.S. government shutdown with no
end in sight and no talks planned between Democrats and Republicans. The transportation secretary says he expects travel delays to increase as air
traffic controllers continue to be asked to work without pay.
A federal judge is questioning I.C.E. officials about their clashes with protesters in Chicago. The judge has raised concerns about the use of tear
gas and other violent tactics against demonstrators. She also wants to know why federal agents are resisting her order to wear body cameras while
interacting with protesters.
All right in big cities and small towns across the United States, Americans, millions of Americans, rather, turned out over the weekend for
mass protests against Donald Trump and his policies. One protester seemed to capture the sentiment of the day, saying it's a scary time in America,
with our democracy being dismantled piece by piece.
Organizers say that 7 million people took part in the no kings marches, about 2 million more than the last mass anti-Trump protest in June. As for
the president, he tried to minimize the size of the rallies and took a swipe at those who participated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think it's a joke. I looked at the people, they're not representative of this country,
and I looked at all the brand-new signs paid for. I guess it was paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics. It looks like it was.
We're checking it out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked out. When you look at those
people, those are not representative of the people of our country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President besides San Francisco --
TRUMP: I'm not a king. I'm not a king.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Trump also posted an AI generated video mocking the protests. In it, he's seen flying a fighter jet while wearing a king's crown. The video then
shows Trump dumping excrement on the protesters as well. With more on all this, let's bring in CNN's Politics Senior Reporter Stephen Collinson.
He says that Trump's mockery of the protests is actually as significant as the protests themselves. He actually wrote in his piece, Trump's post is
not only juvenile, but also betrays striking contempt for tens of millions of Americans he ostensibly leads and for the concept of democratic free
speech.
And Stephen Collinson joins us live now. So, Stephen, there's sort of two responses here. There's a response that he made on Air Force One to
reporters, which seems somewhat restrained. And then there's the AI generated image of him wearing a crown and dumping excrement on the
protesters.
You write in your piece and I think this is a good point, that Trump's response, in and of itself, proves that he does believe on some level, that
he has an element of unchecked power, which ironically proves the protesters point too.
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, and that AI generated meme and won by Vice President JD Vance, which showed Democratic
leaders kneeling before the president, is classic Trump tactics. Because on the one hand, they can say, well, anybody that complains about it,
liberals, people in the media just don't have a sense of humor.
They take everything too seriously. But it does reinforce this claim and this feeling that is prevalent among many Trump supporters, that the
country does need a strong man leader, and it's fine for Trump to trample over democratic niceties and the rule of law and stuff like that.
So, this works two ways for Trump, and as usual, he seems to be well ahead of his opponents in using social media. At the same time however, this idea
that these people were just a bunch of liberals pro testing that there was all financed by George Soros.
[11:35:00]
The usual idea is not actually accurate. I mean, there were 7 million people that showed up. That's about 10 percent of the people that voted for
Kamala Harris who left their homes on a Saturday and went to a march or a protest. That's quite significant. And there's really an increasingly
hubristic sense that's creeping into a lot of the administration's actions.
For example, off the coast of Venezuela, these shooting at these alleged drug boats, his handling of a lot of the domestic issues in the United
States. It does seem that this administration is getting into a box, a social media bubble that only listens to conservative voices.
And it will be interesting to see if that plays out. I mean, I think these demonstrations aren't really going to change much, but they could be a hint
of feeling in the United States if Trump pushes his project into a more extreme avenue.
ASHER: Yeah, and that was actually going to be my next question. I mean, you know, the know, the actual efficacy of these protests, I mean, yes, you
have a lot of people, millions of people turning out across the country, apparently, 7 million. And there were, as I understand it, over 2000
different events in various cities and small towns and states across the United States.
But the actual efficacy of these protests in terms of their ability to affect change. What does that actually look like?
COLLINSON: Well, they're not going to be able to effect change at least until the midterm elections, which are a year away. The Democrats don't
have any power really in the Congress. The White House, obviously, is controlled by Republicans as a conservative Supreme Court.
So, the chances of anyone counter minding what Trump is doing now is, you know, very unlikely, but at the same time it shows that not every American
as Trump says supports what he's doing. And that there is potentially resistance building, not just in these marches, but you've seen it with
increasing numbers of universities deciding not to accept the administration's conditions on ideological issues for funding.
You have judges stopping his attempts to send troops into cities. So, I think there is a sense that Trump doesn't have everything in his own way,
and as Democrats try to build to the midterm elections, and more importantly, to the 2028 presidential election, it is an interesting
snapshot into American public opinion and shows that not everyone believes in what Trump is doing.
In fact, it may be a minority of Americans that support this increasingly autocratic administration.
ASHER: I mean, it's interesting, because protests themselves. I mean, that isn't necessarily what is not going to cause change. And what I mean by
that is, under a different president, if you had 7 million people protesting across the country, that would be enough to make the
Republicans, if that was the president in power, sit up, take notice and do something different.
Appeal to those who are protesting in some kind of way. But when you have a president, whose spokesperson literally said last week, who cares? I mean,
the Trump Administration literally does not care. That is part of the issue. So, it's really the fact that under a different kind of president,
this would have been effective, but that's not how you communicate with Donald Trump, is it, Stephen?
COLLINSON: Right, and that's true. This administration has always reasoned that it doesn't need to reach out to the entire country that with Trump's
base and with a significant number of extra voters, that is sustainable to have an administration and for it to be politically viable.
So, you know, if you look to the midterm elections, that's one of the reasons why Trump is trying to get more seats from places like Texas
redrawn to make them more favorable to Republicans, to boost his chances of winning or keeping the House, the Republicans keeping the House.
So, you're right that it doesn't change. Trump doesn't play by the same rules or accept the same political equations of other presidents. I think
the question is, does that eventually come back to haunt him? It did in the 2020 election, which he lost narrowly to Joe Biden.
I don't think he can completely ignore the political currents, but yes, he is much less pervious to them, I think, than many presidents in the past.
ASHER: Right. CNN Politics Senior Writer Stephen Collinson, thank you so much. Right, still to come, President Trump is re upping his call for both
sides to freeze the war in Ukraine along current battle lines. What we can expect from Trump's upcoming meeting with the Russian President just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:40:00]
ASHER: All right, President Trump's latest call to stop the fighting in Ukraine is falling on deaf ears in Moscow, Ukraine's biggest energy
producer, says that coal facilities were attacked again on Sunday. The Kremlin has been ramping up aerial barrages across Ukraine.
This is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested long range Tomahawk missiles during a meeting with Trump on Friday, a request, OK,
we're going to interrupt that because we want to take you back to the White House, where President Trump is meeting with Australian Prime Minister
Anthony Albanese.
TRUMP: -- today -- prime minister --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a few Australians --
TRUMP: -- is --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they're a friendly -- They're all cousin --
TRUMP: -- big boy. It must be a very important country we're dealing with - - Did you want to move your camera over here, or are we going to -- have. Who are you shooting for? Where's the pool?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- single -- Thank you.
TRUMP: Well. Thank you very much. It's great to have the Prime Minister of Australia. Fantastic place. A lot of friends over there, and this is one of
them right here. The prime minister is, as you know, Anthony Albanese, and he's highly respected. Done very well in his election.
And I hear you're very popular today, right? It varies from day to day, but with all of us, but he's done a fantastic job as the prime minister. We're
here to talk about trade, submarines, lots of other military equipment. They're big orders of our great military equipment. We have the best
equipment anywhere in the world, by far.
And oh, you got to watch that, you're not allowed to break that. That mirror is 400 years old. A camera just hit the mirror. I just moved it up
here special from the vaults. And first thing that happens, a camera hits it hard to believe. Isn't it? Hard to believe. But these are the problems
in life.
[11:45:00]
So, we're going to be here to talk about lots of different things, and we might take a few questions before, but we are discussing critical minerals
and rare earths. And we're going to be signing an agreement that's been negotiated over a period of four or five months.
And it was sort of good timing that we got it done just in time for the visit. And we work together very much on rare earths, critical minerals and
lots of other things, and we've had a very good relationship. We've been working on that for quite a while. In about a year from now, we'll have so
much critical mineral and rare earths that you won't know what to do with them.
They'll be worth about $2 but in the meantime, we're working with Australia and other countries. They're working with us too, but other countries also
on that. But we're really working on anything having to do with military, military protection, military ships, vehicles, guns, ammunition,
everything, the whole thing.
We've been long-term, long-time allies, and I would say there's never been anybody better. We fought wars together. We never had any doubts. And it's
a great honor to have you as my friend. It's a great honor to have you in the United States of America. Please, would you like to say something?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Well, thank you so much, Mr. President, for the invitation here to the White House and to for showing us
around the improved Oval Office, and for what you're doing around here as well, and for the great honor as well of my delegation saying just across
the road, we could have walked, but they didn't let us. We drove all of 20 meters there from Blair House.
TRUMP: Yeah.
ALBANESE: But it's a great honor to be able to stay there. We are great friends and we're great allies, and this is a relationship that's been
forged in the battlefields of the world. We have stood side by side for freedom and democracy.
And congratulations, I must say, Mr. President, on the work that you've done with the Middle East is an extraordinary achievement.
TRUMP: Thank you. Yeah.
ALBANESE: And on defense, we've already had a discussion about taking it to the next level. Our defense and security partnership with AUKUS is so
important for us and I thank you for the support that the administration is giving as well. You've had the chief of the Navy here as well.
TRUMP: Right.
ALBANESE: Which will play, obviously, a very critical role with the subs and increasing the security for the region and the world and our economic
relationship is so important. The U.S. has a trade surplus with Australia, as you know, and we can continue to take what is every opportunity to
improve the relationship even further and make it even stronger.
And today's agreement on critical minerals and rare earths is just taking it to the next level, seizing those opportunities which are before us, to
take our relationship to that next level. And it's been fantastic, the contact that we've had together, the friendship that we've developed.
TRUMP: Right.
ALBANESE: And Australians love America. And I think Americans kind of like Australia too.
TRUMP: We do.
ALBANESE: And as we go forward, I think that today will be seen as a really significant day in our relationship. So, thank you very much. Mr.
President.
TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It's an honor to sign this, and we'll do it now. And then we'll take some questions. Some good ones, I think. OK.
ALBANESE: Well, this is an 8.5-billion-dollar pipeline that we have ready to go.
TRUMP: Yeah. That's right, so we ready to go.
ALBANESE: Just getting started.
TRUMP: And we're doing a real job on rare earth and many other things. Perhaps I could ask John to say a few words and then we'll exchange papers.
But just how are we doing on your naval purchases and all of the submarines that we're working on with Australia? How's that going?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Obviously, Australia is a very important ally of ours in the Indo-Pacific and in every battle, they've
fought with us since World War One. And have always been side by side. The facility that they're building surf West is critical and very important to
our ability to project power in the Indo-Pacific work with our allies.
[11:50:00]
So, we're working very closely. I think what we're really trying to do is take the original AUKUS framework and improve it for all three parties, and
make it better and clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement. So, it should be a win-win for everybody, certainly.
TRUMP: And the submarines that we're building for Australia are starting to really move along, right? The process is getting very exciting, isn't it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Getting better.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's good.
TRUMP: Very good.
ALBANESE: Going to be great.
TRUMP: Thank you very much. Maybe we'll hold this up, OK. Thank you very much --
ALBANESE: Thank you --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- that the prime minister just mentioned, it is a critical issue for Australia.
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You haven't really spoken much about it publicly. It was a deal that was done under Joe Biden to sell submarines to Australia at a
time when you're not really making enough for your own nets. So, can you tell us, have you gotten across the details of the deal?
TRUMP: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you support it, and will you honor it?
TRUMP: It was made a while ago, and nobody did anything about it, and it was going too slowly. We do actually have a lot of submarines. We have the
best submarines in the world, anywhere in the world, and we're building a few more currently under construction. And now we're starting, we have it
all set with Anthony.
We've worked on this long and hard, and we're starting that process right now. And it's, I think it's really moving along very rapidly, very well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- getting --
TRUMP: Oh, it's getting, oh no, they're getting --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- at least 32 people have been killed.
TRUMP: Excuse me, you're next --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: China's bad behavior has really only gotten worse since the AUKUS partnership was formed. With that in mind, is the door open
for Australia to get additional nuclear-powered submarines or other military capabilities not already in the deal.
TRUMP: Yeah. I think China has been very respectful of us. They're paying tremendous amounts of money to us, as in the form of tariffs. As you know,
they're paying 55 percent that's a lot of money. They never were paying anything over years and years and years, but they were like anybody else.
A lot of countries took advantage of the U.S. They're not taking advantage anymore. Now China is paying 55 percent and a potential 155 percent come
November 1st, unless we make a deal, and I'm meeting with President Xi, we have a very good relationship. We're going to be meeting in South Korea in
a couple of weeks, and we'll see what we can do.
We have a very good relationship with China. But, you know, it's been probably a little bit like your relationship with China. They try and take
advantage, but most countries do. I mean, I can say the European Union took advantage and -- but not anymore. We worked out a very fair-trade deal
Japan.
We worked out a very fair deal South Korea, where I'll be meeting President Xi. We worked out a very fair deal, and I expect we'll probably work out a
very fair deal with President Xi of China. So, most of you will be with us. It's going to be very exciting, and I think we're going to work out
something that's good for both countries.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- are you at least interested in expediting the nuclear-powered subs to Australia?
TRUMP: Oh, we are doing that. Yeah, we're doing. We have them moving very, very quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, I don't think you've ever been to Australia. Have you thought about coming to Australia and trying out some
of the golf courses?
TRUMP: I would and I actually have been to Australia, and I did play one of your great golf courses. Have great golf courses there, but I have been to
Australia actually. Oh, I would. In fact, I've been invited to go, and I'll have to give it serious consideration. It's a real possibility.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- today.
TRUMP: He did.
ALBANESE: And perhaps we could time it must be said, with the president's cup that Australia hosts as well.
TRUMP: -- what --
ALBANESE: We'll organize a time suit -- Mr. President.
TRUMP: -- back --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, the prime minister mentioned that there's a trade imbalance that's very heavily in America's favor. Why does America
slap such heavy tariffs on a friend --
TRUMP: Well, we -- yeah, well, we do in some cases. We do in many cases, because we've been treated unfairly. But actually, the tariffs are very
light. The one thing is you buy a lot of airplanes. So that helps, because you buy a lot of the beautiful Boeings, the best of the Boeings.
And by the way, Boeing is really doing well. They have lots of orders, and they're really doing a great job. They make a great plan. But Australia,
because of its location, which is great, but one of the things dictated by that location is you have to order a lot of airplanes.
[11:55:00]
So, I guess we have that advantage. They need a lot of airplanes in Australia, and that gives us a little bit of an --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth in his Shangri La speech in I think it was -- warned about the potential
likelihood or threat of President Xi ordering an invasion of Taiwan. 2027 is also the year that fleet-based West is supposed to start rotating those
U.S. and UK submarines. Do you see AUKUS as the deterrent for China in the Indo- Pacific?
TRUMP: Yeah, I do. I think it is, but I don't think we're going to need it. I think we'll be just fine with China. China doesn't want to do that. First
of all, the United States is the strongest military power in the world by far. It's not even close. Not even close. We have the best equipment.
We have the best of everything, and nobody's going to mess with that. And I don't see that at all with President Xi. I think we're going to get along
very well as it pertains to Taiwan and others. Now that doesn't mean it's not the apple of his eye, because probably it is, but I don't see anything
happening.
We have a very good trade relationship. We're going to have a very good I think when we leave South Korea, it could be wrong, but I think we'll end
up with a very strong trade deal. Both of us will be happy. I don't see that happening now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: --Would you consider lifting the tariffs that you've imposed on Australia? And can you give us any details about the critical --
TRUMP: Yeah, well, the tariffs have been amazing because, you know, tariffs have been really a reason that I was able to settle almost all of the you
know, I've settled eight wars in eight months. Not bad. I have one more to go. It's Russia, Ukraine, and I think we'll get there.
But it's turned out to be nasty, because you have two leaders that truly hate each other, you know, can't -- you can't have it all right? They, they
hate each other beyond all else, and it makes it actually a little bit difficult, but we tried, of the eight deals, I would say, because of
tariffs, four or five of them were settled.
It's an amazing thing, the power of tariffs in terms of our country. But tariffs have always been used against us. We never use them against
anywhere else. And now you have a president that, for national security reasons and other reasons, is using them. And we've become a very rich
nation again and a very secure nation again.
But we've also become a nation that used that power of tariffs and the power of trade to settle five of the eight wars that I said I settled
eight. I'm very proud of that nobody else has settled one. I don't think there's been an American President that settled one. I think there probably
hasn't been outside of the two countries involved, or however many are at war.
I don't think there's ever been an outside country that settled the war period. So, I settled eight and eight months. I'm proud of that. Now, in
the meantime, I'm running a country that's right now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We were dead a year and a half ago, we were
a dead country.
Now we're the hottest country in the world economically and otherwise so. But I will say this, Australia pays very low tariffs. Very, very low
tariffs in fact -- Australia pays among the lowest tariffs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- taken nine months to get this meeting. Have you had any concerns with this administration with its stance on Palestine, climate
change, or even things the ambassador said about you in the past, the Australian investment?
TRUMP: I don't know anything about him. If you said bad, then maybe he'll like to apologize. I really don't know. Did an ambassador say something
bad? Don't tell me. Where is he? Is he still working for you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, yeah.
TRUMP: You said bad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before I took this position, Mr. President --
TRUMP: I don't like you either, and it probably never will. Go ahead. You - - go ahead --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- Mr. President, your Secretary of the Navy said there will be some clarifications around, some ambiguities on all this. Can you
tell us --
TRUMP: Well, he'll get that taken these are just minor details -- John, you're going to get that taken care of. There shouldn't be any more
clarifications, because we're just going now full steam ahead building -- Yeah please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, are you now satisfied with Australia's defense investment, or do you want Australia to invest more in defense?
TRUMP: Well, I'd always like more, but they have to do what they have to do. You know, you can only do so much. I think they've been great. They're
building magnificent holding pads for the submarines. It's going to be expensive too. You wouldn't believe the level of complexity, right, and how
expensive it is.
They're building tremendous docking because they have a lot of ships and a lot of things happening. And I think their military has been very strong,
very, very strong -- please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- Mr. President --
END
