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The Situation Room

Trump's Use of A.I. Videos; Trump Administration Pressures Higher Education; Trump to Welcome NATO Head to White House; Louvre Heist Investigation Continues. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 22, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:02]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Plus: President Trump's crime crackdown plan in court. What the administration argues as it fights to send the National Guard to Chicago.

Also, all the president's A.I., how President Trump is embracing artificial intelligence to troll his political rivals.

And, later, automating Amazon, new reporting on Amazon's plans to replace half-a-million workers with robots.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is on assignment today, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Happening now: French President Emmanuel Macron is urging to rapidly tighten security at the Louvre following Sunday's brazen jewelry heist. Meanwhile, about 100 investigations -- investigators are now involved in a manhunt for the thieves. This morning, French lawmakers are grilling the head of the museum about the security failures behind that daytime robbery.

The Paris prosecutor now says the stolen jewels are worth $102 million, but that doesn't factor in the historical value of the gems. Police are still searching for the thieves, but they say they are making some progress in the investigation.

Let's go live right now to CNN senior international correspondent Melissa Bell. She's joining us from Paris.

Melissa, what's the latest?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing this Laurence des Cars, who's the director of the Louvre, spending -- for the first time, she's spoken. She's speaking out even now, Wolf, in front of this Senate committee defending her record, defending the security arrangements of the Louvre.

This is a woman who's faced calls for her resignation as a result of this. She's just been speaking to what you mentioned a moment ago, the fact that the French president has announced a tightening of security at all French museums.

But, of course, for those $102 million worth of jewelry, that will be way too little, way too late. As you said, we have now got a figure on the amount, that those eight jewels that were stolen in that very brazen heist on Sunday morning represent, although we're getting this from the Paris prosecutor.

She's warning also, Wolf, that, if the jewels are broken down, it may be harder to get the full value for them. Certainly, a lot of people are starting to come to terms with the fact that France is very unlikely to recover the jewels in the pristine condition in which they were stolen.

As far as the investigators, 100 investigators working around the clock on this to try and make progress. And whilst we don't know more about the whereabouts of the robbers or the jewels at this stage, Wolf, all these days after the heist, they do say that they are making a lot of progress.

For instance, they say that they have, secured that truck, remember, that was used with that mechanical lift that allowed the robbers to get into that first-floor window. They are combing it for fingerprints. They have recovered a glove, one of the scooters that was used, a motorcycle helmet.

According to French press reports, that truck was stolen from a company that had tried to sell it a couple of weeks before. They have spoken to their owner of that truck who'd had it stolen, who recognized it that day by seeing it on the news and called up investigators to say that he believed it was his stolen truck.

So they are making progress, and there is a determined effort to try and figure out what happened. They do believe, at this stage, that even though there has been no huge breakthrough so far, certainly, in what terms of what we have been able to learn, they do believe that they will catch these robbers.

That's something they have been repeating ever since Emmanuel Macron said it shortly after the burglary. They intend to catch them and find the jewels. The question is what state they will be in by the time they do, Wolf.

BLITZER: They really have to learn the lessons of the security failures, enormous security failures. Where was the security for -- when this brazen daytime robbery took place?

Have you seen any evidence that they have improved security since then? Have they taken specific steps already?

BELL: This is the first day that the Louvre has been reopened, Wolf.

Certainly, on the day of the burglary, there was an altercation, we understand, inside between the security guards and the robbers. But, clearly, what we have been hearing, we have been hearing it just now from the director of the museum in front the Senate committee. We have been hearing it from France's culture minister these last few days, that security was what it needed to be, et cetera, et cetera.

Obviously, there was a huge security brief, and we understand also that there was this auditor's report that was going to come out looking at the fact that it believed that there were serious flaws in the security arrangements specifically of the Louvre, for instance, a lot of rooms that didn't have the security cameras, the CCTV cameras, that they needed.

So this critical report of the security arrangements at the Louvre going back from 2019, Wolf, to 2024 was going to come out anyway. So, clearly, these security breaches now have led to the calls for resignation, these calls for scalps. So far, it has cost no one their job.

But, certainly, the priority now will be to make sure that French museums are better guarded than they have been in the past, Wolf.

BLITZER: Where were the security cameras, Melissa?

[11:05:04]

BELL: There were security cameras inside that room. This is not one of those rooms that I mentioned that did not have security cameras.

And we understand that investigators are looking at that. There's also some footage that we have been able to show on our air where you see clearly these robbers in their yellow vests workman's vests. We understand they must have put them on to pretend that they were doing work outside the Louvre to go with the truck.

You can see them breaking into this window. You can see that footage from inside. So there are a lot of elements that the investigators are able to go on, forensics, DNA that they will be able to collect from all of these pieces of evidence that have been left behind, either those that were used to get into the room or those that they left behind by mistake, things like, for instance, the glove, the helmet, the scooter that's now been found, and the truck.

Remember, they tried to burn it before they left, failed to do so. So these are important clues that investigators feel will allow them to retrace their steps and find the burglars responsible, Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, let's hope. Melissa Bell in Paris for us, thank you very much.

Also happening now, President Trump is getting ready to welcome the head of NATO to the White House. Mark Rutte's visit comes just days after the president urged Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war. Rutte and other European leaders have tried to convince President Trump to back Ukraine more forcefully.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is here with me in THE SITUATION ROOM.

What can you tell us, Kevin, about this meeting?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. Mark Rutte is seen as something of a Trump whisperer. They have a

fairly good relationship, and he essentially got on this airplane to come to Washington at the last minute after that meeting that the president held in the Cabinet Room with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday that turned quite tense.

And I think his mission here will be two fold. One is to get a better sense from President Trump about where exactly his thinking is on the Russia Ukraine war.

You know, he's been zigzagging back and forth. Last week, he said he wanted to meet Putin in Budapest within two weeks. Yesterday, the White House saying that there is no imminent meeting scheduled between the two men. I think he wants to get a picture about what exactly President Trump's thinking is here.

President Trump did say yesterday he would update us in two days on where his head is at. The president blows through deadlines all the time, so I'm not sure we should hold our breath for that, but that's the one thing.

The other thing is to convey what the European point of view on all of this is. You know, European leaders have really been rushing to sort of bolster Zelenskyy after that meeting on Friday. There's talk about potentially coming up with a European peace plan for Ukraine.

Obviously, that's going to require a lot of buy-in from President Trump himself. And so I think he wants to brief the president on what their viewpoints is to ensure that he's sort of on board.

BLITZER: And the NATO allies are now buying U.S. military hardware, which they're then making available to Ukraine, but U.S. taxpayers are getting paid by the NATO allies for this.

LIPTAK: Yes. And this is a scheme that President Trump sort of put together at the NATO summit at The Hague back in June.

The big weapon that Ukraine wants and that it hasn't gotten yet are those long-range Tomahawk missiles, 100 -- or 1,000-mile range. It would allow them to put potentially even Moscow in their targets. That is what Zelenskyy came to this meeting on Friday to try and urge the president to allow.

He stopped well short of that. But, obviously, this setup whereby NATO transfers these weapons onward to Ukraine is a big sort of thing that the president likes to tout. It was a big accomplishment, and it has allowed Ukraine to maintain a lot of its defenses.

BLITZER: Why is the White House backing away from that Tomahawk cruise missile transfer to Ukraine? They need weapons like that.

LIPTAK: Yes, I think that there are a couple concerns.

One is just the idea of escalation. And Vladimir Putin has said pretty explicitly, if the United States allows Ukraine to get these weapons, it would amount to an escalation, because they would potentially require U.S. training. They would potentially require U.S. manufacture. So that's one of the big questions.

The other issue that the president has raised is that these weapons are not in limitless supply. You know, stockpiles could potentially dwindle if the U.S. needs them down the line for its own conflict with potentially China, with potentially Russia. The president wants them on hand. So those are the two reasons I think that he stopped short of that.

BLITZER: Those are the reasons they're citing. Let's see what happens. All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you very, very much for that.

Still ahead, after months of pressure on public universities, the White House is apparently close to a far-reaching deal with one of them. What this means for the administration's broader ambitions to try to influence higher education here in the United States.

And appetite for A.I., how President Trump is using the technology to rib his opponents.

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[11:14:19]

BLITZER: New this morning, CNN is learning that the University of Virginia is close to accepting a deal with the Trump administration. It would be the first with a public university, as President Trump tries to exert influence over policies, curriculum and research at the nation's top schools.

I want to bring in our senior White House reporter, Betsy Klein, right now.

You're doing a lot of reporting on this. What are you learning this morning?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, we have learned that the University of Virginia is on the cusp of an agreement with the Trump administration.

And this is significant because it would mark the first public university to reach some sort of a settlement deal with the Trump administration. Now, the deal is not yet final, but under the current terms of the agreement, according to an administration official, UVA is not expected to pay any sort of financial settlement.

[11:15:05]

That is something that we saw with schools like Columbia University and Brown University. UVA is also not expected to have a monitor to look at compliance with this deal. That is something that Columbia came under much scrutiny for because of the oversight factor there from the federal government.

And, in return, the Trump administration is going to halt all ongoing investigations on civil rights into UVA. UVA and the White House both declined to comment. But this is all much part of a much broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on higher education, setting up a broader fight over federal funding, academic freedom, and campus oversight.

And earlier this year, UVA president James Ryan was forced to resign under mounting pressure from the Trump Department of Justice. They said, in their view, that UVA was not dismantling its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs fast enough.

Now, it also comes as the Trump administration is launching a separate deal with a number of universities, including UVA, that they have described as a compact for academic excellence in higher education. This is a series of demands in exchange for expanded access to federal funding. This is a different deal from the one UVA is expected to agree to.

And under those demands, they want things like a cap on international students, removing factors like sex and ethnicity from admissions considerations. They want them to foster what they describe as a vibrant marketplace of ideas with no one dominant political ideology and a freeze on tuition for five years, among others.

UVA just last week declined to sign on to that. They said that, instead, they would like to launch into what they described as a collaborative conversation with the Trump administration.

BLITZER: These major universities all over the country, they're reluctant to let the federal government intervene and dictate to them how they can run a university.

KLEIN: Certainly, but they're also facing very serious pressure and financial constraints, as the Trump administration has the power to curb some of that very critical federal funding that they need for their higher education research.

BLITZER: Yes, a lot of these universities losing millions and millions of dollars in federal research grants because the Trump administration doesn't like what they're doing.

All right, Betsy Klein, thank you very, very much for that update.

Up next, a SITUATION ROOM special report. We're digging into President Trump's use of A.I. and Internet memes to troll and sometimes mock his political opponents.

Stay with us. You will want to see this.

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[11:22:09]

BLITZER: Now to THE SITUATION ROOM special report. President Trump appears to be fully embracing artificial intelligence using the tools to troll his opponents.

He recently posted this A.I.-generated video of himself wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet and dumping waste on the No Kings protests that we saw nationwide this past weekend. And for the most part, President Trump's allies seem largely unbothered by his use of doctored videos and images.

CNN's Tom Foreman has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the unauthorized use of a popular song and an unabashed taste for trolling, President Donald Trump has once again posted an A.I.-generated video, ridiculing millions of Americans who oppose him and energizing those on his side.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Something as absurd as protesting kings in a country without kings doesn't merit anything more than a meme with poop landing on protesters.

FOREMAN: Fake videos of former President Barack Obama being arrested, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a mariachi and a dark promise to keep firing federal workers as the government shutdown grinds on. The White House shrugs off the parade of presidential propaganda as just good fun.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He likes to share memes. He likes to share videos. He likes to repost things that he sees other people post on social media as well. And I think it's quite refreshing that we have a president who is so open and honest.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will make America great again.

(CHEERING)

FOREMAN: Trump's campaign to retake the White House last year sizzled with A.I. created images, including this one claiming mega pop star Taylor Swift endorsed him, although she actually ended up backing Democrat Kamala Harris. And these after Trump lied about Haitian immigrants in a debate.

TRUMP: They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats.

FOREMAN: As president, Trump posted this A.I. video months ago suggesting he would turn war-torn Gaza into a beach resort, and this one of him dancing with billionaire Elon Musk, and more and more and more.

"The New York Times" found Trump has posted A.I.-generated images or videos at least 62 times on his TRUTH Social account since late 2022.

(on camera): It's all counterfeit, much of it patently untrue. Yet top Republicans show virtually no qualms with Trump's fakery.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): He is using satire to make a point. He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents. And that's what these people are doing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Tom Foreman is here with us in THE SITUATION ROOM right now.

[11:25:02]

Tom, could this indicate more willingness within the GOP or the MAGA movement, for that matter, to embrace the technology, especially this kind of use?

FOREMAN: Well, as hard as it is to separate the GOP from the MAGA movement at this point, with Trump sort of owning the party, what it does lean toward is what the Trump administration has put out as its action plan for artificial intelligence, which basically says we want to lead the world, we want to be the best at it, but, really important, hidden in that action plan are principles that will drive more and more of what we just saw.

They keep saying, we want politically neutral, we want fair information that doesn't push false ideas. The problem is, they have also made it clear in this White House that they think it's a false idea if you put out a poll that shows that Trump is doing very badly, if you put out a poll that shows he's the least successful president of modern times, according to many voters out there.

The other part about this that is not clearly addressed in this big action plan, they nod to the idea of let's look out for American workers. But most -- a tremendous number of American workers, when they look at A.I., they may even like Donald Trump and they may like all the stuff he's doing, but they're saying yes, but what about the part about my job?

Am I going to lose my job to A.I.? There is real fear about that, and their plan right now doesn't address that much, other than to say, don't worry about it, we will fix it.

BLITZER: Interesting.

All right, Tom Foreman, excellent report. Thank you very, very much. Appreciate it.

Just ahead: People in both parties are now calling on President Trump to negotiate with Democrats on the reopening of the federal government, as the shutdown is now in day 22. We will ask Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks what it will take for his party to bridge the gap.

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