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Trump: Won't Meet with Zelenskyy Until Deal is "In its Final Stages"; Delayed Data Returns After Shutdown, Sheds Light on Economy; U.S. Wholesale Inflation Heated Up in September; Holiday Rush Underway as Millions Take Off; AAA: The Earlier You Travel the Better; "Slender Man" Stabbed to be Returned to WI After Escape Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 25, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: ... also calls marriage the stable, lifelong and exclusive partnership between a man and a woman. And be sure to start your Thanksgiving with CNN. For live coverage of the biggest parades across the country, you can join our colleagues Sara Sidner, John Berman and Erica Hill for Thanksgiving in America. It starts Thursday at 8 A.M. on CNN. You can also watch on the CNN app. Always a fun day to see Thanksgiving across America. It's going to be a great time.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

Ukraine's president wants to meet with President Trump to hopefully get a peace deal with Russia across the finish line, but Trump, in a post to social media moments ago, throwing cold water on the idea of a meeting until the deal is basically finished.

DEAN: Plus, key economic data delayed by the government shutdown is finally out now with the numbers say about the state of the U.S. economy. We're going to break that down for you.

And pack your conscience, travel experts say Americans need to mind their Ps and Qs on a plane. We're going to discuss that and why one transportation official thinks airplanes should be a pajama free zone.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news right now on the ongoing peace talks between the United States and Ukraine and Russia. President Trump just posted to social media that he is directing U.S. officials to engage in direct talks with President Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian officials as well.

He then goes on to say this, quote, "I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but only when the deal to end this war is final or in its final stages."

DEAN: A Ukrainian source with direct knowledge says there is no final deal yet as the two sides work through some key sticking points. Ukraine wants a meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump within the next few days. Details also emerging about a potential reassurance force which could deploy to Ukraine after a ceasefire.

French President Emmanuel Macron revealing for the first time the U.S. would be involved in the security guarantees. Here to talk more about all of this, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer. It's great to have you here. He is now an affiliate with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

So, we're getting this new post from the President saying that he is directing U.S. officials to engage at direct -- in direct talks with President Putin and also with Zelenskyy at the same time and that -- then he will meet with them later. How would you assess where we are at this moment?

STEVEN PIFER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, it appears that a lot is going on both in U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Ukrainian channels. But there are still some fairly major issues out there that I think have to be resolved where the sides, the Russians and the Ukrainians have very different views. One is the question of territory. Second is the question of the size of the Ukrainian army. And third is the question of security guarantees.

And at this point, it's not yet clear whether progress has been made in narrowing the differences between Moscow and Kyiv on those very important questions.

DEAN: And how would -- how would you say that this administration is doing in -- in equitably pushing each side to the negotiating table? In other words, that original plan was very, very much slanted toward Russia. We're told now that it has evolved. But -- but are you confident that this is something that could be fair?

PIFER: Well, the plan I think that we saw last week, this 28-point plan, I think was seriously flawed in that it incorporated major Russian positions and did not have a lot in there that was going to appeal to the Ukrainians. Secretary of State Rubio met with the Ukrainians for most of the day on Sunday and appears to have come up with a revised, updated framework that is more acceptable to the Ukrainians, although that is -- may be -- make that position then less acceptable to the Russians.

At the end of the day, I think it's still going to require some tough pressure on Moscow, which at least publicly has not shown any deviation from its original demands, which really amount to the capitulations by the Ukrainians.

DEAN: Yes. And so, what kind of pressure do you think is going to have to be applied to Russia to get them there, to something where they will be conceding on some of these things they've said ...

PIFER: Yes.

DEAN: ... they must have?

PIFER: Yes. Well, I think the Ukrainians have shown flexibility. We haven't seen that flexibility in Moscow. So, it would require things like, for example, imparting the sanctions that the Trump administration announced last month on Russian oil exports, really tightening that to reduce the revenues that Russia acquires from selling its oil abroad.

[15:05:00]

A second step really is mainly with the Europeans, is to work out this plan that would allow them to use Russian frozen central bank assets to back a loan of perhaps $170 billion to Ukraine. If you did that, the message to the Russians would be that the Ukrainian military will have the funds it needs to arm itself for two, three years, or maybe even longer. And then Moscow has to ask itself, does it really want to continue this war at great cost for only marginal gains on the battlefield. And I believe that that kind of pressure is what's going to be required to push the Russians to negotiate in a more compromising and serious way.

DEAN: And then what about these security assurances? What do you think is the most realistic outcome there for Ukraine?

PIFER: Well, one guarantee that I think would be very important is that the Ukrainians have either no limits on the size of their military or a sufficiently large limit. And the West provides Ukraine with the weapons so that Ukraine can make clear that any renewal of the Russian war would be very expensive to the Russians. But also, you have the Europeans talking about this coalition of the willing that would put a -- forces -- European forces, on the ground in Ukraine that could reassure the Ukrainians and back up any peace settlement. And if in fact there is now an American connection, that might be the key point that the Europeans were waiting for.

And then, I would also argue that at least the idea that Ukraine at some point might be able to join NATO, it would be good to keep that possibility open because that would also be a very strong guarantee for Ukraine's security.

DEAN: All right. We'll see how it unfolds. Steven Pifer, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

PIFER: Thank you.

DEAN: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Turning now to the economy, an abundance of data coming in today. Much of it delayed several weeks because of the recent U.S. government shutdown. First on wholesale inflation, prices heating up in September, rising by 0.3 percent. That aligns with expectations. But after stripping out volatile energy and food costs, which analysts do to get a more reliable measure on inflation, the annual wholesale rate is 2.6 percent, the lowest since July. That is better than expected.

Speaking of volatile, though, energy costs, according to data that AAA shared with CNN for the first time since the start of President Trump's second term, Americans are paying slightly higher prices at the pump than they were at the same point last year under former President Biden. The current national average gas price is hovering around $3.05 a gallon.

Let's speak with David Gura about this. He's an anchor and correspondent for Bloomberg News. David, thanks so much for being with us. Energy prices accounted for about two-thirds of that goods index monthly increase. What's driving that?

DAVID GURA, ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Yes, we're seeing that in both of these sets of data. So, you see it in -- in, yes, the inflation data that you mentioned a moment ago, but in retail sales as well. People are spending more money on gas across this country. And it just happens to be something that's been really persistent. This part of inflation has been persistent now for many months, and that comes in the face of what the President has promised, that gas prices are going to go down. And it's something that's going to become increasingly difficult for Americans to bear Boris as we get into the holiday season, of course, Thanksgiving first, but then the December holidays as folks are -- are traveling more.

It's just a facet of inflation here that's really stymieing economists. And I think when you look at this data, you mentioned this is a few weeks old. You know, we would have gotten this data back in October. Looking back to September, we're accustomed to inflation data, the retail sales data being backward-looking by nature. These aren't real-time data. But to have this much of a lag really puts economists in a very tough position and puts policymakers in a difficult position as well.

So, we're looking ahead to this Federal Reserve meeting here in a couple of weeks. Those policymakers will gather around a table in Washington. Usually, they have this dashboard that's full of -- full of information, economic data, market data as well. They're getting pieces of it now, but nowhere near the full picture that they would have customarily.

And so, those energy prices are certainly going to be something that's going to be startling to them and going to be factoring into their calculus as they decide whether or not to cut rates in December.

SANCHEZ: I do want to ask you about some new Bloomberg reporting that portends some interesting potential futures, a potential change in leadership at the Fed and who might lead it. But I did want to ask you about the wholesale inflation news, because some firms are shielding customers from the brunt of tariffs on imported goods. Do you know in which sectors that's happening and -- and how much longer that can be sustained?

GURA: I don't know it on a sector-by-sector basis, but it's something that you can kind of see in this data beginning to manifest itself. So, I mentioned a lot of this is -- is backward-looking. And I think what it does is lay the groundwork for kind of a rockier road or difficulty to come here. And you see consumers who are kind of holding back on some of their purchases of -- of bigger ticket items. And we've been talking about, yes, wholesale inflation, retail sales. But another kind of raft of data that we got this morning had to do with consumer confidence, how Americans feel about the economy. That came from the conference board. And we're seeing Americans feeling more anxiety about their ability to

pay for all sorts of things, but big-ticket purchases in -- in particular, vehicles, household appliances.

[15:10:03]

And -- and I think manifest in that, Boris, is this sense that they don't know where prices are headed. They're worried about inflation. And to the point that you just made, we've had companies who, during the first part of this trade war, have been able to keep a lot of those prices contained to the companies themselves. They haven't passed them on to consumers. Their ability to do that is starting to erode. And I think that's -- that's leading to the apprehension, the anxiety among consumers that they're going to see these prices start to rise more than they have already.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you think the Fed might do come that meeting in a few weeks.

GURA: Well, you look at what the market expects here, there's now a wider agreement among investors that the Fed is likely to cut interest rates by another quarter point when they meet again in December. We'll see what happens there. I think what you see in really stark relief, though, as you listen to what Fed policymakers have to say and what they're writing, is a really stark divide. And I think part of that is colored by the fact that we just don't have a holistic sense of how this economy is doing. You get data like the data that we got today, which is old, as we've been talking about. And you're, kind of, wondering about the state of the economy and the effects that another cut might have.

There's certainly a contention to Fed policymakers, Boris, who think that if the Fed were to cut once again, that could reignite inflation. This is a moment that's incredibly perilous for the Fed. They've been focused on inflation, but now they're starting to see cracks emerging in the labor market.

Of course, they have a mandate to look at both things. And they're -- they're going to tread very diligently here and difficultly here going forward.

SANCHEZ: President Trump has not been shy about criticizing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which he appointed. But I -- I understand that Bloomberg has sources telling you and others that there's another name being floated as a potential replacement.

GURA: So, we have this list of five finalists that the President is reviewing. We understand the last day of a second round of interviews was today that was being conducted by the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And there are kind of former Fed officials, current Fed officials, one Wall Street executive as well. But Bloomberg is reporting today that Kevin Hassett, who's the President's Chief Economic Advisor, who's on that list, has now floated to the top. He's the frontrunner for that job.

And so, it just raises a host of interesting questions about Fed independence, what it would mean for the President's closest economic advisor to get that job, should he be nominated and confirmed by -- by the Senate. But in this kind of parlor game of who's going to be on top, it seems like Kevin Hassett, Boris, is -- is now the frontrunner for the White House.

SANCHEZ: An interesting report. We'll have to see how it plays out.

David Gura, thank you so much for the time.

GURA: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, the Thanksgiving travel period is going to be the busiest in 15 years. So, if you're not at your destination already, get ready to hurry up and wait. And on top of that, there's some bad weather in the forecast at certain airports.

DEAN: Plus, body cam video showing the moment police found the woman who stabbed her classmate when she was just 12 years old. What she told police right after they captured her.

Plus, how voters in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's district are reacting to her surprise resignation.

That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:17:08]

DEAN: America is on the move at record-breaking levels this Thanksgiving. The FAA says more than 52,000 flights are scheduled today, the peak of what is predicted to be the busiest Thanksgiving season in 15 years. But air travel pales in comparison to the number of people hitting the road.

SANCHEZ: Yes, AAA says about 90 percent of Americans are going to travel by car. That's 73 million people. Let's check in with CNN's Pete Muntean at Reagan National Airport in D.C. Pete, the weather has not been cooperating in some places, and I understand that no one has brought you a hot dog yet.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: And few visitors, too. You know, we're talking about all these people moving. That Pete Muntean's committed. All of my media cohorts, actually, have left the TSA Terminal 2 door (ph) checkpoint. We're the only ones left. 2.7 million people here passing through TSA security checkpoints like this one here at Reagan National Airport. It has been getting a little busier as the day goes on.

The busy days, though, still ahead. Sunday's going to be huge, according to the TSA. Three million people passing through TSA security checkpoints nationwide on Sunday. It's no wonder that the AAA statistics bear this out. About 90 percent of people will drive over this Thanksgiving travel period. We're talking about 80 million people in total. It is a huge number. AAA's Aixa Diaz tells me now is pretty much the worst time for you to

drive, 3 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, think about school, think about work and then add on the holiday travel on top of that. You should really try and avoid it right now, and there are a couple strategies here. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AIXA DIAZ, AAA SPOKESPERSON: The earlier the better, 7 A.M., 8 A.M. You get a head start. What happens is traffic builds, and these metro areas get extremely congested. And if you've got people who are, again, trying to get off work or people who are just traveling through your metro area to get to their destination, that just adds a lot of traffic. So, think of those interstates and give yourself plenty of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Okay, look at the departures board here. Things are relatively good, although you see some of the delays building there. Places like Atlanta, where the air traffic control tower had to be evacuated for about 10 minutes this morning because that spot just got walloped by storms this morning and pretty big wind gusts.

We're not totally out of the woods yet. The delays are going up. We've hit about 2,400 delays nationwide, according to FlightAware. The cancellations, though, relatively low, only about 70 nationwide. That is a very, very good day, and right now no ground stops, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, although we could see some pop as the day goes on. So, we'll see. Still pretty young this day. Things could change on a dime, and we know some weather is coming here for DCA as well.

DEAN: Only 3.19 P.M., much more to go, Pete Muntean. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

[15:20:03]

Still ahead, new details on the arrest of a woman who stabbed her classmate when she was just 12 years old. The moment police found her after she ran away from a group home. Stay with us.

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[15:24:51]

DEAN: Today, the woman who was institutionalized after stabbing her friend 19 times in the name of the fictional "Slender Man" when she was just 12 years old appeared in court. Morgan Geyser will be returned to Wisconsin from Cook County, Illinois. The judge set the bond at no bail. Remember, Geyser escaped a group home over the weekend after cutting off her monitor. Appeared in court. Morgan Geyser will be returned to Wisconsin from Cook County, Illinois. The judge set the bond at no bail.

SANCHEZ: Remember, Geyser escaped a group home over the weekend after cutting off her monitor bracelet and then taking off. She was found late Sunday night sleeping at a truck stop some 150 miles away. Police finding her with an adult acquaintance she had been traveling with. CNN Correspondent Jean Casarez joins us now.

Jean, take us through what you've learned.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's what we've learned today, because she waived her extradition and very quickly she waived it. So, there's no fight there. And now, Wisconsin authorities have the legal justification to come in and to take her back to the jurisdiction where this all began. Waukesha County. And that is very close to Milwaukee. And that is where in 2014 she stabbed her 12-year- old classmate 19 times. And miraculously she survived because she crawled to where there was a bicyclist.

But we have learned some information from the prosecutor that is very interesting. And we do know that Saturday night around 8 o'clock is when we believe -- and authorities are saying she cut off her electronic monitoring bracelet and fled the group home. Well, the prosecutor's office did not find this out in Waukesha County where the victim's family is until 24 hours later.

And they say for 24 hours she's on the loose. They don't know where she is. We were not told, the district attorney said, to be able to tell the family to be able to protect our community where this all happened. And they said the Department of Health Services did not contact them. And they're very upset about that because of that issue of safety for all right there. But they are grateful there's been an extradition now. And they are saying that they hope without delay that she comes back to Wisconsin. Her alleged actions this past weekend only reinforce our position that a conditional release is not appropriate at this time.

So, that's what they're pushing for. The Department of Health Services has the custody of her now. Talking about Morgan. And so, they will actually make the decision if they are going to ask her to go back to that state hospital. Now, while all of that is happening, you may remember that when she cut off that electronic bracelet on Saturday night, there were some surveillance cameras in the area that saw her with an adult person. That adult person has come forward and has said that they actually went on a bus with Morgan into Illinois, did a lot of walking to a small town.

Now, our affiliate actually spoke with this person that was with Geyser at the type (ph) of the apprehension at the truck stop and who asked our CNN affiliate WKOW to be identified as Charly Mecca. Listen to what Charly Mecca, Morgan's companion, said about why they were in Illinois and a little bit about how he feels about Morgan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLY MECCA, GEYSER'S FRIEND: We understand how to talk to each and validate and just how to communicate in a really good and healthy way. And it was -- it was really nice. I was like, I don't hate you. I think clearly you're not that person anymore. And you're trying really hard to move away from it. That much is very obvious. He ran because of me. She already made it clear if I didn't go with her or not, she was still going. And she was not going back to jail. And I know what that means. And I was scared and I was nervous and I still chose to, for my friend, who I knew wasn't going to make it on her own.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Prosecutors are saying that they argued in January for her to stay in the state hospital. And again, they argued it this March. We didn't know about that, but they say for two reasons. Number one, she was reading books about murders. And number two, she was actually communicating with someone who sells murder memorabilia. That is from an actual murder online. And she was actually communicating with that person. And that's why they knew it was the wrong decision to have her released to the group home.

SANCHEZ: Jean Casarez, thank you so much for that reporting.

Ahead, a message from the Department of Transportation, stop wearing your pajamas on a plane. How Secretary Duffy wants to stop unruly passengers to bring back what he calls a golden age of travel. We'll discuss next.

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