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Inside Politics
White House: "Delicate, But Not Insurmountable" Details Remain; Ukrainian Official: Zelenskyy Hopes To Visit U.S. By End Of Month; White House Backs Off Healthcare Plan After GOP Pushback; 15 Years Later, GOP Still Searching For Obamacare Alternatives; The Annual Pardoning Of The Thanksgiving Turkey. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired November 25, 2025 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: War or peace? The White House says Russia and Ukraine are on the verge of a peace deal. But one big question, what do the Russians think.
I'm Audie Cornish in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.
We begin with this. The U.S., Ukraine and Russia may be on the cusp of a deal to end the war sparked by Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion nearly four years ago. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy could come to Washington as soon as this week to finalize a U.S.-Ukrainian plan to end the war.
Now this morning, the White House press secretary bragged a tremendous progress, but added, quote, there were a few delicate but not insurmountable details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. So, the question becomes, what does Russia think about all of this?
We've got Matthew Chance here to talk more about what's going on. And Matthew, so far, what are you learning about the state of this deal, which as of the weekend, had 28 points, and I gather it's shrunk since then.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it shrunk. I mean, one of the reports suggests it shrunk to about 19 points. We don't know exactly what's in and out, but it's been a process of eliminating some of the issues that the Ukrainians had argued successfully with nothing to do with them, things like what to do with the money that was held in Russian, money that was held in in European accounts and things like that, and what would happen with European planes and those kinds of aspects of the deal?
And they've whittled it down to some of the areas, apparently, that they kind of all agree on. Because remember, what we're seeing here is an attempt to negotiate, not a peace deal with Russia at this stage. That's the next step. What we're currently seeing is an attempt to negotiate a common position between the United States, Ukraine and their European backers as well. And so, the situation is that there are still some points that have to be negotiated. Marco Rubio, over the weekend in Geneva, where I was up until this morning, made this point. It's been made again in Abu Dhabi with U.S. generals who have been meeting their Ukrainian counterparts in that country, in that city as well.
Basically, they are synchronized. There's a lot of agreement, but there are still some outstanding issues. What those outstanding issues are likely to be pretty significant. We're talking about, will Ukraine agree to surrender territory, territory that's been, you know, kind of defended at the cost of tens of thousands of lives for the past several years. That's what Russia wants.
Ukraine has always said that's a red line. Things like, the future state of the country. Will it be a NATO member? Will it renounce NATO membership? And issues like, will Ukraine accept a cap on its military? The 28-point U.S. back plan suggested a cap of 600,000 people in the standing army. The Europeans push back against that, saying that's not enough. That could leave Ukraine open to a third invasion.
So, it's those sorts of issues, which U.S. officials are characterizing a small and in the words of Marco Rubio, not insurmountable, that are actually the real sticking points in this negotiation to forge a common position. And then once you have that common position, then you've got to go over to the Russian side and see what they say about it.
And so far, the Russians have been utterly unwilling to accept anything in terms of a compromise on their core maximalist positions. And we've heard nothing over the past couple of days to suggest that's going to change.
CORNISH: OK, Matthew Chance, thank you for the latest. And I want to bring in a group of great reporters here at the table to talk about this. Zolan Kanno-Youngs, I want to start with you, because you had been doing a lot of writing about, let's just say the Marco Rubio of it all, unlike the peace plan in the Middle East, where the featured players were sort of like Witkoff, and then there's Jared. Marco Rubio is really playing a strong role here. How and why?
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he's got, I mean, I've almost lost count of the number of jobs he's had in the administration, and when you talk to White House officials. This is somebody the president and Susie Wiles and others really count on in these complex negotiations. Kushner and Witkoff have had a role, though, in this as well.
[12:05:00]
After the Middle East peace plan, they basically went to the White House and said they wanted to replicate a sort of same model--
CORNISH: That's why I'm asking, like, is there a sense that, look that was successful, so now maybe this could be. KANNO-YOUNGS: 100 percent. And there's also some criticism from some foreign policy experts, of like, you can't just compare two really complex foreign policy issues and replicate the same model immediately. But Kushner, Witkoff went to the White House after the Middle East peace plan and said, look, we drafted up points from every side here and tried to find the red lines and bridge the divide with Middle East. We want to do the same with Ukraine. That leads to multiple meetings with Ukrainians and Russians in Miami as well. Now you have Rubio involved too, but it was a hectic weekend for Marco Rubio as well.
CORNISH: Yeah, it was.
KANNO-YOUNGS: When you talk about his meeting with Senate Republicans. What came out of that meeting was Senate Republicans saying this was essentially a Russian wish list. Rubio immediately denying that as well.
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: Yeah. Let me play an example of that. Representative Don Bacon, he's a Republican from Nebraska. This was on Monday when he was asked kind of what he thought of the initial proposal. And I think it does set the table the way you're talking about. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): He tends to blame Ukraine for Russia's invasion. I don't get it, and so I do not have confidence. The president has periodically said the right things, but more often, that seems to waver back into the Russian camp, the invader camp.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: There is this world of Republicans who still talk like that, and I feel like they're diminishing in number, but maybe I'm wrong. And then there's a world that are saying we are spending too much time and effort and focus on Ukraine, and J.D. Vance like for a while seem like one of them. Can you talk about how we're seeing the push pull in the -- in this dance from Saturday to now.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, look, there certainly are fewer of them and even fewer Republicans who talk about this openly. I mean, there are still Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, even and some others who are very worried about this, but it is the minority in terms of speaking about it. But I think what's so striking, what Matthew Chance said earlier, there's still Russian resistance to this.
CORNISH: Yeah.
ZELENY: So even though, the fact that, you know, the suggestions here is that Russia is effectively writing this plan. There's no assurance at all that Russia will go for this.
(CROSSTALK) CORNISH: So, Sergey Lavrov is a Russian foreign minister. He said this yesterday, and I wanted to play it because it's a reference to -- I'm sorry, I wanted to read this because it's a reference to this meeting in Alaska that Trump had with Putin.
And he says, if the spirit and the letter of Anchorage are lost in the key understandings we have documented, then of course, the situation will be fundamentally different. So far, I repeat, no one has officially commuted anything to us. Obviously, they're getting more information now. But to me, that kind of sounds like, hey, I thought we worked out some of these ideas back when Putin and Trump were face- to-face.
ZELENY: Right, that was in August. Perhaps that was the thing that discussed in the limousine, right? I mean, look, just think at that. Think back to that moment, August 15, where there's such high hopes from the White House. Right after that, the White House press secretary and other officials were saying that there was going to be a meeting that President Trump is going to sort of orchestrate. That has never happened because Russia is not interested in doing so.
So, until that changes, I think it's extraordinary. But to your point about Rubio, also striking over the weekend. Yes, he was doing some incredible shuttle diplomacy, but he was also new to this plan as well. I mean, this was nothing that he was sort of involved on the front end. He was kind of trying to make it work on the back end.
So, unclear where this--
KANNO-YOUNGS: He was Kushner and Witkoff--
ZELENY: For sure.
KANNO-YOUNGS: --meetings with the Ukrainians and Russians and really taking the lead on drafting the 28-point peace plan. Rubio in the--
ZELENY: That secretary of state, right?
KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, right.
CORNISH: Let me begin -- Priscilla is here, what are we listening for out of Trump? We know the man himself wanted to impose a kind of deadline on this. That deadline is Thanksgiving. We're not hearing a lot of sense that that's definitely going to happen. Have they walked that back enough to kind of reduce expectations, or is that part of the pressure right, part of the momentum?
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first deadline the president put was to end the war on the first day in office. We've obviously blown past that. So, now we have Thanksgiving, and then it was as soon as. The reality for the president has been, and he has said this publicly many times, is he is unhappy with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been disappointed by him. He thought that he was going to get wins right out of the gate because of his relationship with him. And what we have seen is the opposite over the last several months, and we keep going back to Matthew Chance, but he makes the point. The U.S. and -- it's the U.S.-Ukrainian plan, the buy in from the Russians is missing, and that's going to be the sticking point moving forward. And the president does have a style of maximum pressure. So how he does that in the coming days? If they do find that common ground will be the thing to watch out for.
[12:10:00]
CORNISH: OK. You guys, listen, when we come back, we're going to talk about the long wait for a healthcare plan from the president. In fact, it just got longer. So, we're going to take you inside the White House scramble to deal with those rising premiums.
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[12:15:00]
CORNISH: All right, so it's a headline that we've been seeing for more than a decade. Republicans are deeply divided on healthcare. We're learning that the White House has postponed even announcing its proposal on the Affordable Care Act subsidies, after push back from Republican lawmakers.
Now there is not a lot of time for dealmaking. They only have until the end of the year before those subsidies expire and your premiums soar for more than 22 million Americans. Keep in mind that a host of new data show a nation already on edge about the economy.
So, my panel is back. I think sometimes when we say a decade, that's sort of meaningless, but now we're actually going to go back a decade. So, bear with me while we listen to Trump through the ages on promising a deal on healthcare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You're going to have such great healthcare at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it's going to be so easy. It will be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously. Make no mistake, this is a repeal, and a replace of Obamacare. Make no mistake about it. Coming out in a very short period of time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't you have to tell people what the plan is?
TRUMP: Yeah. Well, we'll be announcing that in about two months, maybe less. We're signing a healthcare plan within two weeks, a full and complete healthcare plan. Already (inaudible) has never offered a plan. We'll fix it to an extent. They have concepts of a plan. I'm not president right now. And you'll be hearing about it in the not-too- distant future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Now, what we were hearing about this is that Republicans kind of said to the White House, hey, we don't actually -- we don't know what you're talking about. We're not back on this as anyone else. What are you hearing?
ZELENY: Some Republicans said that, but there are actually some Senate Republicans like, like a Katie Britt from Alabama who was encouraging the White House to do a short-term extension of the subsidies. But House Republicans and some fiscal office were like, no, no, there's no support for that, largely because of the Hyde Amendment, the public funding for abortion access.
But back to that really extraordinary, was like, I'd forgotten about some of those moments. This is something that he has promised literally since he became the nominee the first time around, and it is something that vexes this White House.
CORNISH: Yeah. I'm kind of curious, because I feel like Republicans perceive Obamacare to be some sort of Achilles heel for Democrats, but they've never had a solution. Like I always hear diagnosis, I don't hear solution. Does anyone have insight? Why? What is it about the way it's structured now? Is it just the sheer volume of participants? What is it that makes it hard for them to actually deal with?
KANNO-YOUNGS: Well, I mean, I think one reason is some Republicans are just annoyed at the fact that it's so affiliated with the Obama administration as well, and something that Democrats design too. That being said, I know that there are White House officials that feel that that are feeling the pressure that occurred during the government shutdown from Democrats and are seeing the polls that voters also are increasingly alarmed over the right -- the potential rise in their premiums that they're going to have to pay.
That pressure is very much being felt here, and I know that the president is already having meetings with some of his advisors that are pitching different ideas on this, potentially an extension with tougher requirements, but the specific details, of course, here matter. We've heard a lot of this before that he's close to a deal on this or close to pushing for new legislation. And as you noted through the year, we haven't seen that happen.
CORNISH: But I feel like there is white papers scattered across drawers of Washington--
(CROSSTALK)
ALVAREZ: Well, and our White House colleagues have also reported that advisors see this as connected, and you sort of nod this to affordability and to the economy, right? According to the CBO, if subsidies expire, an estimated 2 million more people will be uninsured. So, if you're looking at this from the macro, and you're considering to how it's feeling, the way people perceive and feel the economy, then this could be something that hurts them at a point where they're already--
CORNISH: So, taking them when they're down, right?
ALVAREZ: And the clouds are gathering. CORNISH: Right. We're having this consumer confidence index. It is down a bunch of points, which is just like, how do we feel about our ability to buy things? There's a new report from JPMorgan Chase that shows inflation adjusted income growth is slowing. So, is your dollar going as far as it would have, right, otherwise?
ZELENY: And the answer is no, but the healthcare prices are going to go up. So, the president is not wrong about the political instinct here in not wanting to be on the wrong side of this, but--
CORNISH: That's how you end up smiling up at Mamdani, right, the person you called--
ZELENY: No, exactly. But this truly is the issue that divides the Republican Party, as it really has since 2015 -- since before 2015, but since Trump became in charge of the party.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Connecting it to the larger issue of affordability is a really smart point, too. I mean, there has been sort of some fissures in the MAGA base over this question of whether the White House is focusing enough on cost of living, on affordability--
[12:20:00]
CORNISH: Right. And when they do, if it makes sense, like when they suggested the 50-year mortgage, and you heard even Republicans be like, what? Why would you do that?
KANNO-YOUNGS: It got widely planned, it criticized, right? So, it's not only are you messaging and focusing on this enough, but also what proposals, tangible proposals, are you putting forward to address this? I think all that's connected to now the White House and White House officials starting to say, hey, don't worry, we're working on something here.
CORNISH: OK. You guys stay with me, because two very lucky turkeys at the White House are now moving off the chopping block. Stay with us.
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[12:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CORNISH: Right now, at the White House, a tale of two turkeys. It is an annual moment of levity for any administration, but in a twist from recent years, just one turkey will be at the ceremony and officially be named the Thanksgiving turkey.
CNN's Betsy Klein is there at the White House. Betsy, which is the lucky bird?
BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: It's going to be gobble. We have seen President Trump really lean into his clemency powers in his second term, but he is officially giving a full and absolute presidential pardon to both gobble and waddle two very lucky birds. Right now, over my shoulder, the president deeming them officially pardoned, justice served here at the White House the 78th annual National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation.
And we've really seen the unpredictability and joy of a presidential event with live animals. The president frequently interrupted by loud squawks throughout his speech, and he had a little bit of fun with this Thanksgiving roast. The president called gobble a very important beast. He granted him a full, absolute and unconditional presidential pardon.
He also poked fun at former President Joe Biden's use of the auto pen. He said, I have determined that last year's turkey pardons are totally invalid. He also joked that he would have called them Chuck and Nancy, but he wouldn't have pardoned those two, of course, referring to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. He also called those birds fat. They both weigh in at about 50 pounds a piece, but said that Secretary Kennedy did certify them as MAHA, Make America Healthy Again.
But two very relief birds hatched in July. They have been preparing their entire life for this moment and getting ready -- getting used to loud sounds and music and bright lights before riding the gravy train here to the White House. They are expected to live out their retirement at North Carolina State University, where they are all very relief to have made it.
CORNISH: Betsy, thanks so much. Coming up next. We're going to turn to the story of the Pentagon. The Pentagon versus Mark Kelly. Well, the president, his latest enemy, number one, turbo charge, his political future.
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