00:00President Trump is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
00:06And the president's envoys are set to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
00:11This is the latest round of negotiations on the war in Ukraine.
00:15It has been a busy morning, to say the least.
00:18A short time ago, the president officially launched his so-called Board of Peace.
00:2219 nations attended the science ceremony.
00:24But the only European ally present, Hungary's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, the absence of any other major European allies was notable there.
00:35The board was created to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, though the president has hinted the scope could be much, much wider.
00:42Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do.
00:46And we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations.
00:48You know, I've always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential,
00:53has not used it.
00:56All right, also this morning, there are new questions about what the president called a framework of a future deal on Greenland.
01:03He retreated on his latest tariff threats to European allies.
01:07But what was actually agreed to remains a bit vague.
01:11Let's get right to CNN's Caitlin Collins, who's been working around the clock in Davos with the very latest.
01:17Like I said, a whole lot of activity, but a whole lot of questions, too.
01:23Yeah, John, there is.
01:25And I was just in the president's speech as he was sitting down with the world leaders that we know have signed on to this board of peace.
01:30Many of them were either on that stage or represented by some of their top senior aides on stage there.
01:36The White House says that they believe about 30 of the 50 countries, 50-ish, I would say.
01:41They didn't specify exactly how many people have been invited.
01:44But about 30 of those have signed on to being on the board of peace.
01:48According to the White House, these invitations, though, just went out last Friday, which is why the White House says you didn't see all of those members on that stage.
01:56And though the president says that everyone wants to be on the board of peace and that he's gotten no rejections almost or very few,
02:02we do know that there are several countries that are at least still skeptical of this and have not yet committed to joining.
02:08That includes the United Kingdom, France, Norway, several others, Italy as well, that have not yet said yes to this.
02:15One person who has, according to the president, said yes is President Putin of Russia.
02:20That is something the Kremlin has not yet confirmed, though they've been talking about using his frozen assets in the United States to pay to be on the board of peace after that first three-year term is up.
02:30All of that is still up in the air and is still a big question of what exactly the future of the board of peace is going to look like.
02:37The White House is certainly touting it.
02:39And when we were just in the room a few moments ago, we heard not just from President Trump, but from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, and Steve Wyckoff as well,
02:47who, as you noted, John, are headed to Russia later today.
02:50They really focused on Gaza, quite an ambitious plan as far as Jared Kushner going through a PowerPoint, basically, to rebuild Gaza.
02:58And one slide that I saw estimated cost probably about $25 billion.
03:03It's not clear who exactly is going to pay all of that $25 billion that they have for their vision of reconstructing Gaza.
03:11But that is at least what the president was setting out to do today before he's got these other bilateral meetings with their world leaders,
03:17including Ukrainians, President Zelensky, who was not initially slated to be here.
03:21We did just spot him, though, as he is set to meet with the president soon, John.
03:25So, Caitlin, as we wait for a word on what comes out of that meeting, what is actually known about what kind of deal there is over Greenland, if there is, in fact, a deal?
03:39Not a ton of detail.
03:41We were waiting for the president last night as he was finishing up meetings here at the Davos Forum.
03:46And when he came out, that was when he had announced in the middle of that, after that meeting with the NATO Secretary General, that they had reached that framework.
03:52When he came out, we asked for details because it wasn't really clear the timeline, whether or not it still included U.S. ownership like the president has been demanding.
04:00All of those were still huge questions here.
04:03And the White House says basically that the details will be released once it's fully agreed to.
04:08So this is still very much a prospective deal.
04:10But it has gotten the president to back down off his tariff threat, and obviously, as he was ruling out military force in Greenland yesterday, he told me it's an infinite deal that would go on forever, John, when I asked the president if he still wants to own Greenland, as he has made very clear that he wants to do.
04:28So there's still a lot of questions there in terms of what exactly that's going to look like.
04:32And I'll tell you, I just spoke to Kevin Hassett, one of the president's top economic advisors here on the sidelines of Davos.
04:37He said those details still aren't fully known to him either.
04:41And obviously, he works in the economic sphere, but the tariff threat that the president had made that relevant to his portfolio.
04:46So there are still questions even within the administration of exactly what this deal is going to look like and, of course, whether or not it's ultimately agreed to.
04:55Yeah, I suppose I should have been much more careful about even calling it a deal at this point, a framework with a lot of questions still remaining.
05:02Caitlin Collins in Davos, like I said, I mean, like a 40-hour day straight for you.
05:06Thank you for all the work you're doing there.
05:08Keep us posted as there are new developments.
05:11This is the president in Davos, where he has just finished the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace Charter.
05:18This is a board that has, at the moment, at least 20 charter members, countries from Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Hungary.
05:28And the purpose of the Board of Peace is to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, promote stability and peace in governments, and also restore law and governance in conflict zones.
05:38Which brings us to the next point.
05:40The president just now, in his comments, was asked about Ukraine, which obviously is still mired in its war with Russia.
05:47The president said that there may be a meeting with Putin today or tomorrow, that he is still, the U.S. is still interested in working on that particular conflict.
05:57I want to add one more thing, which is that this kind of wraps up an interesting 48 hours in Davos, where the president backed away from tariff threats against European allies over his goal of taking Greenland in an extensive speech yesterday, where he said he would not use force.
06:15So I want to talk to my panel about all of this, because I think even a few weeks ago, Megan, you and I were like, why is he going to Davos?
06:21They're always talking about global elites.
06:23What does he want to do there?
06:25He's not going to go announce a housing thing or whatever.
06:27It has been a consequential couple of days.
06:30First, because of that escalation over Greenland.
06:33And now, because of this conversation over how the war in Gaza will end and whether the Board of Peace, through its investment-forward strategy, will do it.
06:44Can you talk, I know Axios is there.
06:45Can you talk about, like, sort of the reaction to some of any of this from European allies?
06:51I mean, Trump put text to what has been subtext now for a long time, which is that he no longer trusts Europe, and he does not like dealing with Europe.
06:58The Board of Peace, going around Western and most of Eastern Europe, his speech yesterday was basically a very lengthy, at times, subdued lecture of Europe for not, you know, not doing enough to support NATO, for not, you know, giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, for not giving him Greenland.
07:17They're not giving money to NATO, not building up their own militaries.
07:19Exactly.
07:20There is, and this started from the very beginning when J.D. Vance went over to the Munich Security Conference early last year, when he went and basically said that Western Europe is basically in the midst of social decay.
07:32And so you are seeing a huge pivot away from those historic allies, because this administration no longer believes that the relationship, as it currently is, is worth it for the United States.
07:44I want to play for you guys a moment from his speech as he was doing this charter signing for the Board of Peace, which, again, was developed by the White House to implement the peace plan that the White House helped develop.
07:56And he talks about the United Nations as always having had tremendous potential.
08:02And if anything, this was, to me, the softest critique I've heard from him on the United Nations.
08:07Let me play it for you guys.
08:08I've always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it, but there's tremendous potential in the United Nations.
08:20And you have some great people at the United Nations, but so far it hasn't.
08:25You know, on the eight wars that I ended, I never spoke to the United Nations about any of them.
08:30And you would think that I should have.
08:34You would think they could have done those eight wars, but they couldn't have.
08:37And they tried, I guess, in some of them, but they didn't try hard enough.
08:41But there's tremendous potential with the United Nations.
08:44And I think the combination of the Board of Peace with the kind of people we have here, coupled with the United Nations, can be something very, very unique for the world.
08:54We don't know what in conjunction means, given that the White House has pulled out of many U.N. organizations and aid organizations.
09:03What are you going to be looking for, Megan?
09:06I mean, I think that he's not wrong that sometimes the U.N. is slow to move on things.
09:09It's a very bureaucratic organization.
09:11I don't think that means we should just write it off completely, which I don't think he is suggesting here either.
09:16And I think the European allies agree with you because they're not at the Board of Peace, and they've raised a lot of questions about how is this going to work?
09:23Well, I mean, I don't think that they're at the Board of Peace because I don't think that they find it a serious operation or organization.
09:28So I think that's probably why they're not there.
09:29And also, they are tired of being embarrassed and shellacked by the president for no reason after Greenland.
09:34And he just continually embarrassed them.
09:36So I'm sure that's also why they're not there.
09:38And they're also not going to give a billion dollars.
09:40So I just think that it's just an interesting – I don't think we can create our own U.N.
09:44I don't think that we have the standing in the world to do that at this juncture.
09:47I do think that there needs to be some more emphasis on what the U.N.'s mission is and goal is and try to make it less bureaucratic.
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