WSJ What’s News - Trump Says Putin Agrees to Talks to End Ukraine War

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

P.M. Edition for Feb. 12. President Trump says he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have agreed to open immediate talks to end the war in Ukraine. WSJ national security correspondent Nancy Youssef discusses what we know about the shifting U.S. stance. Plus, inflation in January was higher than anticipated. We hear from Heard on the Street writer and WSJ’s Take On the Week co-host Telis Demos about what that could mean for the Federal Reserve. And House Republicans present their blueprint for a budget bill. Alex Ossola hosts.  Follow the president’s activities with our Trump Tracker. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Register by March 15th. Additional terms apply. Learn more at wealthsimple.com slash match. President Trump sets the stage to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but with a different stance from the U.S. Plus, inflation comes in higher than anticipated. We dig into the data.

What was notable about this report is that what caused it to be a little hotter than people expected was not the housing and rent component. It was goods and services. And House Republicans release a plan for making trillions of dollars in tax and spending cuts. It's Wednesday, February 12th. I'm Alex Osala for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Inflation rose more than economists expected in January. The Labor Department reported today

that consumer prices last month rose 3% from a year earlier. That's up from the 2.9% increase in December. These numbers inform the Federal Reserve's decisions on future interest rate cuts, and President Trump campaigned on lowering prices. Tell us, Demos, a writer for Heard on the Street and co-host of WSJ's Take on the Week podcast, joins me now. So tell us, what is behind this uptick in inflation? Well, what's interesting about it is that,

inflation has been still running, I think hotter than many would like, but has been cooling. And one of the things that has sort of kept it from falling even more dramatically has been housing and rent. The cost of that has been high. What was notable about this report is that

what caused it to be a little hotter than people expected was not the housing and rent component. It was goods and services. And a couple of things that are interesting. One is groceries, which two thirds of that was explained by the rise in the price of eggs. You have concerns about the spread of bird flu that are leading to, I mean, I don't mean to be gruesome, but like millions of dead chickens. That obviously impacts the egg supply. So their prices were up 53% year over year and 15% month over month,

which was the fastest month over month gain in eggs since 2015. And then on top of that, you also had other things like the cost of car ownership. Yeah, tell us more about that. Was it auto insurance? Like what was it about cars that was driving up prices? So auto insurance was growing, you know, 20% year over year

through the middle of last year that has slowed a little bit. The rate of increase had kept declining through December that ended in January, it went up. And then the cost of motor vehicle repair also accelerated a little bit. The tariff conversation really plays into that. So the fact that about six out of every 10 auto replacement parts in US shops are imported from Mexico, Canada and China, the potential targets of tariffs, that's according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. That means that those things becoming more expensive will increase what it costs to cover a car claim and insurers will need to adjust for that at some point. Today, all the big US stock indexes opened lower in response to this report, although they regained some ground by the end of the day, and the NASDAQ even closed ever so slightly

higher. So of course, the question everybody wants to know is, what will this mean for the Fed? Well, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was in front of Congress today on his second day of testimony, here's what he said about the new inflation data. We've had made great progress toward 2%. Last year inflation was 2.6%. So great progress, but we're not quite there yet. So we want to keep policy restrictive for now. Tell us, does this change what investors could expect from the Fed? I think this really will complicate the picture for the Fed going forward.

Will it still cut rates twice later this year? Maybe just once, maybe rates come off the table at some point. These things have to be part of their thinking and investors thinking about what the Fed might do. That was Telus Deimos, a writer for Heard on the Street and co-host of WSJ's Take on the Week podcast. Telus, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. INTRO In business news, Chevron says it plans to cut its workforce by up to 20 percent. That's about 8,000 employees. It's part of an effort to reduce costs by up to $3 billion by the end of next year. The move follows President Trump's promise to cut energy costs by unleashing U.S. frackers. And the New York Stock Exchange plans to launch a fully electronic exchange based in Dallas called NYSE Texas.

It's an apparent response to the upstart Texas Stock Exchange, which hopes to start listing companies next year. Coming up, what we know about how President Trump plans to end the war in Ukraine. That's after the break. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— taxes by up to $4.5 trillion. The bill would also reduce spending and provide money for border enforcement. It's headed for a budget committee vote tomorrow. The Senate has confirmed former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. Lawmakers voted largely along party lines.

Gabbard overcame skepticism from Republicans that she lacks the kind of experience in the intelligence bureaucracy that many of her predecessors had. Eight inspectors general who President Trump fired last month are suing the administration. Their lawsuit cites federal laws that say presidents have to give a 30-day notification to Congress and provide specific reasons to terminate an inspector general. By the way, we've got a new feature on the Wall Street Journal website where you can keep tabs on President Trump's moves to reshape the federal government. It's called the Trump Tracker.

Check out the link in our show notes. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Trump returned to the White House. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said he and Putin have agreed to visit each other's countries and open immediate talks to end the war in Ukraine. WSJ National Security correspondent Nancy Youssef joins me now. Nancy, give us some of the details about these potential talks. What's the administration saying? In the last few days, we've heard increased talks about ways to negotiate some sort of settlement. Ukraine has been suffering in terms of holding on the territory they have. And there's a feeling within the Trump administration that the US can't provide

the same pace of weapons that it has in the past. And frankly, Trump has signaled that he wants to be the one that ends this war. And to that end, we saw two things happen today. One, Trump described a lengthy and highly productive phone call with Vladimir Putin in the bid to end the war in Ukraine. And Trump's newly named Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made his first trip to Europe and outlined some of the conditions as the US sees in terms of what it would or wouldn't accept in a possible negotiated

settlement. Yeah, what exactly did we hear from Hegseth that was new today? He said that it was unrealistic to get Ukraine back to its 2014 borders. Remember in 2014, Russia took the peninsula of Crimea. And he also said that Ukraine's ascension to NATO membership was not in the cards. And while he said that there wouldn't be US troops on the ground in Ukraine, he did open it up to European and non-European forces, but he

didn't specify what that would look like and how they would come together. So in a weird way he kind of showed all his cards right up front in terms of what the US would accept in this deal. Okay, so the loss of the 2014 borders, not joining NATO, would this be a big concession for Ukraine then? Yes and no. For Ukraine, the biggest concern is to not reach a negotiated settlement

that in the end gives Russia more time to sort of reset and come back at them. What Zelensky has said is that he's looking for sort of an enduring peace for Ukraine, not something that sort of allows everybody to claim and win now, but ultimately puts Ukraine in a more vulnerable position down the road. I want to zoom out a little bit and talk more broadly about the relationship between Russia

and the U.S. This seems like kind of a big shift in tone from the Biden administration. Yes and no. We saw earlier this week, yesterday, Mark Fogel, an American teacher who was held in Russia released, and Trump and his comments signaled that because he was able to talk to Putin, he was able to reach a settlement, which is the kind of language we didn't hear from Biden. But there were also Americans released under the Biden administration who were held in Russia. So we're hearing sort of a different talk in terms of language, but I don't see any tangible changes on the battlefield in Ukraine or in how these two countries, U.S. and Russia, are interacting with each other on things

like hostage cases. That was WSJ National Security correspondent, Nancy Youssef. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you. And finally, we're exclusively reporting on a U.S. intelligence assessment that found that Israel is considering significant strikes on Iranian nuclear sites this year. Officials familiar with the report told the journal that it was produced in the final days of the Biden administration.

The analysis concluded that Israel would push the Trump administration to back the strikes, viewing him as more likely to join an attack than now-former President Joe Biden was, and fearing the window for halting Tehran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon was closing. That's according to two of the people familiar with the intelligence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office didn't respond to requests for comment, and Israel's military declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence declined to comment. And a spokesman for the National Security Council said the administration doesn't comment on intelligence matters.

Before we go, heads up. We've made a correction to yesterday's PM show. The Fed's preferred metric for inflation is the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or PCE. We incorrectly said that it was Consumer Price Index, or CPI. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienneme and Anthony Bansi, with supervising producer Tali Arbel and deputy editor Chris Zinsley.

I'm Alex Osila for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with the new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. Thank you.