Public Radio for Alaska's Bristol Bay
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Putin and Trump tout 'progress' despite no Ukraine peace deal

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And I'm Mary Louise Kelly at the presidential summit in Anchorage, Alaska, where President Trump is meeting this hour with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The leaders are here now. They're sitting inside a room together at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson here on the outskirts of Anchorage. They've already shaken hands on the tarmac, fighter jets as a backdrop. They are here, of course, to talk about the war in Ukraine, a conflict that Trump has said he wants to see end. Well, here right next to me in the media tent, NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi there, my friend.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.

KELLY: So let's start with the scene. They walked down this red carpet. There were U.S. fighter jets in the air. Paint us a picture of what's unfolded here so far.

KEITH: Yeah. This was quite the display of force with those fighter jets flying overhead. Then President Trump walked out first. He clapped as Putin walked up for a handshake. And then, as they were moving to their meeting, Putin actually hitched a ride in Trump's presidential limousine - The Beast. The leaders are, as you say, meeting now. Initially, the White House said that this would start with a one-on-one meeting, but this is actually a slightly larger delegation. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, are there for the U.S.

KELLY: OK.

KEITH: Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is - and one other official joined Putin in addition to their interpreters. We have no idea how long this is going to last. Trump has said that if it's going well, it will last a long time, and if not, he could cut it off quickly.

KELLY: You and I are sitting, Tam - I'll just paint the picture for everybody. We're about 40 feet from the auditorium where they're going to come out and take questions. There is a banner at the back of that auditorium that they'll be standing in front of that reads pursuing peace. Do we have anything more specific than that about what Trump hopes to achieve here today?

KEITH: Right. And I will also note that there are two lecterns there in front of that banner. The expectation is that it will be a joint press conference. That is, if it goes well and they want to walk out together and take questions from the press.

KELLY: A lot of ifs in that sentence you just gave us.

KEITH: A lot of ifs. President Trump has been all over the place in terms of his expectations on the flight over. He was asked, what would make the summit today a success? And he says, I can't tell you that. I don't know. There's nothing set in stone.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I don't know if it's going to be today, but I'm not going to be happy if it's not today. Everyone said it can't be today, but I'm just saying I want the killing to stop. I'm in this to stop the killing.

KEITH: The president has lowered expectations, saying that nothing really can get done here without Ukraine. He says he's not here to negotiate a deal for Ukraine but that he wants to set the table for a future second meeting.

KELLY: You mentioned a few other people in his delegation. He's also brought along basically his hold top economic investment team, treasury commerce secretaries. What do we make of that?

KEITH: It is notable because so many recent deals that Trump has celebrated have revolved around trade, but he did say today that he noticed that Putin is also a lot - bringing a lot of his business people. That's fine. But he doesn't want to do business unless this war is solved. And, you know, the fact that there are teams of advisors in these meetings is also a marked difference from the two leaders' famous meeting in Helsinki in 2018, where they had a lengthy one-on-one meeting with no advisors. Mary Louise, you were in Helsinki.

KELLY: I was indeed. I was in the room for that one.

KEITH: So what you - how is this one going to be different, you think?

KELLY: Well, I will note that that one was many, many weeks in the planning. This one, they've had one week, and you can feel it. There's been a lot of disorganization on display in the logistics, which is neither here nor there, but one hopes the substance, the content, the policy that's being discussed right now has been more carefully crafted. We will see when they come out and brief us. NPR Senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith in the media tent with me here, waiting on Presidents Putin and Trump. We'll keep you posted.

KEITH: We're waiting. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. Keith has chronicled the Trump administration from day one, putting this unorthodox presidency in context for NPR listeners, from early morning tweets to executive orders and investigations. She covered the final two years of the Obama presidency, and during the 2016 presidential campaign she was assigned to cover Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association.