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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump And Putin Hold Joint News Conference. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired August 15, 2025 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The historic meeting between President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it began more than two hours ago. It's still ongoing. Nobody has come out of it yet, so we don't know what's going on.
Welcome to a special edition of The Lead Live from Anchorage, Alaska. I'm Jake Tapper.
[18:00:00]
All of this diplomatic drama is unfolding just a few miles behind me at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. It is there that we're watching this stage where the two leaders are expected to hold a news conference to tell the world what they discussed and what they've agreed to. Two of them coming out, assuming things go well, if not, it will probably just be President Trump.
President Trump did enter the summit saying he would not be happy if it did not result in, at the very least, a ceasefire in Ukraine. But when Putin was asked about that earlier, he, like a Cheshire cat, just smiled and refused to say a word.
In a few minutes, I'm going to speak with Alaska Senior Senator Lisa Murkowski to talk about what she hopes to see President Trump announce and about her time on Air Force One before President Trump came out of his plane to greet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Let's check in right now though at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where we find CNN's Chief White House correspondent and CNN Anchor Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, this meeting, it's going on a lot longer than anticipated. They haven't even had the lunch part of the meeting yet. So, how is that being interpreted? This, presumably, is a good sign.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know yet, Jake. I mean, it has been two and a half hours that the most intensive part of this entire summit has been happening, and that is the meeting that is much more smaller and more constrained. It's got Trump, Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Rubio inside the room alongside Putin and two of his senior advisers as well. And it has now reached the two-and-a-half hour mark according to one of the president's top aides, Dan Scavino, who just posted that it is indeed still ongoing, as we are waiting about a hundred yards away from where that meeting is happening in the same building where I'm standing right now, where this press conference is set to take place after that meeting ends. But it does say something, Jake, they haven't even made it to the lunch portion yet. It's about 2:00 local here in Anchorage. And so, obviously, as they are waiting for that part to get underway, the lunch is seen not as casual, but more casual because it's expanded. It's got the treasury secretary in there, the commerce secretary, other aides will be in the room for that. And, obviously, they'll be having a lot more to discuss over lunch, but that is where it was expected to veer into other issues besides maybe just the Ukraine crisis and what's been facing President Putin, as Trump has said that he wants to get a ceasefire and he is not going to be happy if he doesn't get one today while he is here.
And so a lot of people are reading the tea leaves. We're in the same room. The Russian journalists are in here as well, Jake. We haven't seen any senior White House aides coming by or anything, as we've been waiting to see, you know, what the outcome of this meeting is.
I will say, though, Jake, what Trump said this week was that he would know in the first minute, two minutes, five minutes of whether or not he was going to be able to reach an agreement with Putin while he is here on the ground in Anchorage. They've now been meeting for two and a half hours, so he likely has a pretty good indication by this point.
TAPPER: And he is still in the meeting. That's all I meant by presuming it was good news because he didn't end it.
Kaitlan Collins, stand by.
Let's bring in with us here in Anchorage Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. Senator, thanks so much for joining us.
After Air Force One touchdown right over there, you and Senator Sullivan and Governor Dunleavy, you all got onto Air Force One and you sat and talked to President Trump. Can you tell us what you talked about? Did you have any advice for him? Tell us how that went.
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): Well, the meeting was brief because his plane was just a little bit delayed. Air Force One was a little bit delayed, and we understood that that the Russian plane was just a little bit early. So, our meeting time was perhaps a little truncated, but we had an opportunity there to meet with the president, his chief of staff. It was the full delegation, including Representative Begich. And it was important to just be able to reinforce again the priority, no concessions about Alaska. I had joked with the president actually yesterday.
TAPPER: Right.
MURKOWSKI: That we were certainly hoping that he was not going to be considering returning any portion of Alaska back to Russia. He confirmed that we're good there. But it was important for the Alaska delegation to just quickly communicate again the hope for the outcome of this meeting, which is that we might see a ceasefire that will hold with the prospect again for greater dialogue going forward.
TAPPER: You joke about not giving back Alaska, which the U.S. bought from Russia in 1867 for a little over $7 million. But you do sit on the Senate committee on energy and natural resources and Alaska's a home not only to fuel, not only to petroleum, but to a variety of rare earth natural resources. And yesterday, President Trump was asked whether he was considering offering any of that for commercial exploration by Russia as a bargaining chip. He didn't directly answer. He said rare earth is unimportant relative to saving lives, but that's not really addressing the question.
[18:05:06]
Would you support this as a bargaining chip?
MURKOWSKI: It was raised in our brief meeting with the president about critical minerals, and the president quickly disposed of it and said, that's not going to happen. We also raised that directly with Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, not going to happen.
So, there may be a lot of discussions about other aspects of the negotiations, but I think it was made clear from the Alaska delegation that this should be in the cards. This is not in Alaska's best interest, in the country's best interest, in Ukraine's best interest.
TAPPER: What do you make of this all happening here on the United States, in the United States? There are critics and even people who are hoping for the best today who are uncomfortable with inviting Vladimir Putin, I believe that you don't have great regard for him personally, and there are a lot of people who share your view, inviting him onto American soil, literally rolling out a red carpet for him. And then you saw President Trump welcoming him with open arms, which, again, I don't begrudge, he's trying to achieve something here, but does any of that make you uncomfortable?
MURKOWSKI: I have said, I think it sends a mixed message what Putin has done in Ukraine with the deaths and the atrocities that we have seen. It is not acceptable on any level at all. Russia has been appropriately sanctioned and needs to be sanctioned even further. Putin has been labeled a war criminal. And so to invite him to the United States, to invite him to a strategic military base, I think it is fair to question what that message is, are we being too conciliatory?
I will tell you, though, standing there on the tarmac, as Putin's plane came in, not on its own, but flanked by our fighter jet escorts, bringing them into our airspace, and as that plane put down for them to peel off and then to have the flyover with the B-52 and the and the F-22s right there in the air as Putin is walking below that, it sent a pretty powerful signal. The displays that were live and in color, in full force there as the motorcade was going through, again, demonstrating the strength of our military might for him to see, maybe not a bad message.
TAPPER: All right. That's interesting. Trump's former national security adviser from his first term, John Bolton, who's on the set with Anderson, he was at the Trump Putin meeting in Helsinki in 2018, and he wrote about it, Bolton, in his memoir, saying quote, Trump said, Putin spent a lot of time talking and he listened, which was a switch. The U.S. interpreter also said Trump had told her not to take any notes, so she could only debrief us from her unaided memory.
Now, today's meeting is not a one-on-one. It was initially going to be that, but we saw and we heard that President Trump is there with his national security adviser/secretary of state, Marco Rubio, as well as Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. A better move than on one-on-one, you think?
MURKOWSKI: I think so. They did have a little bit of one-on-one time. Both of them were seated in the backseat of the limousine as they were escorted from the tarmac over to the convening place. And so, I was standing right next to the car as they entered. Seeing through the tinted windows, they appeared to be smiling and laughing.
TAPPER: Right.
MURKOWSKI: So, okay, maybe breaking some ice there. But I do think it is important to have the two key senior advisers in this first sit down.
And also one of them, your former colleague, Senator, now Secretary of State Rubio, who's a Russia hawk. He's not -- I'm not sure what Witkoff's position is. He's there to achieve things, so he's more of a -- I don't know, I don't want this to sound pejorative, but he is a glad handler, kind of like to negotiate.
[18:10:01]
MURKOWSKI: Well, he's there to make a deal.
TAPPER: Yes, exactly. And President Trump, he's President Trump. Rubio, a long time Russia hawk, does it make you more comfortable that he's there?
MURKOWSKI: I'm glad he is there.
TAPPER: Yes.
MURKOWSKI: I'm glad he's there. I think it is important to not only the discussion between President Trump and Putin, but I think it's important for the broader message that it sends that what we are trying to do is ensure that, again, whatever may be negotiated is clearly understood what the terms of that negotiation are, what the terms of any agreement may be and not just as generally outlined by the two parties.
TAPPER: What are you expecting? I mean, the best case scenario is that they achieve some sort of deal and Zelenskyy flies in tomorrow. That's probably -- I mean, that would be like -- that's like a one in a million shot, I would think. Putin and Trump are both tough negotiators. What do you think is the best that can come out of this deal?
MURKOWSKI: I think the best that we could hope for is that there is a commitment coming out of Putin to a ceasefire with enough contours to it, that it is believable, that it will be more than just a brief moment to check a box here. It's interesting. You have two leaders that both have a lot on the line here. Both have a lot to show and to prove. And so how do both of them leave Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson being able to say --
TAPPER: I got a win.
MURKOWSKI: -- I got a win? I got a win.
TAPPER: Yes.
MURKOWSKI: Because I don't see the two of them coming together in a chummy way and saying, we got to win for the world here. I don't see that at all.
TAPPER: Yes.
MURKOWSKI: I'm not so rosy-eyed to think that. So, how do both of them claim a little bit of advantage here? And that's the great unknown.
I can't interpret what the timing of all of this is. I had an opportunity to speak with the president briefly yesterday before he left Washington, D.C. And he shared with me much of what he has shared to the public. He says, you know, it's going to -- it's either going to go bad real quick or maybe we're going to be able to do something.
TAPPER: Well, it apparently hasn't -- nothing's happened real quick. I mean, they're still meeting. So, that's a good sign.
Daughter of Alaska, senior Senator Lisa Murkowski, thank you so much.
MURKOWSKI: Welcome to Alaska, Jake Tapper.
TAPPER: Welcome to Alaska. And she told me to try the salmon. And she meant it literally, try it as --
MURKOWSKI: Try the salmon. It's all fresh, the silvers, cohos and sockeyes.
TAPPER: The silvers are running strong.
The Trump-Putin summit is turning out to be a long one. Whenever it does end, how much will we actually learn about what is transpiring right this second behind closed doors? We'll discuss that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:15:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The world is watching, waiting when will Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin take the stage and what will they say. Their meeting ongoing, now stretching to more than two and a half hours.
CNN Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is a Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in the room where the news conference is expected to take place. Kaitlan, reporters there just got an announcement, I understand.
COLLINS: Well, Anderson, we were standing here kind of just milling about waiting because they were still in what we were told as the first half of this day, which is that three-on-three meeting with President Trump and President Putin and their top aides, and had not yet made it to the lunch portion, which was going to be a more expanded meeting. It seems like maybe they're potentially skipping lunch, Anderson. We're still waiting to find out, but they told reporters to take our seats. We've assembled here in the room.
I should note it appears the Russian delegation is here seated in the front row, at least some of the officials. And then over my shoulder to my left are some of President Trump's top aides that traveled with him here.
The question as we wait to see what came out of that more than two- and-a-half hour meeting that has been going on behind closed doors is whether or not these two leaders came to an agreement, and also, Anderson, if they're both coming out here together, because President Trump himself said that would be a strong indication of how the meeting went, if they had a good meeting, if he heard what he wanted to hear from Putin, that they would see both of them side by side. But he said, if not, he might do a solo press conference here.
So, that is going to be a key thing that we'll be watching as these world leaders come out of this meeting after sitting there behind closed doors with their top aides, and whether or not President Trump heard what he came here to Anchorage to hear from the Russian leader. And as he sat on the way here, he put it quite bluntly that he wanted to have a ceasefire, and if he didn't get a ceasefire today, that he'd be unhappy.
COOPER: Yes. Kaitlan, I'll let you take your seat.
CNN's Matthew Chance is also there, Matthew what do you make of the timing of this?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it's interesting. Obviously, we're at the same room as Kaitlan over there, but at the back of it. We've all been told to take our seats.
I mean, the timing is, you know, pretty surprising given that there wasn't meant to be a press conference until I think it was scheduled at 4:30, so in about two hours, just over two hours from now. And as Kaitlan was mentioning the lunch portion of the bilateral meetings, which were meant to involve the sort of broader delegations from both United States and from Russia, well, that lunch portion doesn't seem to have taken place yet.
I just had a message a few minutes ago from Dmitry Peskov, who's Vladimir Putin's press spokesperson, and he said they're still talking, but that was about 15 minutes ago now. And so I'm not sure whether that's still the case.
But, look, I mean, if it has, if it is about to come to an end, and, you know, I think we have to stress we don't know that it is about to come to an end, we could all be sitting here for another two hours or so, maybe even longer.
[18:20:01]
But if it does come to an end now, so many hours before it was meant to, I don't know, it is not necessarily a good sign, is it? I mean, you know, but I guess we'll see. We'll see whether, as Kaitlan said, President Trump comes out and he's (INAUDIBLE) together, and, of course, what they -- agreed, if anything. Anderson?
COOPER: Matthew Chance, thanks very much. They looks like they're testing out microphones, which indicates somebody may be coming out shortly. And the panel is here to discuss.
Ambassador Bolton, I mean, what do you make of it, the timing of this?
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think Rahm Emanuel made a point during one of the breaks that the economic ministers could have been having their own separate conversation and they may have come to some conclusions. There's certainly no limitation on Trump and Putin raising economic issues in their discussions.
Trump doesn't like to wait around when he thinks the business is done. He wouldn't mind canceling a lunch. He canceled lunch with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi. But I don't think we can tell that we could be at one end of good news or the other end of a very bad news. But the fact that the Russian delegation may be in the room doesn't mean Trump's coming out alone. They're not going to sit there and listen to Trump alone. So, whatever the news is, the two of them are going to deliver it together, which probably means at least they've agreed to meet again.
RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes. I don't see -- I mean, look, President Putin, while we all sit there and said it earlier that this is a win and he has wins here, he's going to want to put his own spin because he has his own domestic politics. I mean, just because he's authoritarian, it doesn't mean he doesn't have politics. And President Trump's going to say what he's going to do. I think the real question is the battle between more process versus more substance, and weighing out in what they're going to announce, how much is there real substance here versus is it just more process? I used to say, is it action or is it motion? And you're only going to determine it. I think it's going to be a combination. So, you'll see how much of it is.
COOPER: Jill, I just imagine, you know, people in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials waiting right now. I mean their entire lives, their -- you know, the future of their country is up for grabs.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely. And, you know, when you think of the areas that they might be forced to give up eventually, it's not as if it is like just territory. Because what happens when Russia occupies an area, as you all well know, they torture, arrest, make sure that people who oppose regime are taken care of, put in prison or worse. You can no longer vote as you want, or you vote at the, you know, point of a gun, which they did in Crimea.
COOPER: Yes. I mean, there are huge numbers of children, Ukrainian children, who have been kidnapped and taken into Russian territory.
DOUGHERTY: Yes.
BOLTON: I mean, these are not land swaps. These are people swaps.
EMANUEL: Yes, but part of that is -- because part of that is the fact is the declining population in Russia and Putin knows that you can't have an empire with a declining population like that. So, if he calls them swaps and their cousins and their brothers, et cetera, this was also about people and making sure that the Russians have a population mass equal to the empire.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Trump has -- I mean, he, from the beginning, had already lowered expectations for this summit and it kind of feels like we're about to get to be continued when it comes to what comes out of this. If that's the case, I think what we could learn today is Trump's disposition toward Russia, toward Putin specifically, versus his disposition toward Ukraine. Because I think we need to understand where he stands at this moment. I mean, is he inclined to. Putin's worldview of the whole situation, or does he want a just outcome for Ukraine?
I'm not sure we were really clear on that going into this. We will learn more when they come out. We may learn more about that than we learn about the final fate of Ukraine if this war were to come to an end.
COOPER: I should also point out during the meeting President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, there was no joint press conference afterward.
PHILLIP: No.
COOPER: I mean --
PHILLIP: Yes. And that was --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And that was such a significant rupture in an already very tenuous relationship. I think this could be incredibly pivotal in telling us whether or not there is any chance for Ukraine to have the kind of relationship that could produce a good outcome for them.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If it's just more process that would be a victory for Putin, who also got, you know, treated like a VIP on the world stage. The question is, what other outcome would be acceptable to Ukraine, right? More process would be frustrating for everybody, but at least people are talking. Putin would go home saying, I met with the president of the United States.
Only if they announced a total ceasefire, air, land, ground, would that be acceptable to Ukraine? Otherwise, we're going to keep going and keep going, but we're going to know in a few minutes. COOPER: Let's go back to Jake in Anchorage. Jake?
[18:25:00]
TAPPER: I'm fine. Just give me my show back.
COOPER: The show's back.
TAPPER: All right, here we go. So, let's go now to Senator Schiff who we have here. Senator Schiff is joining me, ready to go in -- the senator -- the Democratic senator from California.
Senator, earlier this year, we heard that you said specifically that Putin views Trump as a, quote, child who can be easily controlled and manipulated. Do you still believe that?
SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I do. I'm really deeply concerned about what comes out of this. We saw in Trump 1 that disastrous summit in Helsinki, where the president took the Russian dictator's side over our own intelligence agencies. I would hate to see a repeat of that. On the way to the summit, he's saying that he's not there to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. He's praising the Belarusian dictator. And I am concerned about how easily he could be manipulated by Putin if Putin praises him, if Putin offers some kind of a joint oil or mineral exploration, the Arctic, and Trump thinks that, hey, this is his ticket to some kind of a deal and some kind of a peace prize.
He never really has seemed to have support for Ukraine in his bones. It has to be forced on him. So, I'm deeply worried about what could come out of this. And, you know, ideally it would be a ceasefire, but I suspect that whatever Putin suggests, you really can't count on. The proof will be whether it really manifests after they leave Alaska.
TAPPER: But do you believe that President Trump should get credit for, at the very least, trying to have peace happen here? The argument being that the Biden approach did not work. And that, ultimately, even though there was a period when arming Ukraine seemed to really push the Russians back, that Russia reorganized -- Putin reorganized his economy and his country and then began to score some very significant victories on the battlefield. And that this is at least an attempt to bring an end to the bloodshed.
SCHIFF: Look, I'm all for any attempt to bring an end to the bloodshed, but what would have been, I think, a far more successful strategy for the president was to have Ukraine's back, to be leaning into providing material and military support to Ukraine, to give Ukraine the resources it needed to take out the trains carrying fuel, going to the front which have continued to feed the war.
But this is not what the president's done. The president said essentially, Ukraine won't be part of NATO. So, he's dealt away a terrible concession even before there's any kind of negotiations, the vice president today, and saying that, you know, we're done with providing military support for Ukraine. How is that facilitating a successful negotiation that's essentially giving up both the military support, NATO membership, indeed the president talked about land swaps, giving up potentially territory of Ukraine, even before you sit down at the table?
So, I agree the Biden approach didn't succeed, and I think because it was too slow to provide enough material support to Ukraine, to give Ukraine that military advantage it needed. But what the president has done since taking office has been to undercut that.
We have a bipartisan bill, as you know, strongly bipartisan, to sanction Russia. The president hasn't allowed that legislation to move forward. And the president's own threat of imposing sanctions, he withdrew on, at least until now. So, I don't think this is the successful negotiating posture Ukraine deserves.
TAPPER: Obviously any piece still has to be negotiated between the leaders of Russia and the leaders of Ukraine. Do you agree with the general note, though, that whatever ceasefire or peace deal comes forward, whenever it happens, it is almost guaranteed that there will have to be some concessions of land by Ukraine, whether the U.S. and the western world recognize it or not, and obviously to be agreed upon by Ukraine? But do you agree that that's almost certainly a requirement for there to be an end to this horrific war?
SCHIFF: Well, Jake, I wouldn't go into this negotiation conceding that at all. I wouldn't concede territory. I wouldn't concede NATO membership. I wouldn't concede anything. Russia invaded Ukraine. It has murdered tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. And our position going into any negotiation should be, we stand firmly with Ukraine.
[18:30:01]
We stand with our European allies. And much as I wouldn't have the president make any territorial concessions before there is an agreement resolved between Russia and Ukraine, I wouldn't make those concessions either. So, that's not the posture I want to take or that I think the president not to take.
TAPPER: No, I understand it's not for the American people to say, but would you agree that like if there is some sort of peace process. And as part of that, Ukraine does have to at least acknowledge that Russia is occupying some of its own country and that the physical war to stop that will end or at least ceasefire.
SCHIFF: Jake, I think I lost you. I think I lost the connection.
TAPPER: But that's not inherently -- we're having real comms problems today. I'm sorry about that. If anybody can hear me, let's go throw it back to New York.
Okay. Maybe we'll --
COOPER: Jake, thanks very much. We'll try to fix the comms problem. Back with the panel here.
So, if you are just joining the coverage at 6:30 here on the East Coast, we are anticipating Vladimir Putin and we think the president of the United States, could be some other people, but most likely them coming out. They were given, you know, the press score and others assembled, were told to sit down. And that was probably about 10 or 15 minutes ago. So, we are still waiting for what we believe will be some sort of public statement and perhaps taking questions.
It is earlier than we anticipated.
PHILLIP: Yes, they're not eating lunch, or at least not in that room that they were in. I think it is interesting just, first of all, the small nature of that meeting, the fact that it wasn't really set up to be the place where all of the negotiation happened, but perhaps that's what has occurred. And, again, I think that all of this seems to suggest perhaps something that will come out of this that is limited in nature, that is enough for them to say at these podiums, but certainly not enough to end this war.
KING: A big, giant question, is there anything to come out of this that involves President Zelenskyy? Meaning if we're going to continue talking, do you bring the Ukrainians into the table? A huge question there.
But both the ambassador and Rahm know this from their work, what's happening now is actually fascinating because the president of the United States and the president of Russia are in their rooms with their delegations, and when it comes to the president of the United States, who can often say things that turn out the next day not to be exactly what happened in the meeting, they're trying to work him. If they have a, you know, a modest agreement, whether it's to keep talking or something to happen, then you're going to take questions. The whole idea is, what are you going to say, right? You don't want to get into a fight and a debate with Vladimir Putin out there.
So, this behind -- that's why we're waiting.
BOLTON: Well, one question is, are they now trying to draft a brief joint statement to reflect what happened? And if you are Vladimir Putin, maybe you wanted in paper that they both agreed to, or are they each going to give separate statements?
COOPER: How did it work in Helsinki? I don't remember. Was there a joint statement?
BOLTON: No, there was not. There was the press conference. There was never intended to be a joint statement. But given the possibility of disagreement at the press conference, they may both be trying to narrow that one way or another by saying to each other what they're going to say. And, you know, I don't know we have an answer yet how many questions, if any, they're going to take.
EMANUEL: Right. You know, I think what you're -- what's happening, one, you had a meeting in the car. Two, the economic team was separated from the political team. They did not sit there and just look at their phone. They engaged each other probably on economic terms. You have the political meeting with the heads of state, plus the political strategic team there, and with President Putin's team in the press room. I don't think the United States team is there. You may have Putin one- on-one with both President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio, et cetera. There are three different locations here, consolidating that into what actually happened here. I think we're not going to know tonight.
PHILLIP: Can I ask a question?
EMANUEL: That is --
COOPER: You don't think -- well, you don't think --
EMANUEL: I think we're going to be -- I think we're all going to be cultural, political, strategic anthropologists and go through this with dates.
PHILLIP: Yes, it's going to be --
EMANUEL: My view, take a deep breath before you hear the narrative, how great this was.
PHILLIP: Well, that's what I was going to ask, Ambassador Bolton. I mean, I'm curious from your perspective, if Trump comes out, as he's want to do, and says, you know, we got all this, these promises of whatever from Putin on economic things, which I think you're probably right, may have been worked out separately, what does that signify to you? I mean, should that be taken as any kind of victory?
BOLTON: Well, I think it's unlikely we're going to hear a lot of explanation of this. I don't think there's going to be much to say and saying it over and over again isn't going to benefit anybody, which leads me to wonder, as I say, whether they're really going to take very many questions.
I think it was originally set up to be two per side, two Russian journalists, two American journalists. And if they're really limited to that and the journalists only get to ask one question each, they might get through it. But we could be surprised and they could still be talking because, in fact, they realize as they try and decide what to say, that they haven't reached agreement.
[18:35:06]
DOUGHERTY: But isn't the whole idea to get something to present to Zelenskyy, right?
BOLTON: Well, I think they're thinking about what they're presenting to their domestic constituents. That's their main --
PHILLIP: Zelenskyy is sort of an afterthought.
EMANUEL: Zelenskyy may be the lunch meal.
I mean, I do think one thing is, and, Jill, I don't -- just to make a point, there's a political piece to this, and that -- and already Putin's got the political wilderness and there may be an economic piece where he is also out of the economic wilderness. And that may be his victory because I think there's a second meeting here and I'm not so sure that there will be some long-term discussions here about --
COOPER: I can't remember who it was. There was a Russian officials in the delegation, I don't know if it was Lavrov or who said to Russian State Media that there will be some reduction in sanctions out of this. Again, I don't know what he knew, but -- or if he was just, you know, hoping.
Let's go back to Jake Tapper and Anchorage. Jake?
TAPPER: Thank you so much, Anderson. So, I have my panel with me right now Kristen Holmes and Jim Sciutto. And what are your sources -- now that our comms issues have worked out, what are your sources, if anything, telling you? And, again, I know that we're all completely in the dark here because it seems like they were in the room for two and a half, three hours and nobody came out of it.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What's actually really interesting right now is that the pool has almost no information, the U.S. pool. We are actually getting the information coming in from the -- from Russia, from the Kremlin. So, what Russia is putting out is that the narrow meeting has ended and that's --
TAPPER: Meaning the three-on-three.
HOLMES: The three-on-three.
TAPPER: Yes.
HOLMES: Unclear about what happened with the extended bilateral and that they are -- seem to be both headed to a joint news conference.
Now, as we can see there in the room, there are still two podiums.
TAPPER: Yes.
HOLMES: They were doing a mic check on both of them.
TAPPER: The significance, of course, of the two podiums being?
HOLMES: Being the fact that we were not sure what this was going to actually look like.
TAPPER: Whether it was just going to be Trump or Trump and Putin.
HOLMES: Right, exactly. Meaning that with Trump, we were told from White House officials that if it didn't go well, that he was not going to go out there and stand next to Vladimir Putin. So, now you're seeing both of these being tested. They're clearly expecting to -- you see a Russian delegation is already in the room. You see President Trump's closest advisers, I saw Steven Cheung, James Blair, all in the front row there, the people who traveled with him.
So, it looks like this is happening any moment now, and it looks like it's going to be both of them. But unclear what this means because we had a lengthy three-on-three longer than they were going to have a one-on-one, potentially no lunch. We never got word that they had gone to that expanded, where the economic conversations were likely to happen, and then now straight to the press conference.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: We could surmise, and again, we could be surprised any minute now, but at least two of the worst signals did not happen. Trump, of course, said I would know in a few minutes, and if we were going nowhere, he might very well have walked out. And he also said if it didn't go well, he might do the press conference on his own. So, the fact that we have two podiums there, again, we're not sure those two podiums will be occupied in a few minutes, but if they are, that would mean both leaders are speaking. So, at least those two most negative indicators at this point aren't happening, not clear what they agreed to in the room.
And I will tell you this. been in touch with folks in Kyiv, in Europe, you know, throughout, they're watching us right now.
TAPPER: Right.
SCIUTTO: Because they don't know what the result was inside the room.
TAPPER: Right. One of the things that's interesting is we heard what somebody on Anderson's panel, it could have been either Bolton or Rahm Emanuel, I'm not sure which one, but one of them said, it is possible that, at the very least, they come out and say, we're going to continue to meet. Not today, but like in coming weeks and coming months, we're going to continue and discuss. And that would be a way to get out of here with nothing having been achieved without it looking like, as you painted, as President Trump set the picture for the worst case scenario, he leaves after two minutes or he goes up to the podium by himself. This would be at least. We had a meeting, we didn't achieve anything, but we're still going to agree to talk.
SCIUTTO: And you know what? That is more normal actually, right, in the sense that, typically, meetings like this, the principals meeting, they meet after the working groups meet and then have something to present to the leaders, right? They don't normally start meetings like this at the top level. They start at the working group level and move up. So, the possibility that you would have another meeting to iron out the details between the principals might just make sense.
HOLMES: I just -- I do feel like though, with President Trump, he has to have something to say. That's not just -- and maybe I'm wrong, but knowing what he put into this, knowing how he set this up, knowing that he was saying he wanted a ceasefire. I'm not saying he has to come out of this and say, you know, I got a ceasefire, or we have a peace deal. I just find it hard to believe, and I know what you're saying is right, that this is normal, that he will come out and say, the only -- you know, we're going to keep talking.
Even if it's -- we're going to have a meeting with all three of us, because that moves the ball forward, but it's hard to imagine how he couches that as a win. And one of the things that we've obviously talked about at length with President Trump is he wants to feel like he got something out of this, and at least be able to communicate that.
[18:40:04]
TAPPER: Right.
HOLMES: And I'm not sure, just saying the talks are continuing, will do that for him when he, you know, gets up to that podium.
TAPPER: Let's bring in Julia Ioffe. She's a Russian-born American journalist and the founding partner and Washington correspondent for Puck. I was quoting her earlier in our programming, quoting some of her reporting.
Julia, as we await this news conference. I'm wondering what skills that Putin brings as a former KGB operative he brings to diplomacy.
JULIA IOFFE, FOUNDING PARTNER AND WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Well, first and foremost, it's to be a mirror and to reflect the person back to them, to tell them what they want to hear. The fact that he -- I found it interesting that he used the same trick on Steve Witkoff on one of his trips to Moscow that he used on George W. Bush, the story about the cross that survived the fire in -- at his dacha outside of St. Petersburg. He's trying to find points of connection with the person he's talking to, trying to make them feel comfortable, trying to make them feel he's on their side and, again, trying to tell them what they want to hear.
At the same time, right behind that is the steel core. There are -- you know, his maximalist demands have not changed. If anything, what I'm hearing from people in Moscow is that people want to ask for more. They have orchestrated this breakthrough, the very poorest Ukrainian frontlines in Donetsk, where a small group of Russian troops went through the Ukrainian frontline, and they've declared this a massive breakthrough. And so all the chatter in Moscow now is why declare any kind of ceasefire when we're ahead, why hamstring ourselves?
But to your question about Putin, the KGB master, he and his friends have often told people that he's a master communicator and that he specializes in human relations.
So, I'm very curious, you know, what he told Trump in The Beast, in the presidential limousine, when there were no translators. Putin speaks enough English to get by and enough where he doesn't need the translator to understand most of what Trump would be saying. I want to know what he said to Trump to make him feel like he's the greatest guy, that nobody could have done this but him. That's what I want to know.
TAPPER: Of course, the question is nobody could have done what, because we don't know what the result of the -- either the con conversation in The Beast, the presidential limo or the three-hour three-on-three meeting. What was your interpretation of the fact that it changed today? It was originally supposed to be -- the meeting was just supposed to be one-on-one, Putin and Trump, and then the White House acknowledged -- White House announced and they said that they had talked to the Russians about it before they announced it, that they changed it to a three-on-three. And President Trump was there not only by himself, but had envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has also had dealings with Putin and Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, who is historically been something of a Russia hawk. What was -- what did you make of that?
IOFFE: Well, what I made of that was that it's good for the American side. Because before, Trump would have been not flying blind, but close to it, that Putin knows this is his fifth -- the fifth American presidency that he's on. He is now -- not only does he have his KGB training, but he's a seasoned veteran of these talks with the U.S. president.
Trump doesn't really know all the details, isn't -- he just wants the big picture. He wants the deal, the points on the board. And it's good that this time that he wasn't going in solo, but was going in with some people who might know a little more. I don't know about Steve Witkoff, but Marco Rubio certainly knows a lot more about this war and about Russia and Ukraine.
So, I think that's good that they decided, hey, let's put some training wheels on our guy and not send him in there by himself. Maybe somebody was getting cold feet. I don't know.
TAPPER: At the very least, it does give somebody for people on his team, for President Trump to play off, as David Urban was saying earlier, he can always blame things on Rubio or Witkoff or say, hey, these two guys tell me something different from what you're telling me, it gives a negotiation to negotiate or some opportunities.
Julia Ioffe, thank you so much. Keep up the great reporting. We always love reading you.
CNN's Chief White House Kaitlan Collins is, of course, in the room at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, not far from where I'm seated, just over my shoulder a few miles.
[18:45:00]
The press conference is expected to begin any moment, Kaitlan. what are you hearing from your sources? What's the mood in the room? I assume the Russian media is there as well. That means that Putin is going to be there as well.
COLLINS: Well, Jake -- Jake -- and let me tell you, Jake, right now, you're seeing behind me, Steve Witkoff is walking into the room.
Obviously, that is the president's special envoy, who has been the person meeting with Putin throughout the -- throughout all of this, as we've been watching all of this and seeing how the meetings going, we'll see if he comments. He hasn't said, no, no officials have come in. Jake, I should note, have said how the meeting has gone.
They all say, wait for the president to come out here as we expect is imminent in this this joint press conference that's about to happen. The kremlin has confirmed that, yes, President Putin will be here as well. And, Jake, I think one thing to note about that is this is the first
time that we have seen a U.S. president and a Russian president standing side by side at a press conference since Helsinki, because, yes, President Biden met with president Putin back in Geneva when he was in office. But they held separate press conferences after that, where they broke on several of the key issues amid a lot of tension in those viewpoints there.
And so right now, we're watching as the key advisors who were inside that meeting. Jake, this is also really the first indication that we have gotten that the three-on-three meeting is over, because Steve Witkoff was inside that meeting that we know stretched for well past 2.5 hours before reporters were abruptly assembled and told to come to their seats for the press conference and that it was imminent. So that is an indication that meeting is over.
Of course, the key question that we don't know yet is what is the outcome of that meeting? Jake, we have not gotten any indication, as we've tried to, you know, question some of the officials who were in here who have said, wait and hear it from the president himself. When he enters the room, of course, we'll be standing side by side with president Putin as well here, Jake. And just any moment.
TAPPER: Kaitlan, besides Steve Witkoff, the special presidential envoy to the Middle East, who is also had many dealings with the Russian president, who else has shown up there from the American delegation?
COLLINS: We haven't seen Secretary of State Marco Rubio yet. He is obviously the other person who is inside the room with President Trump and President Putin and his two senior aides who are in there. Theres a few Russian officials who were seated in here at the front of the room.
Obviously, a lot of Russian press, obviously behind them. And U.S. delegation over here with the U.S. press. And there are a slew of White House aides who are inside the room, but were still waiting to see the other cabinet secretaries that are here that we know traveled with President Trump for this high-stakes summit.
And, you know, Jake, one question. If there was not that working lunch that we had expected to happen that was going to expand to include the commerce secretary, the treasury secretary, the finance aides that came with President Putin as well.
So, questions of whether or not that topic was even broached and what that looked like. You heard President Trump on the way here on Air Force One saying, yes, they do want to talk about business deals and where there could be cooperation between the United States and Russia. But he said he wanted to make sure that the war in Ukraine was going to be taken care of and ended first before they got to that.
So that will be a key question here, obviously, to hear from President Trump on what that looks like and what they came to an agreement on, if anything.
TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan, we're going to come back to you probably after it's all over. Thank you so much for your excellent reporting throughout.
Let me talk to my panel right here while we wait for the leaders of the United States of America and the Federation of Russia to step onto that stage and address the world. Really? It's kind of a high-stakes, nerve wracking moment here. We don't know exactly what happened.
You saw Steve Witkoff say, and others like, wait for the president, the presidents going to talk. What do you think?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think we're about to get some answers here at any moment. I think it's interesting that we see Witkoff is here, but the secretary of state is not which obviously would make it seem as though he is still behind the scenes with President Trump.
Usually, it's something like this. He would have a debrief before he went on the stage with several of his top aides. That would include probably his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, as well as some of those other secretaries that were there before he took to the microphone. So that could be what's happening here. Because, again, as Kaitlan noted, were not seeing the entirety of the U.S. delegation with him in that room yet.
I also don't -- I'm not sure if we've seen the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who I believe traveled with him as well. So likely now, I would assume that she's getting a briefing, talking it through before he takes the stage.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I wonder how much Helsinki is on the president's mind, to Kaitlan's point, that that was the last time Trump and Putin appeared on the stage together.
And that was not a good moment for the U.S. president. He got he was roundly criticized for siding with Putin over his own U.S. intelligence agencies, from Democrats and Republicans. I imagine he's going to want to signal that he President Trump has the upper hand here in whatever the two sides agreed to, to the extent that they agreed to something substantial.
But it is significant that they're coming out together to speak together, because President Trump had said that if the meeting didn't go well, he might very well come out on his own, and to -- while they canceled the planned lunch, they were meeting for some three hours in there.
[18:50:02]
And, you know, that was not -- that was not a president walking away in the immediate first few minutes of this meeting, concluding that he was going to get nowhere.
TAPPER: This meeting, in some ways, it has been coming since the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2014, when they seized Crimea. In some ways, since that low intensity conflict in Eastern Ukraine, since then and also since the invasion by Russian forces of Ukraine as a whole, in early 2022, also for President Trump, who has for years, thought and tried to convey to the world that he has a special relationship with Vladimir Putin and that he can do things that other presidents cannot. That certainly will be put to the test here so much at stake. Obviously, the independence of Ukraine, so much at stake in terms of what happens to those eastern regions that Russia has conquered.
Putin wants all of Ukraine. Ukraine wants Putin to have none of Ukraine. There isn't a lot of compromise area in between that.
SCIUTTO: I think of the Ukrainians. They've lost hundreds of thousands of people, soldiers and civilians, killed and wounded defending their country since the full-scale invasion. There is no greater weight borne today as they await the outcome of this meeting.
TAPPER: We're just told. Just sorry to interrupt people looking closely can see the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has entered the room. We're told that this press conference is going to start in a minute or so.
There's Steven Chung the president's communications director, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. Other members, Karoline Leavitt, the president's press secretary.
This is the closing minutes before this all happens. I'm sorry, Jim, I interrupted.
SCIUTTO: Again at that point, complete. But Ukraine is watching this closely. I've been hearing from members of parliament people in the president's office, as you said, Jake, the fate of their country rides to some degree. They don't have to accept what Putin and Trump agreed to. They don't have to.
But there will be enormous pressure, given the amount of support that the U.S. offers and has offered to Ukraine through these horrible, awful three and a half years of full-scale war.
TAPPER: And --
HOLMES: Jim, just to your point, I mean, were talking about Ukraine. One of the things that President Trump promised was that when he was done, he would call Zelenskyy and he would call European leaders right away. Has he done that? Is he going to make an announcement before talking to the Ukrainian president?
TAPPER: Yeah, that's a great point. He said that this week. He said that probably the very first thing he would do was call Zelenskyy.
HOLMES: Out of respect.
TAPPER: Out of respect, he said.
HOLMES: If that's the promise that he made to Zelenskyy and to European leaders, that he would come out here and make an announcement before first having that conversation with Zelenskyy, with European leaders, as you said, all of whom are hanging on this press conference. I've been watching every moment of this, waiting to hear what is going to come out of it. Interesting to see.
And also, I do want to note that our team on the ground said that Witkoff came in, almost took his seat, and then quickly, abruptly left. And I don't think we've seen him come back in since then.
TAPPER: Interesting. And just to remind the viewers that are tuning in, obviously, in addition to the fate of Ukraine, you know, the European community, terrified of Vladimir Putin invading them next, and in fact, to the degree that, first of all, when President Trump started losing his patience with Putin negotiated a situation where NATO would buy American weapons, NATO member countries, countries would buy American weapons to give to Ukraine. Thats the degree to which they are vested in this, more so than the United States.
And also, the U.K. The defense minister of the U.K. announcing that as part of any sort of settlement, because in addition to any potential concession of land, let's listen in --
(INAUDIBLE)
(RUSSIAN VLADIMIR PUTIN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)
PUTIN (through translator): -- have to do with that territory. Still there is tremendous cultural heritage back from the Russian America. For example, Orthodox churches and a lot of -- more than 700 geographical names of Russian origin. During the Second World War, it was here in Alaska, that was the origin of the legendary airbridge for the supply of military aircraft and other equipment under the lend- lease program.
There was a dangerous and treacherous route over the vast emptiness of ice. However, the pilots of both countries did everything to bring closer the victory. They risked their lives and they gave it all for the common victory.
I was just in the city of Magadan in Russia, and there is a memorial there dedicated to the Russian and the U.S. pilots, and there are two flags, the U.S. flag and the Russian flag. And I know that here as well, there is such a memorial.
There is a military burial place several kilometers away from here. The Soviet pilots are buried there who died during that dangerous mission.
We're thankful to the citizens and the government, the U.S., for carefully taking care of their memory. I think that's very worthy and noble.
We'll always remember other historical examples when our countries defeated common enemies together, in the spirit of battle, camaraderie, and allyship that supported each other and facilitated each other.
I'm sure that this heritage will help us rebuild and foster mutually beneficial and equal ties at this new stage, even during the hardest conditions. It is known that there have been no summits between Russia and the U.S. for four years, and that's a long time. This time was very hard for bilateral relations. And let's be frank, they have fallen to the -- to the lowest point since the Cold War.
I think that's not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. It is apparent that sooner or later, we had to amend the situation to move on from the confrontation to dialogue. And in this case, a personal meeting between the heads of state has been long overdue. Naturally, under the condition of serious and painstaking work, and this work has been done in general.
Me and President Trump have very good direct contact. We've spoken multiple times. We spoke frankly on the phone and special envoy of the president, Mr. Witkoff, traveled to Russia several times. Our advisors and heads of foreign ministries kept in touch all the time. And you know fully well that one of the central issues was the situation around Ukraine.
We see the strife of the administration and President Trump personally to help facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and his strive to get to the crux of the matter, to understand this history is precious.
As I've said, the situation in Ukraine has to do with the fundamental threats to our security. Moreover, we've always considered the Ukrainian nation, and I've said it multiple times a brotherly nation. How strange it may sound in these conditions.
We have the same roots and everything that's happening is a tragedy for us, and terrible wound. Therefore, the country is sincerely interested in putting an end to it. The same time, we're convinced that in order to -- to make the settlement lasting and long term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict.
And we've said it multiple times to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia and to reinstate a just balance of security in Europe and in the world on the whole. And I agree with President Trump, as he has said today, that naturally, the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well. Naturally, we are prepared to work on that I would like to hope that the agreement that we've reached together will help us bring closer to that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine.
We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively, and that they won't throw a wrench in the works. They will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings and to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress.
Incidentally, when the new administration came to power, bilateral trade started to grow but it's still very symbolic. Still, we have a growth of 20 percent. As I've said, we have a lot of dimensions for joint work.
It is clear that the U.S. and Russian investment and business cooperation has tremendous potential. The Russia and the U.S. can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high tech and in space exploration. We see that Arctic cooperation is also very possible and our international context, for example, between the far east of Russia and the West Coast of the U.S.
