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Trump Says the More Important Meeting Will Be the Second Meeting With Putin, Zelenskyy and Possibly European Leaders; More National Guard Troops Expected at D.C. Metro Stations, Landmarks. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2025 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And if you look at the police commissioner or the sheriff, he said we really needed them. Thank God, they were here. We really needed them. That was the first two or three days. After we solved their problems, then he said, well, I think we could have maybe done it. Now, he was told what to say. He said, you go back to your files and see what he said. He said, thank goodness they came.

If I didn't go and put our military there, or National Guard in that case -- and we'll go military if we have to. But the National Guard went there. They were very effective. If we didn't do that, I don't think you would've had the Olympics in Los Angeles. The place would've been just like the 25,000 houses that burned down. Where, by the way, the governor ought to focus on getting their permits. The federal permits are given, those are the hard ones, and they were given a long time ago. People can't rebuild the house because they can't get permits from the state and the city. And they ought to focus on that because it's very upsetting.

I went there right after the fires. I walked the streets and I met a lot of great people. They want to rebuild their homes. We took care of it from the federal standpoint, but they're not taking care of it from the city stand -- the mayor and the Governor, they're not getting their permits. They can't build their houses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, on D.C. crime --

TRUMP: Go ahead, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, thank you. Do you think this summit and the incentives for peace you are putting on the table could end up rewarding Putin for his invasion of Ukraine? And what kind of signal do you think that could potentially send to other aggressors?

TRUMP: No, I don't think it's a reward. I think that what we have is a situation that should never have started, should have never started. It didn't start under me. And for four years, it wasn't even discussed. And I could see it was going to happen. After I left, I could see what was happening. Everything that we did was wrong, everything that was done was wrong. Everybody's to blame, Putin's to blame. They're all to blame. This is a war that would've never happened.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The other question on L.A. Mr. President, earlier today, the Washington, D.C. Police Chief issued an executive order allowing metropolitan police officers conducting traffic stops to notify federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement about undocumented immigrants that they encounter. Yet, the city has a long standing pro- immigration policy, including allowing non-citizens to vote in local election.

TRUMP: Which is ridiculous, by the way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And limiting cooperation with federal immigration agencies.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did your administration pressure the D.C. Police Chief to review and repeal these policies? And will you require other cities to roll back similar policies to avoid possible federal takeover of local law enforcement?

TRUMP: Yeah. So what you're saying is that it was a very positive thing. When they stop people, they find they are illegal, they report them, they give them to us, et cetera. That's a very positive thing. I have heard that it just happened. That's a great step. That's a great step if they're doing that. Yeah, I think that's going to happen all over the country. We want to stop crime. I think if the Democrats aren't stronger in this issue, they won't be able to do it. I think this is a bigger issue than all of the other ridiculous things that they, like open borders.

Well, open borders is bad. Open borders has caused a lot of this problem, allowing millions and millions. I think 24 million people were allowed to come into our country. Many of these people from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions. This was the Biden policy and I don't believe it was him. He was never there before. It was the people that encircled this very beautiful desk, the Resolute Desk, radical left lunatics who were smart but radical left. And I'm very happy to hear what you just said because I've heard that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Mr. President on L.A., if I may, the mother of a 15-year-old California boy, who was briefly detained at gunpoint in the case of mistaken identity, the L.A. USD Superintendent says that surveillance video shows armed agents wearing Police and Border Patrol insignia -- given the National Guard, the Border Control, ICE agents, they're not trained in local policing, what specific steps are you taking to ensure that young people are not put in harm's way with these types of operations?

TRUMP: Yeah. What they are trained in is common sense and they're very tough people and they have great common sense and they are highly trained. I heard the mayor of L.A. was saying, oh, they're not trained this way. I heard this character from -- where was he from? They talk about him as a candidate. He's got no chance. The governor of Maryland, I watched him this morning saying that -- the governor of Maryland, yeah -- they say maybe he'll be a president. He's not presidential timber at all.

But I heard him today talking about how the National Guard or the military is not trained in police, but they're trained in common sense. And they're trained in not allowing people to burn down buildings and bomb buildings and shoot people and all the things. So, they've done a -- they've done a great job. Again, if we didn't send them and very importantly, if we didn't send them into Los Angeles, Los Angeles, the rest of Los Angeles would've been burned down to the ground.

When you look at Minnesota, Minneapolis, I sent them into Minneapolis because the governor wouldn't make the call. If I didn't do that, you wouldn't have a Minneapolis, it wouldn't be -- I don't think it would be existent today.

[14:05:00]

You remember the famous scene, burning over the CNN anchor's shoulder. He said everything seems to be very peaceful and behind him, the whole city is burning down. So you had the whack job governor, who is -- who ran for vice president and made a fool out of himself. You would've had -- I saved that city. I'll tell you, I saved that city. So the bottom line is, these are very tough people that are trained in a thing called common sense, and they're also trained in doing what we're talking about right now. And you watch crime stop. But you wouldn't have Los Angeles, it wouldn't be existent today. We would've had to cancel the Olympics if I let that go on.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you pressure Israel to allow journalists into Gaza to cover the humanitarian efforts the U.S. is pursuing? And --

TRUMP: I'd like to see that happen too. I'd like to see that -- I would like to see it happen. I would be very fine with journalists going in. It's a very dangerous position to be in, as you know, if you're a journalist. But, I would like to see it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And on tariffs, Brazil, Mexico and Latin America are getting closer to China, and they say it's partly because of the tariffs you're imposing on those countries. Do you -- are you concerned of them getting closer to China?

TRUMP: No, not at all. I'm not concerned at all. They can do what they want. None of them are doing very well. And what we're doing in terms of economics, we're blowing everyone away, including China. We're doing better than any other country in the world right now. Brazil has been a horrible trading partner in terms of tariffs. As you know, they charge us tremendous tariffs, far, far more than we were charging them. We weren't charging anything, essentially.

And Brazil has some very bad laws happening where they took a president and they put him in jail, or they're trying to jail him. And I happen to know the man, and I will tell you, I'm pretty good at people. I think he's an honest man. I think what they've done, this is an electric -- this is really a political execution that they're trying to do with Bolsonaro. I think that's terrible. But they also treated us very badly as trading partners for many, many years. One of the worst, one of the worst countries on earth for that. They charge tremendous tariffs, and they made it very difficult to do anything. So now, they're being charged 50 percent tariffs and they're not happy. But that's the way it goes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, on D.C. crime, sir -- on D.C. crime, are you concerned at all that some federal officers that are helping D.C. Police might be being pulled away from other high- priority assignments?

TRUMP: Like what? Like what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terrorism for example.

TRUMP: Oh, really? Terrorism? They'll stop terrorism as part of what they're doing right now. No. The soldiers that we have -- first of all, we have plenty of them, long beyond what they -- that you have here. We're just using a very small force. In Washington, D.C., they have thousands of police. They have a lot of police, but the police weren't allowed to do their job. We have a lot of great ones, and you have some that weren't so good, to be honest, but they weren't allowed to do their job.

But now, they are allowed to do their job. And essentially, we've -- it's only two days, but you look at the numbers already, they're dropping. And no, they're not being pulled off or anything.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, as you know, there were some very concerning reports about crime statistics. Police are manipulating crime data to downplay crime in D.C. Will the administration release its own crime statistics to counter their misinformation?

TRUMP: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And will those individuals who are intentionally misrepresenting crime data and fudging the books, like you said, be penalized for endangering the public?

TRUMP: They are under investigation right now. They are giving us phony crime stats, just like they gave other stats in the financial world, but they're phony crime stats. And Washington, D.C. is at its worst point and it will soon be at its best point. You're going to have a very safe -- you're going to have a crime free city. I mean, I say that you're going to have virtually a crime free city. And these are strong men and -- but the criminals are strong men and women, but they're strong men. And these are people that don't play games. We're not playing games.

These are criminals we're dealing with. And they treated people -- they took one of the people that worked for us the other day. You saw the beating, the pounding, 10 against one, and they pounded the hell out of him. He's lucky to be alive. He's barely, almost killed, and we're not going to have that happening. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tulsi Gabbard declassified more documents last night related to the Russiagate hoax.

TRUMP: She's doing a great job, by the way. That was another fake story. She's -- I'm very happy with the job she is doing. That's right. They declassified some terrible documents talking about Democrats and what they did, radical left lunatics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It showed that then DNI, James Clapper sent out emails to ICE officials saying that it would be a team sport to push, then the debunked 2017 ICA report, and that it might need them to compromise on their normal modalities. What's your reaction to the latest declassification? And in your view, sir, what does real accountability look like for the players involved?

[14:10:00]

TRUMP: It's incredible what we're finding, absolute proof of guilt, and we'll see what happens. But, Clapper and Comey and that whole group of criminals, they're criminals and they made it very tough. They did the fake Russia, Russia, Russia witch hunt that lasted for two years. And I got totally exonerated. There was no doubt about it. They should have done it in one day, not two years. But it was a whole scheme to try and demean Trump, so that I couldn't win an election. That is a criminal group of people. They're sick people and they're criminals, and they should be taken care of.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, does Putin have a strong hand tomorrow?

TRUMP: Well, he came to our country and I heard CNN fake news talking about that. That was a big win for him. Normally, he would say the opposite, but they said, oh, it's a big win that he came here. Normally, they would say the opposite. He came here. I think that President Putin would like to see a deal. I think if I weren't president, he would take over all of Ukraine. It's a war that should have never happened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --

TRUMP: If I weren't president, in my opinion, he would much rather take off -- take over all of Ukraine. But I am president and he's not going to mess around with me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on Russia, Mr. President, would you support or agree to reducing NATO troops in Europe, in countries like Poland in order to get Russia to agree to a peace deal?

TRUMP: That hasn't been put before me, and I'll think about that for later, but it has not been put before me. Go ahead. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is anything less than an unconditional immediate ceasefire a victory for the U.S.?

TRUMP: Tomorrow?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Well, tomorrow we'll see. I say, I don't know where that comes from. It's sort of a not a good question. I would say that tomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly. I'd like to see it happen very quickly, very shortly after this meeting. I'd like to see it actually happen maybe in Alaska where we just stay because it's so much easier. But I think that -- I think it's going to be very interesting. We're going to find out where everybody stands and I'll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, or five minutes, like we tend to find out, whether or not we're going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.

And if it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly. And if it's a good meeting, we're going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future. OK? How about one more?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President on the Smithsonian. I know that your administration is seeking to weed out a lot of this left-wing (inaudible) --

TRUMP: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- that's in the museums, but we're seeing from people like Brian Stelter or other commentators, that they're insinuating that you are trying to change history according to your narrative. What's your response to that? And is there anything you'd particularly like to talk about?

TRUMP: Well, we want the museums to treat our country fairly. We want the museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or in a racist manner, which is what many of them, not all of them, but many of them are doing. Our museums have an obligation to represent what happened in our country over the years, good and bad, but what happened over the years in an accurate way.

Thank you very much everybody.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you. Press. Thank you, Press. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Cut it out right here. Thank you, Press. Thanks, guys. Cut out. Right this way, right this way. Thanks, guys. Keep coming. Let's go, guys.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We've been listening to President Donald Trump inside the Oval Office as he has been answering reporters' questions. This was an event marking the 90th anniversary of Social Security. The president touting what his administration has done, he says, to advance Social Security. He did take some important questions from reporters on a number of different issues, perhaps most notably on his upcoming summit with Vladimir Putin tomorrow in Anchorage, Alaska.

The president saying there that he thinks that Putin and Zelenskyy will make peace. He says, we'll see if they get along. He did acknowledge that the conflict in Ukraine is more complicated than he had thought. Remember, during his campaign, he had said that it was a conflict that he would broker peace for within days. That clearly has not happened. He's talked about Vladimir Putin stringing him along. He was also asked whether having Putin here in the United States was actually a symbolic victory for the Kremlin, given that Putin has been ostracized as a result of U.S. and European policy for his actions in invading Ukraine. The president there disputing that idea, saying that it is not a victory for Putin, rather a victory for the United States to have Putin here.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": There are a lot of other things too, because we've been watching the expectations game over the past week as we've been barreling towards this meeting tomorrow. And this quote stood out to me that, President Trump was asked if a ceasefire is basically what he wants to come out of this meeting. And again, he said today, just now, tomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting. Again, different language than consequences before. It's kind of taken a morphous approach, if you will, or again, the back and forth approach at least as we again approach this meeting.

[14:15:00]

The other thing that I thought though that was interesting was he did say, when he described this second potential meeting, if things go well tomorrow with Vladimir Putin, that perhaps I might bring some of the European leaders along to a potential trilateral meeting. So that also stood out to me as well.

We want to go to some of our reporters who are standing by. We have CNN's Alayna Treene, CNN's Jim Sciutto in Anchorage for us, and Michael Bociurkiw, the former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Let's start with Alayna, who's in -- or I should say at the White House and has been listening along.

Alayna, what were your big takeaways from what we just heard from the president just there?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, one of the other things I think when, as it relates to this Putin summit tomorrow, is how we described the difficulty of trying to find an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. It's something we know he has personally felt, but he rarely says this out loud. He essentially said that he thought that this war would be the easiest one. He was talking about all the different conflicts he has intervened in. He said, I thought this one would be the easiest one, but it's proven to be the most difficult. Just giving you a little bit more of his mindset as he heads to Anchorage tomorrow.

But some of the other points, again, you kind of -- you kind of pointed them out, but I do think the idea that he keeps going back to this idea that this is looked at as a first meeting, that he believes this one-on-one with Vladimir Putin is the start of what could be a potentially very long process of trying to find a real tangible agreement and off-ramp to the conflict. He said that, he thinks it'll be a good meeting, but that the second meeting would be even more important. And then that part about him saying that the second meeting must include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in addition to having Putin in the room.

The idea that he's saying that potentially some European leaders could be part of that as well, I think shows the effect that these different calls and really the work we've seen the United States allies in Europe really do, to try and set the stage for this meeting, to try and bend President Donald Trump's ear before he sits down with Putin has, in some ways, been successful. The president has -- this week, we've heard him repeatedly argue that he's close with a lot of these European leaders, that he thinks the work they're doing to try and help end this conflict has been great.

Not the same rhetoric we've heard from him in recent months. So it really shows, I think, how those conversations are helping shape what he's looking to get out of this meeting tomorrow. And really this idea that this could be the start of a longer process.

SANCHEZ: Let's go to Jim Sciutto, who's in Anchorage, Alaska, where the summit is set to take place. And Jim, it's important to fact check here as President Trump says that if it weren't for him, Vladimir Putin would've taken all of Ukraine. It was actually the swift action of the previous administration and President Biden in aligning not only U.S. capabilities, but also NATO and European allies, to push Russia out of Ukraine as Putin was attempting a full takeover of the country. And also notable that in the last few weeks, we've heard reports that the Russians are making gains on the eastern front or at least attempting to. I wonder what you make of what you just heard from President Trump.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah, listen, it's a good point, Boris, and of course, it's the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian military who's been fighting for more than three years now with enormous losses against a far larger Russian force and holding the line, and even taking back some of the territory that Russia initially occupied in the early stages of the war. You remember, when Russia invaded the full-scale invasion in February 2022, U.S. intelligence assessments had predicted that Russia would absorb the entire country within the span of 72 hours -- take Kyiv within 72 hours. That didn't happen.

And since then, Ukraine has borne the brunt of this and they've developed really an entirely new means of fighting war with drone warfare, et cetera. So that's an important fact check there. Looking ahead, over the course of the last several days, I've been speaking to a number of Ukrainian lawmakers, officials, as well as lawmakers in the U.S. and the two big questions they have leading into the summit tomorrow are, one, will President Trump attempt to pressure or even force Ukraine to make concessions it doesn't want to make, in particular, to give up territory to Russia that Russia doesn't already occupy, which of course Russia took by force? That's one question. And the second is, will Trump apply real pressure on the Russian leader to make concessions as well? Not just territorial concessions, but also security guarantees, so that Ukraine can be confident that whatever, if there is a peace agreement, that going forward, Russia will not invade again. And I should say the president at least sounds optimistic that when he meets with the Russian president tomorrow, he'll get a signal as to whether he's serious about talks.

[14:20:00]

And if he is, and you heard President Trump say there, he'll know within the first several minutes of their conversation that if he judges Putin to be serious about a deal, then it seems that he will invite President Zelenskyy and perhaps European leaders here to Anchorage to finalize that deal. But we'll see because, of course, recent history has shown that Putin has had no interest in making any concessions and still clings to this idea that Ukraine is his and always has been Russia's. We'll see if that changes tomorrow.

FREEMAN: Michael Bociurkiw, I believe you're with us now to continue this conversation. I want you to react to something that Alayna Treene noted as well. Just because I know that you've been writing about how Europe and the E.U. has really kind of felt on the sidelines during this week leading up to this meeting, but President Trump showed that in this potential second meeting, if all goes well tomorrow, that maybe some European leaders might be included in addition to Zelenskyy at some sort of trilateral meeting. What did you make of those remarks?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, FORMER SPOKESMAN, ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY & COOPERATION IN EUROPE: Yeah. Well, good to be with you. Well, I -- first of all, I have a whole table full of notes of falsehoods and contradictions and exaggerations by Mr. Trump. But, very notable that it does sound -- he does sound very excited about a second meeting and that it could happen very quickly, including potentially Putin, Zelenskyy, Mr. Trump of course, and a European leader. I doubt it'll happen in Alaska, but let's see about that.

But I -- about the question in the press conference, whether this was a reward for Mr. Putin? Of course, it's a reward. It gets him out of his diplomatic isolation. It gets him incredibly onto U.S. soil at no less an Air Force base. I think the only way Putin would've topped that would be to get Mr. Trump to come to Moscow. And then we also, really important, and I know the Europeans, where I sit, are really big on this, is his huge exaggeration about the U.S. spending $350 billion on Ukraine. It's actually about half of that.

The Europeans have now spent a heck of a lot more, about $260 billion. That point is really important because if the worst-case scenario happens and Mr. Trump paused the switch on a -- to Ukraine, the Europeans are giving so much at the moment that it could actually help Ukraine float along for quite some time, along with their own domestic production of drones and stuff like that. But, one quick point here is that the U.S. still provides those very, very crucial Patriot defense missile systems, intelligence, and well now, the alienated Mr. Musk provides the Starlink communication system for the Ukrainian army. So a heck of a lot of stake in here. But, we got to point out those exaggerations and certainly another one, he didn't solve six wars. You go and talk to the Malaysians; they're the ones who help broker the Thai-Cambodia deal. Talk the to the Indians about who helped solve the conflict between India and Pakistan.

FREEMAN: Very busy afternoon, ahead of a very busy day to come tomorrow. Michael Bociurkiw, Jim Sciutto, Alayna Treene, thank you all for your insights and reporting after that very eventful news conference. Appreciate you all.

And still to come, President Trump also spoke about the takeover of the D.C. Police and pushed back once again on recent crime stats. We'll take a look at the facts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:09]

FREEMAN: New today, National Guard troops are now stationed right outside of Washington, D.C.'s biggest transportation hub, Union Station. Just one of the latest escalations in President Trump's federal takeover of policing in D.C. And it's happening as CNN is learning several FBI agents who never trained to patrol are hoping to soon get back to what they're working on before they got pulled into this presidential crime crackdown. For more on this, we have Evan Perez. He is with us. Evan, so the president was just asked if he was worried at all about these FBI agents being pulled off of other duties, like say combating terrorism in the streets. Let's take a listen to what the president said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned at all that some federal officers that are helping D.C. Police might be being pulled away from other high-priority assignments?

TRUMP: Like what? Like what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terrorism for example.

TRUMP: Oh, really? Terrorism? They'll stop terrorism as part of what they're doing right now. No. The soldiers that we have -- first of all, we have plenty of them, long beyond what they -- that you have here. We're just using a very small force. You know --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: All right. They'll stop terrorism as part of what they're doing right now, patrolling the streets of D.C. What are agents telling you about this?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, what we're hearing from people inside the FBI is that there is a real concern that the tasks that they normally are doing, the work that they're supposed to be doing, which is stopping threats from China, from Iran, from Russia, that they're having to put that aside, including some of the terrorism threats in this country. They're putting that aside in order to go police the streets, something that they're not really trained to do, right? The -- being a Metropolitan Police Department, a cop is actually a completely different type of training. You are trained -- you are trained to deescalate. That's not something somebody who works at a desk at the FBI usually has to do.

Many of these agents, go through their entire careers without ever putting cuffs on anybody because that's not what the FBI's job is --