Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump En Route To Alaska For High-Stakes Putin Summit; Former Imprisoned American Trevor Reed On Trump-Putin Summit; Russian PM Stirs Attention Wearing USSR Sweater To Alaska Summit. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 15, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:41]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to Inside Politics. I'm Jake Tapper in for Dana Bash. I am obviously in Anchorage, Alaska.

And President Trump is en route to this beautiful state for his high- stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here's what he said about Putin this morning on Air Force One.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, he's a smart guy, been doing it for a long time, but so have I. Been doing it for a long time.

We get along. There's a good respect level on both sides. And I think, you know, something's going to come of it.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

TAPPER: My next guest doesn't have so much respect for Vladimir Putin. He says Putin is evil, a liar, and cannot be trusted. And he's got a little experience.

Trevor Reed is the former U.S. submarine who spent nearly three years wrongfully imprisoned in Russia. His experience with Putin's regime left such an impact on him that after his release back to the United States, he went to Ukraine to fight, physically fight against the Russian invasion, where he was wounded in battle.

And Trevor, as always, it's good to see you, sir. So I want to ask you, you were imprisoned in Putin's Russia for nearly three years. On the orders of Putin, or at least his government, what is it like for you to see the president, you know, figuratively rolling out the red carpet, welcoming Putin onto American soil? Obviously, he's trying to create peace in the region and bring peace to Ukraine, but what's your view of it all?

TREVOR REED, FORMER U.S. MARINE IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA FOR THREE YEARS: I can understand the, you know, us needing to have diplomacy with Russia. That conflict is going to be resolved in Ukraine one way or another through diplomacy, so I do understand that.

I don't understand bringing an indicted war criminal to the United States. I think if we're bringing indicted war criminals to the United States, the only reason we should do that is to put them in prison or to hold a trial for them.

TAPPER: The last time you and I spoke, you told me, quote, "Whatever type of peace agreement you come up with with Russia, they are going to violate it 100 percent." Your fellow wrongly imprisoned former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan told me a couple days ago that this entire summit is a fool's errand and that Trump is trying to make a deal with the devil. Is that how you see it, too?

REED: I hope that it isn't, but it's hard for me to imagine anything good coming out of this. I think everyone in the Trump administration can see clearly now that this is a stalling tactic, that Putin and the Russians are trying to delay U.S. action in helping Ukraine, and unfortunately that's been working.

TAPPER: President Trump talked -- has talked about land swaps ultimately needing to be part of any negotiation, although he did say it's ultimately up to Ukraine. You fought on the ground in Ukraine, in parts of Ukraine that Russia is seizing that maybe if -- in any sort of peace deal Russia will get. What are you hearing from your fellow Ukrainians, if anything, about this?

Our people in Ukraine, who are very war-weary, polls indicate that more people want a settled peace than to fight to victory at this point more than two years ago. Are Ukrainians willing to give up some land if this war ends?

REED: I can't speak to all Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians that I know are strongly against giving up any territory to Russia. I don't think that even comes to them as a possibility.

TAPPER: There are still American citizens imprisoned in Russia right now, including Stephen Hubbard and David Barnes and Robert Gilman, who, like you and Paul Whelan, is a former Marine. Do you think President Trump should bring them up in this meeting?

REED: Absolutely. I think, you know, if anything, that's the one good thing that could come from this summit is the opportunity to bring other Americans home. So if President Trump has that opportunity, I think he absolutely should take that. He needs to take that. And I hope that that's already, you know, been planned to be discussed.

[12:35:14]

Before we go, Trevor, just a check, because obviously CNN viewers are very familiar with your story. They're very familiar with your parents. We did a primetime special when you got out. People want to know, how are you doing? How's your family doing?

REED: I'm doing really well now. I'm finishing my school up. My parents are back in Texas. I just saw them recently, so that was great to be here and be free. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.

TAPPER: You have great parents. Send them my love, please.

Trevor Reed, thanks so much.

Coming up next, President Trump says again and again and again that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, one of his biggest opponents says if he ends the war in Ukraine on the right terms, she will nominate him herself. We'll tell you more about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:40:43]

TAPPER: Welcome back to Inside Politics Live from Anchorage, Alaska, where in less than two hours, President Trump is going to touch down and have his pivotal summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Let's bring in a terrific group of reporters we have with us, Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. Zolan, let me start with you. We've seen President Trump handicapping the possible failure of his summit at 25 percent. I think probably a lot of other people think that that's an optimistic projection, but not inappropriately so. Do you think President Trump faces any domestic political risk if this summit does not work out?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, we have to remember that during the campaign, President Trump promised to end this war within 24 hours of taking office. One of his main lines of criticism against his political opponent at the time, President Biden, was that he didn't have control and wasn't an effective manager of these conflicts overseas, and he tried to position himself as somebody that could utilize his -- I mean, the way he described his relationship with someone like Vladimir Putin to put an end to some of these wars, that hasn't happened.

It hasn't happened in Ukraine. It hasn't happened in the Middle East. It hasn't happened in Gaza. So this is a test of sorts for his overall record thus far on the global stage. Now, whether or not that will have a political impact in, say, you know, the forthcoming midterms, I mean, who knows? Foreign policy doesn't tend to move voters as much as domestic agendas, but this is without a doubt, a test of that hyperbolic, at times unrealistic rhetoric of the campaign running up against reality.

TAPPER: Susan, just to remind our younger viewers, you're a former Washington Post Moscow Bureau Chief. You and your husband, Peter Baker of The New York Times, wrote a book about Vladimir Putin. You've been covering Putin for virtually his entire political career. He's been pretty effective at winning over American presidents since he came to power at the turn of the century.

We all remember President Trump seeming to side with Putin over his own intelligence agencies in Helsinki in 2018. But Trump was not the only one to fall victim to Putin's charms. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that the United States can do business with this man. What I have seen of him so far indicates to me that he's capable of being a very strong and effective and straightforward leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

TAPPER: We also remember President Obama sending Secretary of State Clinton to Europe to hit the reset button with Moscow. What do you think are the tactics that have made Putin so successful in snowing American presidents? And might they work again today?

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, thank you, Jake. I guess what I would point out is over the quarter century that Putin has been in power in Russia, he's dealt with five American presidents. But Donald Trump has remained an enormous outlier. Because while each president has come into office, you could say with a certain amount of hubris, believing that if they only looked Putin in the eye, they could sit down and do business with him.

All of the other American presidents, you played a clip from Bill Clinton, from George W. Bush --

TAPPER: George W. Bush.

GLASSER: -- even Barack Obama --

TAPPER: Yes.

GLASSER: -- and certainly Joe Biden, they didn't end up in the place of believing that Vladimir Putin was a man they could do business with far from it. They ended up believing that he was a killer, in the words of Joe Biden. But also, more importantly, that he had turned Russia away from democracy and on a path toward confrontation with the United States, with democracies, with Western Europe. He has unleashed the deadliest war in Europe since World War II.

And the only person who has praised him consistently throughout his career, with the exception of a few frustrated comments in the last couple of months, has been Donald Trump. So I think Trump is really an outlier in the desire to sort of stay snowed by Vladimir Putin. And this summit, in many ways, is a result of that.

[12:45:07]

There's no other American leader, I believe, Democrat or Republican, who would have held this summit in the United States on these terms right now, with Putin having to make no concessions whatsoever to be welcomed back into the United States at a time when he's under sanctions and has unleashed this terrible war. That is already a victory in many respects for Putin. And it's not one that I could imagine any of the other American leaders who dealt with Putin giving him.

TAPPER: And Zolan, this week, the White House tweeted this, highlighting the President's strong desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. And take a listen to what his old rival and nemesis, Hillary Clinton, said this morning about that.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: If he could bring about the end to this terrible war where Putin is the aggressor invading a neighbor country, try to change the borders, if he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor, if President Trump were the architect of that, I'd nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

TAPPER: Zolan, what's your take? Should anybody be buying any tickets to Oslo right now?

KANNO-YOUNGS: What I think is interesting here is, you know, President Trump has talked for years now about how he wants this Nobel Peace Prize. But now you're seeing a range of officials, political foes in the form of Hillary Clinton, but also foreign leaders, almost float the idea of a Nobel Prize as a way to incentivize President Trump.

I reported on this meeting the President had with a roundtable of African leaders earlier this summer. And each went and basically talked about the Nobel Prize and potentially nominating him. Of course, in that meeting, each of those leaders didn't want to be crushed with tariffs. Each of those leaders want to basically control his unpredictable tendencies on the global stage.

Now you have Hillary Clinton, who's basically outlining the platform that many national security officials want the President to approach Vladimir Putin with. And also incentivizing it with this Nobel Peace Prize. So we've written a lot about how Trump wants this. I think it's interesting now how you're seeing foes and allies alike also float it, you know, to the President to try and get him to basically align with the stance that many want him to take when it comes to Russia.

TAPPER: And Susan, I'm sure you saw this image of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wearing a USSR sweater on the way to the talks. It says CCCP, which is Cyrillic for USSR. It's a sweater that is a vestige of a bygone era of the Soviet Empire that no longer exists. I don't imagine that he just happened to grab that from the pile on his way.

GLASSER: No, I mean, look, you know, the Russian system and increasingly like the American system plays at times to an audience of one. And it's no surprise perhaps that Sergey Lavrov, you know, he's the Russian long-serving foreign minister, but at the same time never been the most influential of Vladimir Putin's advisers playing perhaps to the audience of one, his own boss.

Remember that Putin is the man who said that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. In many respects, that's part of what this war with Ukraine is all about for Putin. As by the way, his unprovoked aggression against other of his former Soviet colleagues, for example, in Georgia, Vladimir Putin doesn't accept the legitimacy of Ukraine as an independent nation.

And he has made that very clear over the last few years. So in a way, this is a message not only about Ukraine, but I think more ominously remember there were 15 nations ultimately now independent that were part of the Soviet Union. What is the message that Sergey Lavrov is saying to all of Russia's neighbors at a moment like this? I think it was a very conscious troll.

Who could forget Melania Trump going to the border with her, I don't care to you clothing message. I -- you can't help but think of that when you look at this from Sergey Lavrov this morning.

TAPPER: Yes, consequential fashion decisions.

Susan Glasser, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, thanks so much.

Coming up, a closer look at the map to any sort of land that is at stake for Ukraine. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:54:09]

TAPPER: Welcome back to our special coverage in Anchorage Alaska. President Trump says he is not going to Alaska not coming here to negotiate for Ukraine and it's going to be up to Ukraine to make any decisions on territory. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh shows us exactly which territories are in Vladimir Putin's sights.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Any peace deal in Ukraine is going to ultimately be about land. When President Trump talks about swapping territories, this is Russian occupied areas but it's these three parts here black surrounded that have always been part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most maximalist war goals. It's what he wants.

The lines we've drawn as best as we can here but the stakes are incredibly high. Any minor inaccuracy of my pen could be a place that thousands of people have fought and died for or still live. Now, in just recent days, there's been a tiny advance here by the Russians but it's significant and caused some concern and even denials and reinforcements sent from Kyiv.

[12:55:10]

But this Donetsk area is potentially if we understand what the Kremlin's proposed somewhere they want Ukrainians to withdraw from entirely in exchange for a ceasefire. And look at it, it's a huge area. What could they give back? These tiny border parts occupied by Russia a buffer zone President Putin calls it but it's hardly a fair exchange. And so the real hard-to-solve question what happens to Zaporizhzhia here and Kherson. Now, Russia occupies probably about two-thirds of each but Putin wants all of it. They were kicked out the Russians here in the first year of the war.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

(CHANTING)

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PATON WALSH: But it's impossible to imagine Ukraine deciding to pull out of massive areas like this and equally impossible to imagine the Russians will give up a big strategic gain of a land corridor that they managed to take when the big invasion began down to Crimea that they've held since 2014. That's the sticking point and there's very little obvious way through it.

TAPPER: Nick Paton Walsh reporting from Ukraine.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. I'm going to be back here in about an hour for our special coverage of the Trump-Putin summit, 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

CNN News Central starts after this quick break. See you in a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)