Behind the scenes of Trump's historic summit with Putin

The Hill

11 hours ago

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – When a door swung open to the small room where President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were holding an historic sit-down meeting, I had barely caught my breath.
I had just run from a van about 100 yards away to the building where Trump and Putin were set to hold high stakes talks on the war in Ukraine.
White House staff urged us to hurry into the room because Trump and Putin were already inside. Indeed, it was a madhouse as the American and Russian press jockeyed for photos and shouted questions that would go unanswered.
'Thank you very much, everybody,' Trump said, signaling he was ready for the press to leave.
I flew aboard Air Force One as part of the group of reporters, known as the traveling press pool, who document the president's movements for those who can't be with him on such trips. The day began around 6 a.m. Friday and ended just after 3 a.m. early Saturday morning with the president essentially making a day trip to the Last Frontier state.
I witnessed the carefully choreographed greeting between the two leaders. I was in the room for the frenetic opening moments of their sit-down summit, and I watched as members of the press were stunned to see Trump and Putin walk off stage without taking a single question at what was billed as a joint press conference.
The entire trip had an unpredictable pace to it, which can often be the case when part of the travel pool. Long stretches of waiting for a presidential movement are punctuated by rapid developments that force reporters to be at the ready on a moment's notice.
I have traveled with Trump several times before, but no trip was as consequential as Friday's summit in Alaska. Witnessing the meeting with Putin first-hand revealed and reinforced certain characteristics about who Trump is as a leader.
Trump at his core is a showman, and that was on full display during Friday's summit.
Upon exiting Air Force One in Anchorage, I watched as officials unfurled a literal red carpet so that it rolled right up to where Putin would step off his plane. I saw staff put the finishing touches on 'ALASKA 2025' block letters that would serve as the foreground of an initial photo op for Trump and Putin.
And my ears rattled as the roar of a B-2 bomber and other military aircraft flew overhead as Trump and Putin stepped onto a riser, part of an elaborate bit of planning from the White House intended to create maximum dramatic effect.
The mere act of hosting Putin on U.S. soil was something of a made for TV moment.
The coverage was breathless, critics suggested the event's existence was a win for Putin, and European leaders held out hope that Trump could make headway in bringing an end to the fighting that started in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
It was notable to watch Putin face questions from U.S. reporters about whether he would stop killing civilians. He reacted with a shrug.
There were indications on the ground that Friday's meeting did not go entirely as planned.
Trump and Putin rode together in the presidential limousine for the short drive from the tarmac to the meeting site. A U.S. official confirmed to me that no interpreter or other staff were present for the brief trip, and photos and video footage captured Putin laughing in the backseat.
A planned one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin turned into a three-on-three meeting, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff joining Trump for what ended up being a roughly three-hour discussion.
While that played out, American reporters and Russian reporters gathered in the same media tent, divided by a rope line to keep the two sides mostly separate. Unless of course you needed a bathroom, then all reporters used a row of port-a-potties that had been set up outside.)
Plans for an expanded bilateral meeting with a wider delegation of officials never materialized. Instead, we were rushed into an auditorium for a planned joint press conference right after the summit, somehow ahead of schedule.
The press conference turned out to be a 12-minute appearance by the two leaders in which they each gave remarks: First Putin, then Trump, an unusual maneuver considering the U.S. was the host country.
Putin used a lot of his time speaking about Russian history and then flattered Trump with comments about how he would not have invaded Ukraine if it were Trump in office in 2022, and not former President Biden. He gave no indication as to why he thought that. And Trump would not answer follow-up questions about why Putin agreed with him on that notion in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity that aired after the press conference.
Trump only spoke for three minutes, offering few specifics about what, if anything, had been agreed upon at Friday's summit.
The abrupt ending to the press conference left many reporters wondering whether Trump was frustrated by the summit. The Hannity interview before departing Alaska only added to those questions.
On the way to Alaska, Trump came to the back of the plane to speak to reporters roughly 20 minutes after taking off for the seven hour flight from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. He fielded questions ahead of his summit with Putin about what he was expecting.
But the typically talkative Trump was apparently no longer interested in taking questions once he arrived in Alaska. He did not respond to questions shouted by this reporter and others during various photo ops with Putin, nor did he take any questions at what had been billed as a joint press conference with the Russian leader.
The president did not speak to the traveling pool during the roughly six-hour return flight to Washington, D.C., though we learned that he did speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European allies.
Those calls set the stage for a Monday meeting in Washington with Zelensky, and perhaps for a future trilateral meeting involving Trump, Zelensky and Putin.
As for where that meeting will take Trump and the traveling press pool, the president has suggested another trip to Alaska could be an option.
On Friday, Putin had another idea.