What a summit win looks like for Trump – and for Putin: From the Politics Desk

NBC News

12 hours ago

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today's edition, Kristen Welker outlines the stakes for the in-person meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, their first since 2019, as they arrive in Alaska. After shaking hands on the tarmac, Putin joined Trump in his car. .
Plus, Rob Wile answers this week's reader question on what happens to the money the government collects from tariffs.
— Adam Wollner
The high stakes for Trump as he comes face to face with Putin
Analysis by Kristen Welker
President Donald Trump's summit today with Russian President Vladimir Putin comes with incredibly high stakes for the future of Russia's war with Ukraine — and for Trump himself.
The president seemed to be lowering expectations ahead of the face-to-face meeting, telling Fox News Radio yesterday that 'there a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting.'
So what does a win for Trump look like?
A senior administration official also told me that Trump 'is realistic that this is likely a multistep process and he's ready and positive about this step forward.' But Western and U.S. officials say that a victory for Trump is an unconditional and immediate ceasefire, and that if there are conditions attached, that's a win for Putin.
It remains to be seen if Putin will try to cloud these talks by raising other issues on his agenda, like a nuclear arms deal and easing sanctions against Russia. It's also unclear whether Trump will offer any incentives to the Russians, and keep his promise to Ukraine and European allies that he will not negotiate territory.
All of this underscores the political risk for Trump as he navigates a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and fueled a robust debate over how long the U.S. should provide financial and military support to Ukraine.
Trump said during the 2024 campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours upon taking office, but he has acknowledged that doing so is far more complicated than he could have anticipated. Meanwhile, recent polling has found that more voters disapprove of his handling of the war.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll found a slim majority of voters (51%) disapproving of Trump's handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, while 41% approved (the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points). That poll also showed that 58% of voters were in favor of sending additional financial aid to Ukraine, a 10-point increase since January, while 36% were in opposition.
We'll be delving into the fallout from the high-stakes summit on 'Meet the Press' this Sunday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
✉️ Mailbag: Where does the tariff money go?
Thanks to everyone who emailed us! This week's question comes from Tara Vargas:
'Trump claims to be raking in trillions from tariffs. I read that the money goes into the general fund. But does it really? And if not there, where?'
To answer that, we turned to business reporter Rob Wile. Here's his response:
Yes, it does go into the U.S. Treasury's General Fund — something the department calls 'America's Checkbook' — and is used to finance both daily and long-term government operations, ranging from federal employee salaries to interest payments.
Congress establishes how the general fund is spent in its appropriations bills. While the Treasury Department tracks where revenues come from, it generally does not individually earmark a set of funds from a given revenue source for a specific purpose.
'You can think of [tariffs revenues] as helping reduce the overall deficit, or offsetting the costs of the One Big Beautiful Bill,' said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director at the nonpartisan think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. 'It doesn't go into any kind of dedicated trust fund.'
In July, the Treasury took in about $29 billion in tariffs. Every month since April, when Trump announced 'reciprocal' tariffs, has seen record tariffs revenues come in. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that the tariffs could bring in as much as $1.3 trillion of net new revenues through the end of Trump's current term, and $2.8 trillion through 2034 — though it cautions these estimates are 'very rough' and intended to reflect 'the general magnitude' of Trump's overall approach to the import taxes 'given the complexity of the tariffs and their impacts.'
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the chief auditing agency of the federal government, has found significant, long-running issues with how General Fund payments are tracked and reported, though it does not suggest any funds are actively being misappropriated.
The Treasury, it said in March, 'records transactions as a group total instead of individual balances and then processes them through a variety of systems.'
It continued: 'As a result, we did not have enough information to determine if the amounts reported are reliable, and therefore, the Schedules were not auditable. More recently, we've identified additional challenges that impact the ability to clearly track funds. This includes oversight of information coming from outside entities, such as banks, that collect money on behalf of the federal government.'