438. Inside the Trump-Putin Summit: What Really Happened in Alaska?

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1:37Welcome to Arrested Politics, a live stream trying to make sense of what we saw in Alaska yesterday with me, Alistair Campbell and with me, Rory Stewart. And just as a sort of opening to this, one of the extraordinary things about this is that world leaders, particularly people like Zelensky, will have been watching their televisions, essentially trying to do what you were doing last night, which is staying up half the night, trying to guess what on Earth was happening during that three hours, and just quick reminder of people, we're in Alaska. Putin flies into the United States, first visit of the Russian President of the US for a time he's an indicted war criminal.

2:21Essentially he's been frozen out by the world and suddenly he arrives that's pomp the circumstances bombers flying overhead. Trump is clapping as he arrives. There isn't this preamble where they sit down on sofas and get questioned by the press they go straight into a three -hour meeting and everybody is very very nervous because the assumption is that they're going to come out with a deal and that whatever deal they cook up It's not going to work. Now, what was your sense? Because presumably what you went through staying up all night is actually pretty similar to what Zelensky, Sarah and others will have done just staring into this hole for three hours waiting to find out what was happening.

3:00I mean, if you interesting to know how many of them actually literally did stay up all night or whether they went to bed and said with instructions to their staff to wait them up. But I kept thinking, I kept sort of saying, what must this be like for Zelensky? I was channel hopping between... Everywhere you went in the world, this was big news everywhere. You could go to Japan, you could go to Australia, you could to Canada, you could go to anywhere in Europe. It was 24 hour coverage. And of course, we said in the main podcast this week that this is Trump's dream land. Everybody has been talking about it all week.

3:42The trouble is, I think, from Trump's perspective, it has been a complete disaster. Can I just quickly, just probably get into the substance. Just tell me what your reaction was when the press conference finally happened. Was there a moment when you heard Putin speaking, when you thought there is a deal? When did you realize, in the course of press conference, that maybe there hadn't been a deal? I mean, what was the actual live experience of what? Well, I'll tell you what happened. So first of all, they announced that they were going to have this meeting three on three, Trump, Rubio, Wiccoff, Putin, Lavrov, and Nick Shof, and then they were going to have this broader meeting.

4:23Well, they were going to have something to eat, and they were going to have this broader meeting. So I was actually thinking, oh, look, it looks like it's going to be happening more quickly. I'll tell you one I thought there might be no deal, was Steve Wiccoff walked in, And I thought he might just have been attention -seeking because of course as soon as he walked into the press room, they were, oh, I've got to just do work off, but he looked very gloomy and then he walked out again. But I'll tell you the moment I thought this is weird. Jumboon Trump was in turnbree with in Scotland with with Kierce Tharmer.

4:56We were saying it looked like Trump was the host. Putin opened proceedings at the press conference, which is unheard of, isn't it? Well, it's completely ahead of you. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, the host would normally say a few words and Trump said, oh, this has always been arranged. You don't go into, I've been in these meetings with Tony Blair and Putin where you, you know, and some of them went very badly wrong, you basically, you plan what's going to happen. And so they'd obviously planned, Vladimir, you speak first, and he spoke three times longer than Trump did. And then And I'll tell you what, in the minute Putin started, it was basically a history lesson.

5:39And then he started to go out about the root causes, Donald understands the root causes. We know what that means. This has been his line the whole way through. And so at that moment, I thought unless there's something to come from Trump, then this is a disaster. Particularly, I think, for Trump. I mean, you could argue from Zelensky's point of view, Zelensky's going to Washington tomorrow, they've announced, that at least he wasn't brutally sold down the river. They didn't come out and say, we've agreed that Russia should have 20 % of Ukraine, which they might have done. But I think that watching it live was like, I remember the title of Bob Gelders' book after Live Aid, is that it.

6:26it. It was literally what, sorry, what just happened there. Because if you think about it, the only justification, or when I was channel -opping, there was an American general, I saw one of the channels saying that he found the site of American soldiers rolling a red carpet out to a putin plane for him, an indicted war criminal to walk down and have Donald Trump, as you say, applaud him as he walked toward him. And then do that. I didn't realize until later that when they got to the thing with the big Alaska 2025 for the photo, one of the reporters shouted out, are you going to stop killing civilians?

7:08And Trump sort of imputed me and I can't hear, I can't hear. And then the whole thing about getting in the car together. And that was weird. Putin's car was part of the wrong side. Trump, I suspect, said, why did you drive with me? Putin looked very, very happy to be doing that. We'll probably never know what was said. But the feeling you got from watching Trump lie was one, this guy's tired. Two, he is not his usual confidence self. When is he ever in a room with journalists? And he doesn't take questions. What has that ever happened. So they'd agreed no questions. Yeah. Just on that one, sorry, this is what I'm also obsessed with because as you've pointed out, one of the reasons why so many world leaders have been through these very uncomfortable and in some cases profoundly humiliating events happen in these moments before the meetings with Trump, where you get all the questions coming.

8:11That was the moment of which Zalensky was ambushed and humiliated by a JD Farts and Trump. That was the moment where the South African president was put through this completely mad series of allegations about genocide against white farmers. Those were the moments actually where there was slightly uncomfortable moments even for Stama and Macron. So I guess given all that, Putin concluded quite rightly that the last thing you want to do going to meeting with Trump is put yourself in one of these ridiculous sit -on -a -safet things where Trump's chuck's things around and 200 journalists throw questions at you.

8:47But I suppose my question is, why was Putin able to demand that in a way that Stama, Macron present to the European Union can't? I mean, why couldn't Stama just say, look, I'm not doing that? He could. He could. And I wonder whether I I actually, if there's anybody from Zelensky's team listening, absolutely insist tomorrow there is no media beyond the pictures, there is no media before you have the meeting. Putin will have insisted on that, I suspect it, I suspect. And let's be honest, the whole pitch of the thing was Putin's in charge here. Even though it was in America, although Putin, Trump called it Russia earlier and said last night I'm going back to the United States.

9:40And then even though it was in the beast, his car, nonetheless, it sort of looked like Putin was in charge. And I can remember from some of our encounters with Putin, he's got this smirk that he sometimes does. And it sometimes means that he's happy and it sometimes means that he's threatening. And I think last night it was a bit of both. He was smoking because he knew that in terms of how this is going to be seeded by the world. Because let's just go through what we were saying before about what they wanted from this summit. What did Putin want above all? He wanted the event. He's been a pariah.

10:23He's an indicted war criminal. He cannot go to many countries in the world because those countries would then have a duty to arrest him. America is not a signature of the ICC, so it wouldn't happen there. He wanted, he did not want to be put in a position where he had to agree to a ceasefire. And the ceasefire was not even mentioned. It may be mentioned in the meeting, we don't know. But at the press conference, not to work. So he didn't get picked on that. Yeah, well, further more, there were drones actually falling. Russian was far as they were speaking. As they were speaking. Let's just, but I want to get on to a question from a member of which will bring you to your previous encounters with Putin.

11:07But I just thought maybe let's just take a quick time to remind people of how the world we're looking at now in August would have seemed in October last year a complete disaster from the point of view of the US and Europe. Our expectations have got lower and lower and lower. So back in October last year, the debate was, should we be trying to defeat Russia quickly or stop Russia winning more slowly? And there was absolutely no doubt that the whole of NATO, US, Europe, were completely behind Ukraine. and the reason for that is it was inconceivable that Russia could invade a neighboring country, take 20 % of its territory.

11:55Spark of war, which has ended up with more than a million people being wounded and killed and get away with it. There's nothing like this that happens since the Second World War in Europe, is unbelievable, right? Then Trump comes in and suddenly things change. We Will America continue to support? So will it continue to provide money to Ukraine? No, won't. Then Trump says it, and by the way, I'd like $500 billion worth of money, also, okay, 500 billion, last words of money. Then it's like, will America even keep it satellite intelligence coverage? Will America even be prepared to sell weapons to Europe to give to Ukraine?

12:38Fast forward. And the last discussion, I guess, over the last two months has been to say to Trump, whatever you do do not meet Putin one -on -one. It's got to be a meeting with Zelensky in the room. Please, please, don't do that. Suddenly a week ago, uh, we're going to meet Putin one -on -one. Then presumably, the European position became simply, and this I think was a call on the 13th of August, whatever you do, just don't sign a deal, just don't agree to any land swaps. But the story that I'm telling is just the expectation is getting worse and worse and worse. And my instincts, and I'd love your sense of this, is that behind all the Blani and the news stuff, fundamentally Trump's instincts remain unaltered.

13:30His instincts are pro -Putin, pro -Russia, a contemptuous basically of Europe and Ukraine, believing as he just said on the Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, that Russia is a really big strong power for country and Ukraine, isn't. And that ultimately he's going to get peace by essentially giving Putin everything that he's captured so far and calling an end to it. And all that's happened really over the last six or seven months is a sort of miraculous attempt by Ukraine, Europe, his own officials, sometimes at the cost of immense self -humiliation, including committing five percent of GDP, spending on defense, to try to just stop Trump from doing what it almost feels like he's inevitably eventually going to do, which is sell out Ukraine.

14:21Yeah, I mean, but if that is the case, why not, why not just do it? Why this endless game playing? And the other thing I kept thinking was watching this last night, because if you're looking at this from where particularly when I was watching these American generals talk about it, and so they felt this was a real humiliation for the United States to see this happening. And then to see him get nothing to get nothing for it. And I've got to be honest with you, I did end up thinking, well, maybe the whole thing was just about getting Epstein off the front pages. And maybe Russia really, really, really does have something on Trump that none of us have really thought through because we know he survived so many different scandals.

15:11So it would have to be something quite amazing. I'll tell you something that was interesting when you watch it, of course, watch all these TV and they taught endlessly about the optics and the body language because that's what they do when there's bugger all else to talk about. But if you want to think so he arrives, clap, clap, clap, clap, pat on the hand, pat on the hand, jockey, jockey, get in the car, big smile out of the window. When they then had the photo call with no questions again with the three on three in the meeting, something had happened between the arrival and that meeting because they suddenly they weren't communicating to each other, they weren't looking at each other, it had got, I think, very, very chilly.

15:56Now, was that something that was said in the car? Was that Trump suddenly realising, oh, because remember he said, Trump, one of the many stupid things Trump has said in recent days, I'll know in the first two minutes whether there's going to be a deal. Peter may have thought, oh, the first two minutes, well, let's see if I'm getting one or one for other. And he got him one on one. And of course, if you remember when we talked to Fiona Hill, who Trump's last meeting with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, whenever it was. Yeah, she said that as the event that it was so bad at the press conference, she honestly contemplated faking a seizure so that he could, because it was very similar.

16:37He was, he was siding with the intelligence agencies, the American, we'd rush her against his own intelligence agencies. And on that, the one about, the thing about Putin, he's very good at working out which buttons to press with the person with his interlocutor. And what did he say? I can confirm, like this is an empirical fact, I can confirm that if Trump had been president, there wouldn't have been a war, which of course is one of Trump's utter obsessions. What was the first thing he said when he's talking to Sean Hannity, you know, and Trump Putin, a Putin agree with me that Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, if I'd been, I was very happy, he said that Putin said if I'd been president, there wouldn't be a war.

17:27This is Putin playing 100 % his narcissism. We had a question from Martin Rune, a trip plus member from Leeds. In the event, Trump agrees that Zelensky must go, would Russia accept a democratically elected president and Ukraine or would the insist on installing one of their own? No, this just brings us back. Thank you, Martin, for just to the bigger issue of what the peace deal might look like, which I guess for all of us is almost here as with Garza is the thing that we don't talk about enough. I mean, what could peace look like? We're almost just taking it for granted that these wars grind on forever.

18:05We're almost losing the hope, the ability to imagine peace. I was talking this morning to Shashank Joshi, who is this wonderful Ukraine and defense analyst at the economist. And he was making me think about a lot of things, but one fundamental thing is what this deal could look like, what the best possible deal for Ukraine could look like. And the best possible deal for Ukraine now feels as though it would be... Russia probably keeps all the territories taken, but it's not officially recognized, so they don't concede that it's actually part of Russia, but they keep it. But Ukraine gets real security guarantees, so maybe that actually might even involve a few British or French troops on the front line as a tripwire with the Americans saying explicitly, we're behind you, the defending front line.

19:00Zelensky being able to potentially join the European Union, no cap on Ukraine rearming and defending itself. And then on the other hand, we've got what Putin's pushing for. And you began on this, but just to sort of lay it out just once more in a bit more detail. I mean, it would be disarm Ukraine. And as Martin's put in his question, probably hold elections in Ukraine with the hope that Putin can get rid of Zelensky and bring in a more pro -Russian figure. Absolute guarantees of no NATO membership, no EU membership, total recognition of the bit of territory that Russia has already taken as Russia.

19:41And here the image is really a sense of, you know, like in, I don't know, we remember in Tintin, Captain Haddock has like a blue happy angel and a red evil angel on her shoulder. And here these roles are played by Whitcough and by Kellogg, General Kellogg, the American. So Whitcough is the evil angel and basically Whitcough is selling Putin's line. Kellogg is the better angel who keeps trying to do these more subtle resolutions that actually work for Ukraine, but it was very noticeable that Kellogg was not invited. It's Whitcough who's in the room with Bakobody. No, you see, when you were setting out what might be palatable to Ukraine there.

20:25They were a million miles away from any of that last night. So when Trump stood up and said, you know, we've agreed on a lot, they didn't say what they agreed on. And we've got one or two disagreements. I would imagine that the fundamental disagreement is on the so -called root causes, which is basically Putin's view that Ukraine isn't a proper country and it should be indeed in his head. It is part of Russia and nothing, nothing that Trump said, pushed back there against that at all. He went straight put in who spoke, as I said earlier, three times longer than Trump. He went straight into stuff to do with the economy and sharing up the Arctic and minerals and all that stuff.

21:12He had a big business delegation with him on the plane. And Trump, when he started to talk about, you know, he said, we've agreed a lot, we're not there yet, we don't have a deal to the whole thing as agreed, etc. But then we're straight back into his favorite subject, which was his relationships. I have a great relationship with President Putin, Vladimir. And you know, when he was on, what about this? We're rewriting the Geo strategic, Geo political map of the world in his interview with the ludicrous anity who's kind of basically part of the White House press office. We are number one and they are not, they Russia are number two in the world.

21:51Well they've got, they've got, they've got an economy the size of Spain. No, it's amazing isn't it? You could destroy there economy. I've been playing, I've been playing this game risk with, with my children and I think that Trump's entire worldview is sort of based on the fact that he may have played risk in the 1980s. But because Russia looks enormous, but also because Greenland is actually part of the United States and the color picture of risk. But it's this funny obsession, isn't he? He's really obsessed with land. He keeps on what have big it is. He's obsessed with minerals. He's obsessed with oil and gas.

22:28A very odd worldview because it's nothing actually to do with what makes America wealthy. America's wealthy, largely because of innovation, technology, these huge big tech companies, AI. Trump is really on Trump's logic. The most successful countries in the world will be countries like Nigeria, which have a lot of oil. Countries like Afghanistan, which have trillions of dollars worth of minerals. I mean, it's a really interesting. It's as though his game's a strategy of children's games the strategy, which a big countries do better and be the minerals that you have in the ground or what really matters.

23:10I've been playing another game called Cetlas the Catan, which is all that. I'm glad you're I'm glad that you've been missing the occasional episode to play these wonderful games in your children. That's excellent news, Rory. But the childlike, he just he just speaks like a child in many ways. He's got a very, very simple way of talking. I'm doing I think I get rid of my ads. I've got to stop. So on the way to Alaska in the plane, because of course, you know, he loves talking to reporters, except at the end of an event with Vladimir Putin. And he said that if he doesn't get a cease fire, he's going to be very unhappy.

23:46Well, he didn't get a cease fire, so we seem he's very unhappy. But he also said this. He said, you know, Zelensky says none of it's going to go, but Putin wants a bit more. And he said this, we're not putting up money, we're making money. They, the Europeans, are sending us big, beautiful checks. Okay? For the arms that we're going to give them because Europe's going to step up there. Yeah. I mean, to go into that meeting with that as what's sort of in the frame of his mind. And, you know, to go back to Fiona Hill and John Bolton has confirmed this as well, he doesn't really read briefs. He doesn't study things.

24:25he doesn't, in surprise, he goes in with a planet in his head. So all of those people who went there, and you know, I hesitate to say, I thought, sorry, if a peax of them got besaned, but they were basically just hanging outside the room because they were in the draw tin. There was no structure to the meeting at all. And then I suspect Putin, Lavrov and Co, they will have worked in our minute by minute. Well, given all you've said, the very strange thing is that it's an almost to miracle that it didn't go much much much worse. Putin got a lot from that. You know, all this talk about sanctioning Russia has now been forgotten.

25:05People remember the word 50 days. I'm very angry with Putin. I got a sanctioned. 10 days 12 days. Yeah. That's all out with it. No ceasefire, international recognition, is it? But Putin could have got even more. Ideal for Putin would have been one -on -one with Trump with no advices in the room. Ideal for Putin would have been, I've brought all these business people with me. We're going to make a big public business deal here, oil gas, minerals, investments, and he would have been ready for that and prepared for that. An ideal for him would have been, I've shaken hands here, this is the land deal, we've made the decision, we're the grown -ups in the room, and we're now going to tell Selant's skin Europe that this is it our way or the highway.

25:52So it's a miracle in a way given all that and given all the pressures that must have been on Trump to declare a success. I mean the reason I was so pessimistic as I thought if I was betting, I was wrong about this, that Trump had put so much political capital on the summit that he would find it almost impossible not to agree to some kind of deal just so that he claiming how to deal with it. And so what he did was he said, we don't have a deal to we have a deal, but we're making progress towards the deal. But nothing that is emerged since the meeting ended and the hundreds of reporters there and people who would be well plugged into the administration and lots of Russian media would be well plugged into the Russians, very, very little is emerged.

26:36What was actually discussed, we assume that will, that may happen. But and the other thing, we're just to sort of, The further he pressed me last night was on the way in the plane. Who does he phone up and have a nice friendly chat with? And then put out a post saying that he had a great conversation with the highly respected Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, the highly wonderful whole covert conversation with the highly respected. This is a guy who's rigged more elections. This is the guy who helped Putin start the invasion. So we're back into this thing of he's once he's with the strong man leader.

27:21This is what Fiona Hill said to us, you can give him all the advice you want. Once he's in the room with the strong man leader, he identifies with that person. And Putin played him. Let's be absolutely frank. Putin absolutely played him. And it is bizarre as well because Lukashenko does matter. I mean, he's the head of this bankrupt, marginalised, struggling dictatorship. I mean, it's extraordinary that Trump is going to spend any political capital praising Lukashenko, reaching out to Lukashenko. The question now is what happens next? And my guess is what happens now is that Trump begins to lose patience again with Europe and Zlatzky.

28:03He will either say, here's a land deal, it's a Wicoff Putin land deal and take it. And if you don't take it, I'm going to lift sanctions on Russia. Right, so that's scenario one and in that scenario of sanctions are lifted on Russia. Then basically, Putin's under no economic pressure at all. Zelensky will have to reject it because actually the Ukrainian people are not going to put up with that and the war will roll on. But Ukraine is not in a strong position. If Russia had sanctions lifted, they are in a position where they have momentum and morale and Ukraine is in trouble. Second scenario is he just loses interest and he just thinks, okay, I can't do this, I can't get the results I want, but probably lift sanctions on Russia's anyway.