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Now: Trump And Putin In Alaska Ahead Of Historic Summit. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 15, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And Kaitlan, as you were the first to tell us, elements of this meeting keep changing even in just the last hour.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, THE SOURCE: Yes, they do, Jake. And obviously, as we've seen this continue to shift as to what this format is going to look like, it's actually incredibly important. Most people might say that and say, well, why does it matter? But obviously, seeing whether or not they are going to be one-on-one or whether the president has two of his most senior and trusted aides, really, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, are two people that Trump is probably listening to the most when it comes to foreign policy right now.

And with Steve Witkoff, especially, this is someone who is obviously a lifelong friend of Donald Trump's, a huge real estate guy before joining the administration and has taken on this, you know, widespread and wide-ranging foreign policy role since Trump took office, often sometimes seeming as a shadow secretary of state going into these highly sensitive diplomatic meetings, especially when it comes to Russia, Jake.

I mean, he has been to Moscow on multiple occasions. I believe our latest count is at least five times that Steve Witkoff has gone and sat down and met with the Russians, including directly with Putin in the room and most recently was just there a little over a week ago. And it was that last meeting between Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin that Steve Witkoff came out of it. And we first heard from the White House that they were trying to set up a meeting that led us here to Anchorage today.

And so, obviously, when he was last there, that was when the president was on the verge of saying he was going to impose sanctions on Russia if they didn't agree to get a ceasefire in Ukraine or have that come. That was a self-imposed deadline from President Trump last Friday. Obviously, that deadline came and went since he announced the summit here in Anchorage, which is what White House officials attributed that change to. But he is going to be a critical voice here as we are waiting for President Putin to deplane his plane that has just landed here in Anchorage.

I'll note, Trump is still also on Air Force One with his contingency of aides along with him before they get in the room. But Steve Witkoff's presence is key here, Jake, because he's someone who's been negotiating with the Russian leader directly for the last, you know, six months or so. TAPPER: All right. Thank you so much, Kaitlan. We'll come back to you

in a second.

Let's bring back CNN's Kristen Holmes and Jim Sciutto, who are live with me in Anchorage. We think that we just saw Putin's plane land ...

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

TAPPER: ... just a few minutes ago. Something I read from our friend Julia Yaffe at PUCK the other day, which was really interesting, was that in one of their last meetings, if not their last meeting, Putin gave Witkoff an Order of Lenin award to give to a CIA official whose son had been fighting for Russia, which maybe doesn't sound so horrible, except it's kind of really rude and obnoxious when you think about it.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's Putin signaling one of you is on my side.

TAPPER: Yes. Not just one ...

SCIUTTO: He's an American.

TAPPER: ... of CIA and a son.

SCIUTTO: Of CIA who's fighting, you know, for me to take over a sovereign European country. I mean, the messaging is clear and fairly alarming. It shows where Putin stays on this war. And that's one thing that I've heard consistently from Ukrainian, European officials, is that Putin's aims and view of this world have not changed one iota, right?

He still believes Ukraine is Russian. He still believes that he should not only keep the territory he's taken so far, but should in any deal take more, right? At a minimum, take all of the eastern part of the country, Donetsk and Luhansk. And that's the piece that has not changed.

And I've also heard from European officials that they expect Putin to come to this meeting armed with his normal historical stories, much of it false ...

TAPPER: Yes.

SCIUTTO: ... to present to the U.S. President and say, Ukraine has always been Russian ...

TAPPER: Right.

SCIUTTO: ... this idea that it's an independent state, this is manufactured, it's artificial, et cetera. He has not moved off those maximalist positions.

TAPPER: And let me just ask you, because I remember Putin breaking out those arguments in an interview with Tucker Carlson several years ago, and there are Russians today who think that the three of us are sitting ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TAPPER: ... in Russian sovereign territory because Alaska was once part of Russia. We're still waiting for Vladimir Putin to get off that plane in the image on the left side of your screen there. On the right side, obviously, President Trump, Air Force One, he is behind doors there. We're told he is meeting with the delegation, the congressional and gubernatorial delegation from Alaska, the governor and the two senators, obviously, whenever any of them, and this might be a game of chicken here, who gets off the plane first ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TAPPER: ... Whoever gets off last wins. But in any case, there are those who think that, like, oh, no, Alaska is still part of Russia. The United States bought it in 1867 for $7 million or something. But there are people - nationalists in Russia who say, oh, no, no, no, it was just a lease for a hundred years.

[15:05:07]

SCIUTTO: Yeah. It's an important point because Putin's claims to Ukraine, when he pulls out these dusty maps where he claims that Ukraine never existed as an independent state, are about as current as Russia's claims to Alaska.

TAPPER: Seriously?

SCIUTTO: I mean, think about it. I mean, when he literally goes into the basement of the Kremlin, I spoke to a number of officials who described how he did this. He would pull out old maps from the 19th century to make this claim today. And, of course, Alaska was the last part of Russia in the 19th century, right, 1867. So, it's - we have to remember that as we look and listen to him and that this is the man that Trump is going to be sitting across the table from today.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, and to Jim's point about him still on this rhetoric about Ukraine belonging to Russia and it being his territory, I mean, that's part of why you're hearing President Trump talk about these, quote-unquote, "land swaps." You're going into it. It's not because he believes in any way, as far as I can tell, that Russia should have this territory. But it's that he knows where Putin stands. And if he looks at the larger map here of the two of them in terms of a negotiation, he has been told by officials, both European officials and U.S. officials, that Putin has the leverage in terms of if he continues to fight, he can acquire more territory.

So, when he's looking at that, he says, well, there might be something that Ukraine has to give up because he knows that Putin is still keen on keeping that.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TAPPER: And we should remember or just remind folks that there was a period after the war started in 2022 where it looked as though Russia might not actually be able to win this war, that they were they were losing territorially. They were losing weapons. They were losing manpower. It looked really bad. And then Putin completely reorganized the Russian economy to be devoted entirely to winning this war, almost entirely to winning this war. And Russia does have an advantage now that they didn't have a year, year and a half ago because of that.

So, Russia does have more of an edge now than they did, although I don't know how sustainable that is, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, reorganize the Russian economy, but also the Russian population, right, to create this massive human pipeline right to the front lines of Ukraine, where they are losing, as President Trump has noted many times, thousands of soldiers a week, thousands of soldiers a week paying poor young Russian kids, right, to go die on the front lines and so desperate for manpower that they, he asked his friend Kim Jong-un to send many thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight in Europe in the 21st century.

So, it's - he has - I mean, he has reorganized the country to be a country on a war footing.

TAPPER: Anderson, as I throw back to you, I just want to remind our viewers that I don't know what's going on behind the closed doors of Air Force One or Putin's plane here, Putin's plane on the left side of your screen, Air Force One on the right. But it is a diplomatic thing, a diplomatic game of brinksmanship or gamesmanship as to ...

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Well, it looks like it's about to ...

TAPPER: ... who waits for who.

COOPER: Here it goes. Well, and here's the answer, Donald Trump.

TAPPER: And there he is. There is President Trump - yes, Donald Trump, President Trump in getting off of Air Force One right now, coming down the stairs. Anderson, over to you.

COOPER: The President coming down first, it has been a question of who would actually emerge from the aircraft first. As we watch this, Ambassador Bolton, you were in the - involvement - you were there for the Helsinki summit. It was a question there, too, of how it would be arranged, correct?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, who would show up first?

COPPER: There's Vladimir Putin.

BOLTON: But here this is the United States. Donald Trump is the host. Of course, he's got to go out first to greet his guest, which was coming down the steps now.

COPPER: The President's Air Force One arrived quite a while ago. It's been sitting there on the tarmac now, according to the schedule. Both leaders are kind of supposed to walk down an L-shaped red carpet and then have a - some sort of a photograph on the platform. We'll see exactly how that works out if they meet up at this stage as we watch Vladimir Putin.

Interesting to see, it's like he has a close protection person right next to him. President Trump obviously does not.

Ambassador Bolton, how much of the staging of this, I mean, this all happened pretty quickly.

BOLTON: Well, I think in in modern history, maybe all history leaders at this level of two great powers like this meeting in seven days after the decision is made is completely unprecedented. So that's why a lot of it is just being made up on the fly.

[15:10:07]

COPPER: Rahm, you agree with him?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, we have President Trump who's very much in - captured by pictures. We have President Trump who's very captured by the details. This is totally unprecedented. You would just try to wean something like this.

I remember a trip with President Clinton where he wanted to stop in part of North Africa. I said, we're not calling an audible like this. We got - we have to plan and prepare a whole host of things.

COOPER: President Trump now waiting and applauding as Vladimir Putin approaches him. I think we're about to see President Putin there as he walks toward President Trump. We learned shortly before touchdown or just around the time of touchdown in Air Force One that there was going to be a change, that the Trump team no longer wanted a one-on- one meeting between Vladimir Putin and the President. There's now an announcement was made that there would be others involved, Marco Rubio one, Steve Witkoff the other. Not sure if Russia was consulted in advance of that or if they agreed to it, but that what - is what we believe will happen.

Ambassador Bolton, you're actually surprised that they are having this kind of a photo op with these aircraft.

BOLTON: Yes, these are very sensitive stealth aircraft. Everybody on the Russian party is a suspected spy. This whole base is now available to them, at least to some extent. I don't think it should have been held on the base.

COPPER: There - we just had a flyover with a stealth bomber as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Putin, will you agree to a ceasefire?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what's your message to Vladimir Putin?

COPPER: You hear reporters calling out questions (INAUDIBLE) an answer even though this is a photo op.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Putin, (INAUDIBLE) Ukraine?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Putin, will stop (INAUDIBLE) ...

COPPER: Jill Dougherty, what do you make of the relationship between these two men?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR & FORMER MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Well, just looking at them, there's no interpreter, Vladimir Putin speaks English actually quite well, so I'm sure they are conversing in English and that's already, we've got a little one-on-one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a one-on-one right here. That's right.

DOUGHERTY: Already.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A free ride.

DOUGHERTY: And very friendly. The applause I thought was very interesting from President Trump, applauding Putin, it appeared.

COPPER: And I believe both men are, they're actually riding together in the vehicle. Is that unusual?

BOLTON: Well, President Trump once invited Kim Jong-un to ride in The Beast with him in Singapore, which was discouraged by the Secret Service. But this is Putin, we'll see how much magic he can work before the three-on-three starts. And I want to make Jill's point about speaking English, what that means to Putin. He hears Trump speak, then he hears the interpreter interpret it into Russian, gives him twice as much time to respond.

COPPER: And time matters in a situation like that.

EMANUEL: This - the idea that you're not, either Secretary of State Rubio or Special Envoy Witkoff aren't in the room - aren't in the car giving last (INAUDIBLE) to talk about it. They had a lot of time in the plane, so that's not exactly lost time. The idea that they're in there without them, I think without adult supervision, if I may be so sarcastic, I think is a bit of a risk.

I do think there's a piece of this, this is not the first meeting, so there's a comfort zone there.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR, "NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP": And just a note on the red carpet of it all, I mean, I think it's a visual that, you know, our reporters in the region say is just rubbing Ukraine the wrong way, to roll out the red carpet for a man who is wanted for war crimes against Ukraine in what might be a negotiation is something that is not going to be received well there.

But I will say that Trump does this as he goes into negotiations, in part to make Putin feel welcomed, to make him feel like they are buddies again. And whether or not he uses that to his strategic advantage, we will find out. But it's one that, you know, Ukraine is our ally in this conflict, is rubbing our ally the wrong way.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's the test. I mean, Putin is winning in the early moments of this because he's getting a picture greeted by the President of the United States on U.S. soil after more than three years of being a pariah in the world for invading a democracy in Europe. The question is, it will be judged by the substance, if they get substance. If there's legitimate progress toward a ceasefire or some progress toward ending the war in Ukraine that Ukraine can accept, then that's how the summit will be judged. But these pictures are being showed all across Russia right now, all across Europe right now, and a leader who has been a pariah has just been greeted on U.S. soil by the American president.

Again, if Trump can get for what he's giving, we'll see at the end. But so far he's giving.

[15:15:05]

BOLTON: Well, and in this car, this is the opportunity for Putin to say, well, Donald, I understand you want to have a three-on-three. Of course, that's fine with me. But when are we going to do our one-on- one?

EMANUEL: We have a lot - yes.

BOLTON: They may have this worked out by the time they get out of the car.

EMANUEL: There's - I mean, there is a lot that's going to - this is not going to be, let me show you the highlights of the air force base type of road trip here. There's going to be a lot that's going to be discussed, a lot in the sense of establishing ...

COPPER: In that car, right?

EMANUEL: He's a - President - I mean, I don't know President Putin personally, we're not Facebook friends, but he's working them. And he's working them hard in a confined space where he can start to basically soften them up. And I think, I want to go to John's point. This is a guy that could not put a plane down, except in an isolated country that's already have sanctions. You know, he is in a country now, he's on a military base, given basically as red carpet it goes, he's given honors, so to say, coming here. This is a get out of jail visit for him, this is a big, big deal.

PHILLIP: Applause and a military (INAUDIBLE) ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it's extremely important for Putin domestically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE), yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

DOUGHERTY: This will play really big.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) ...

DOUGHERTY: I mean, the American president actually applauds - I can hear it, you know, see the articles now that American president applauds Putin as he arrives and rolls out the red carpet.

COPPER: Literally applauds. Kaitlan Collins is also joining us.

Kaitlan, explain where you are, what is happening now.

COLLINS: Yes, Anderson. Well, first off, just for all of our talk about this meeting not being a one on one and they're going to have a three on three with the top aides inside the room. I mean, the one on one is happening right before our eyes as they are riding in The Beast to the actual summit site where they are going to be meeting with their counterpart, with their aides in just a few moments from now.

And I'll remind you, the President had said this week that he would know in the first minute, two minutes, five minutes of whether or not he and Putin are going to be able to come to an agreement. And that could very well be what we are watching play out right now with the two leaders solo inside The Beast, save for the Secret Service agents who are driving the car right now as they are on the way to this summit site.

I mean, that is quite a remarkable image in and of itself to see Putin smiling in the backseat of The Beast as they make their way over here, setting the scene for what this is going to look like. And where we're standing right now here on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is where the press conference is set to happen in just a few hours from now. There are two lecterns behind me. The delegations, the sides are split up. There's a Russian delegation and a U.S. delegation on each side, that obviously indicates their plans for that joint press conference are still on.

And the reason I'm highlighting that is because it's incredibly important to how the White House and how President Trump thinks this meeting has gone. Does he show up here with Putin by his side, as he did in Helsinki? Or if he comes out here solo, may indicate that he did not hear what he wanted to hear from the Russian leader. And so that could be one of our first indications of how they view the success of this summit.

But right now, the one-on-one meeting that is happening between the two of them in The Beast does say a lot about the structure of this day.

COPPER: Kaitlan, I think it's such an important point you made, whether the President had said that just yesterday, you know, or - and over the last several days, you know, I'll know in the first two minutes, three minutes or five minutes, you know, if he's come to be serious. And it's such a smart point that this is those first two, three, five minutes they're together, just them talking. And Vladimir Putin understands English very, very well.

COLLINS: Yes. And there's no interpreter who got in the car with him from what I saw watching this. So obviously, they're speaking English to one another, having this conversation. There's no Secretary of State Rubio in that car, no Steve Witkoff.

COPPER: Yes.

COLLINS: And obviously, you know, the President's view is that he and Putin are the ones who will decide this. But whatever his indication is, in his sense, in this car ride right now, you know, he'll have to tell his aides that when he gets out of the car and arrives here.

COPPER: Certainly, a lot of people in Europe, a lot of people in Ukraine, especially wondering what is being said inside that car right now.

Jake, back to you.

TAPPER: Thanks so much, Anderson.

While the President and Russian leader Putin are meeting, we saw them shaking hands on the red carpet on U.S. soil here at Air Base Elmendorf-Richardson, outside Anchorage, Alaska. Then they went into The Beast, which is the presidential limousine, to head to their meeting location. The big questions now, I'm sure everybody's wondering, what is the protocol for the summit? Is there any protocol? We're going to get into all of that coming up next in CNN special live coverage. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:50]

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of the Trump-Putin Summit here in Anchorage, Alaska. The two leaders took a ride together after they touched down in Alaska in their separate respective planes. We do expect to see them together again in just moments as they arrive to their high-stakes meeting where President Trump is trying to convince the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, to end his assault and bloody war against Ukraine.

Let's bring back CNN's Kristen Holmes and Jim Sciutto with me here in Anchorage.

And, Jim, we were talking during the break about regardless of what happens, already Vladimir Putin can leave here having gotten something from the United States.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: A hundred percent. I mean, President Trump bristled in the Oval Office yesterday at the suggestion that this meeting here on U.S. soil was a gift or some sort of reward to Vladimir Putin. But what have we witnessed in the last several minutes? A literal red-carpet welcome here.

TAPPER: There was a red carpet at Elmendorf Air Base.

SCIUTTO: Some applause from the U.S. President as they approached each other, a handshake, a ride in The Beast in his own limousine.

[15:25:05] This is a welcome back from the diplomatic cold for the Russian

leader. He was exiled from a large portion of the international community since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, organizations like the G7, et cetera. And now he's back in. We don't know what's going to happen behind closed doors. President Trump may be disappointed and may walk away. But those moments all have meaning, enormous meaning for the Russian leader.

TAPPER: Here's some of the images we saw. Putin greeting President Trump or President Trump welcoming Putin to the United States. In addition, of course, the Russian plane, the Russian version of Air Force One, was escorted by American military jets.

SCIUTTO: Yep.

TAPPER: There was even a B-2 bomber we saw. That is a hero's welcome, as it were.

SCIUTTO: Well, you could - you say the B-2 bomber is both perhaps a gift and a flex for the U.S. President.

TAPPER: Yeah, I guess. I guess, that's possible. The other thing for people to remember is, like, this is not Reagan meeting with Gorbachev, two equal or arguably relatively equal superpowers. The United States is a much bigger, much richer country, much more influential than Russia. Russia is a smaller, weaker country. Yes, it has nuclear weapons. Yes, it is obviously a geopolitical rival and a force to be reckoned with. But, I mean, this is a really big welcome. It's not a state dinner kind of welcome, but not unlike it, really.

SCIUTTO: No small thing. And to your point, Russia is a - it's a one- export economy, right? It's got a shrinking population. And the Russian military is being held off, by and large, for three and a half years by a much smaller military in Ukraine as it defends itself.

TAPPER: And in addition, I mean, this - look, Putin - look, he's a ruthless dictator and obviously, he doesn't have to worry about re- election, right? This is not the kind of thing. But he has his own domestic politics. And this is something that helps him back in Russia.

SCIUTTO: Sure.

HOLMES: It does - I will say, though, I mean, all of this is staged in exactly the way that President Trump would want it to be staged.

TAPPER: Sure.

HOLMES: I mean, he, at his heart, is a TV producer, right? You have the visuals going in of a red carpet leading up to Air Force One with the B-2 bombers all around it, creating a pathway there where he can stand there. I mean, this is exactly how he'd want to lay it out.

Now, of course, as you said, that doesn't take away from the fact that this is a win for Vladimir Putin. TAPPER: So, one could give the benefit of the doubt to President Trump

and the Americans planning this and say, look, they know they're giving him a win. And they are doing that in the hopes of then now extracting something from him.

SCIUTTO: Right.

TAPPER: So, he leaves with something. And we've been told that there are other diplomatic things that they're trying. Oh, here's some images ...

HOLMES: This is them in the room for the three-on-three.

TAPPER: There's the three-on-three at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The three-on-three, not a lot of ...

HOLMES: We can see Witkoff there.

TAPPER: Yes, President Trump did not, obviously, television produce that - those images.

SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) images.

TAPPER: Yes, there may be some security involved there. Let's talk about - what is that bird over there? That's - those - did you see that? All right. Let's talk about previous meetings that President Trump has had with the Russian president, because, you know, past is prologue and is an important - everything that has come before today is an important part of what happens today. Their first meeting with President Trump as president came about six, seven months after President Trump was elected in 2016. This is in July 7th, 2017, as part - this is part of the G20 summit.

But after they met, along with their counterparts, Sergey Lavrov and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Trump asked his interpreter for the notes, and he wanted the notes because he didn't want the contents of their conversation shared. And then President Trump sought out President Putin at the dinner for the leaders. And the only person that was present for that meeting, besides Trump and Putin, was Putin's interpreter. And that, of course, was a very significant meeting, and a lot of people were worried about that meeting.

SCIUTTO: It's not the way those meetings should happen by U.S. protocol. And there's a reason for that, right? You want your own interpreter, right, to be communicating for you. You don't want to rely on your - on the foreign leader's interpreter. But you also want to have another pair of eyes in the room to witness what took place. That's all by design, and other presidents have followed that. In that moment, this president did not.

TAPPER: And then, of course, in November 2017, so shortly thereafter, was the APEC forum in Da Nang, Vietnam. There was no formal meeting scheduled, but President Trump and Putin met anyway. And afterwards, Putin - I'm sorry, President Trump told reporters that Putin had told him that Russia did not interfere at all in the 2016 Election. [15:30:07]

And he said, he means it.