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Trump and Putin Meet for Historic Summit. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired August 15, 2025 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Trump told reporters that Putin had told him that Russia did not interfere at all in the 2016 election, and he said he means it, President Trump said.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That was really when started the pattern of every single time Trump would talk about Putin, he would talk as though he trusted everything he said. And it really started here when he said that he believed it, he means it when he said it. And then, of course, there was Helsinki, which is where he stood up next to Putin for the next meeting, and again seemed to say that Putin and Russia had not interfered with the election in 2016.
TAPPER: And the context is so important because, A, while Putin had invaded and seized Crimea and there was this kind of like low-grade war going on in eastern Ukraine, Putin had not yet done the full-scale attack on Ukraine that he did in 2022.
And also the backdrop of the Russia investigation, the Mueller investigation, questions of Russian interference, all that, there was such a backdrop and such a distraction for President Trump during his entire first term was omnipresent.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: And keep in mind that now this administration is investigating those officials involved in Russian -- investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, alleging that that was somehow a deep state plot to undermine President Trump's presidency at the time. That's an active investigation.
TAPPER: And whatever happened, it certainly was a tremendous distraction for him in terms of his ability to get things done. And there were investigations after investigations and hearings. Anyway, so this context is different. Their context is different.
Then of course came the big Helsinki. This is the third meeting from Trump, between Trump and Putin, that I'm talking about.
In July 2018, that's the big Helsinki, Finland. They talked for two hours. They only had their interpreters there.
And again, President Trump came forward and said, you know, that Putin denied being involved. And then there's this question about, you know, I don't know why he would -- whether Trump said, I don't know why he would have lied about it, or I don't know why he wouldn't have lied about it, or whatever he said exactly. And this question.
But he seemed to side with Putin over his own intelligence briefers. That's what it seemed like.
SCIUTTO: And took enormous flak from Republicans as well for that moment.
TAPPER: Here's the spray that happened moments ago at Joint Base Elmendorf. Let's listen in if we can.
All right, we don't seem to have much audio, but there you can see the Russians on the left side of the screen. There's Putin in the middle with President Trump. And on the right side, if the camera pans back, you'll see Steve Witkoff, who is President Trump's special envoy, who's been going to hot spots all over the world, including Russia, including helping to negotiate Americans detained improperly, unfairly, unjustly in Russia, getting them home. And then Marco Rubio, who is the Secretary of State and also National Security Advisor.
The next meeting is really not much of one. It's November 2018. This is the fourth meeting that they had. It's Paris, France. They shook hands at a World War One commemoration.
November 2018, the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. Informal conversation. We don't really know much about what happened. They did have a conversation, but not much information provided.
And then their last meeting in June 2019 at the G20 in Osaka, they gave brief remarks and asked about the Mueller investigation, which did conclude that Russia meddled in the election. But there was no prosecutable evidence of any sort of conspiracy with Trump or his campaign.
And Trump seemed to make light of it. He was asked by reporters in the room. And he told Putin, you know, don't meddle in the election, like kind of like a joke.
SCIUTTO: You know, one more note just about the Helsinki meeting, because it's relevant to Russia's offer to expand today's talks to include the possibility of a nuclear agreement. I was told by one of President Trump's former senior advisors that before that Helsinki moment, which essentially blew up that meeting between Trump and Putin, that Trump had had hope and some of his advisors had had hope that they would make some progress potentially, or at least lay the groundwork for some nuclear negotiations. And that Helsinki moment of him seeming to side with Russia over his own intelligence agencies took that away.
And there was enormous disappointment inside his own team. I bring that up just because now you have at least the Russian president raising the possibility once again that that could be on the table here.
TAPPER: Yes, just to remind folks, the United States and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at each other. And there is still a desire by leaders in both countries, I think, to at least reduce the stockpile for safety purposes.
Kristen Holmes and Jim Sciutto, thanks so much. Stand by.
[15:35:00]
CNN's Kaitlan Collins is back with us right now alongside CNN political national security analyst David Sanger, who's also White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times -- Kaitlin.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, and obviously we're standing here where this press conference is set to happen.
Obviously we are quite some time away from that, we believe, because there's a bunch of meetings that have to happen first.
David Sanger, just first I want to get your perspective on the remarkable image we saw of Trump and Putin getting into the same car, getting into the presidential beast together after a hearing. You know, there's not going to be a one-on-one. It's going to be a three- on-three. I mean, the one-on-one played out right there, even if it was just for a few brief moments.
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It was an unusual scene, and I haven't seen that even when President Biden would meet with Xi Jinping, for example, or other superpower leaders. It did give them a few minutes alone, which is always going to raise questions, just as the president's conversation with Putin at a dinner in Hamburg in his first term did.
There were no interpreters that we know of who were unless there was somebody in the car who could. But I doubt it. Putin speaks enough English that I'm sure he could probably carry on a conversation at least for that brief ride.
COLLINS: How is his English, by the way, because that was the immediate question a lot of people had, I think.
SANGER: I think he's got some. He does not use it in public very much.
COLLINS: Yes, and as Trump was coming over here, I wonder what stood out to you in terms of different signals that we've seen of his approach going into this meeting. He's ready to walk away.
He's also on the phone with the leader of Belarus, a huge ally of the Kremlins. I wonder what stood out to you and what we heard from him going into this.
SANGER: Well, the call to the leader of Belarus, Lukashenko, was unusual. I don't think that there's been a conversation between the American president and the leader of Belarus in many, many years.
Coming over in his comments to reporters, I thought the most interesting thing was he said there would be no business conducted with, commercial business, with Russia while the, until less was a ceasefire underway.
That seemed to suggest a continued belief that sanctions and the lure of the American economy would change the behavior of Putin. Now, of course, Putin knew what would be happening to him economically. He was told before he invaded Russia in 2022.
He went ahead and did it anyway. And you know, there's always a sense that President Trump believes in the power of economic sanctions in economic motives to a greater degree than perhaps Putin does, given the importance of Ukraine.
COLLINS: And what does it say to you that in that expanded meeting, you're going to see the commerce secretary, the treasury secretary inside the room as, you know, maybe there's no business to do until the war is settled, but clearly they want to try to offer a carrot, maybe. How do you view that?
SANGER: Well, first of all, they saw that Putin was bringing a business delegation, so they knew they would be discussing rare earths or other mining issues or oil issues and so forth, maybe even tariffs. So they wanted to have somebody in the room to deal with that. But I think Trump wants to show he's open to all of that if he can get past the war issue.
Now, if you are Putin, your goal is to reduce the import of Ukraine in the course of this whole conversation. And he said outright that in addition to business issues, he wanted to discuss an extension of the new START nuclear agreement, which expires in February.
COLLINS: Yes. And in terms of that, I mean, obviously, that has been something that is high on the president's radar itself as they are getting into this meeting amid questions of what this is going to look like. And also, you know, what they're going to walk out of that room with, if anything, when it comes to, obviously, a breakthrough.
Do they disagree and Trump decides to actually head back to Washington as he's starting to just walk? Or does it remain at an impasse?
SANGER: You know, I have a funny feeling that he won't walk out alone and with nothing. If you're Donald Trump, you always make the case you've gotten something, even if you didn't. But if there isn't a ceasefire with a date certain and a specific length, I think it's going to be very hard for the president to spin that he got much progress here.
On the nuclear side, this is a tough issue because the treaty that expires in February allows for no extension. So they're going to have to come up with some entirely different vehicle. It would be very appealing to Trump to say, you know, I have made Americans safer by extending the period of time, preventing an arms race.
I don't know whether he's going to have enough to be able to do that.
COLLINS: And so what does that mean if he doesn't, do you think?
SANGER: Well, I think he's got to show that he's getting something here and he's got pressures within his own party.
[15:40:00]
He's got a group led by J.D. Vance, his own vice president, who have made the case we have nothing to get involved in in Ukraine. We'll provide arms if the Europeans pay for it, but we're out of the business of doing this themselves.
On the other hand, he's got to show Putin that there's continued pressure on Russia. And the only way to really do that is to arm Ukraine, give them intelligence, make sure it's clear to Putin that this would be a really hard thing for him to pull off.
COLLINS: And a dramatic turn for President Trump himself.
SANGER: It would be a very dramatic turn that I think would be difficult for his MAGA base.
COLLINS: Yes, we'll see how they interpret that.
David Sanger, obviously, we'll be watching all this play out very closely here. Jake, this is a key consideration going into this as to what this is going to look like and also what it looks like when we see these two world leaders here in the room -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins and David Sanger. Thanks to both of you. Stand by.
The meeting, the actual meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and their and their counterparts, a three-on- three. It's now underway here in Anchorage, Alaska, at nearby airbase Elmendorf, Richardson.
The U.S. is pushing for Putin to end his bloody war against Ukraine. We're going to break down what might actually be happening behind closed doors in this high stakes summit. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Back just moments ago, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin began their high-stakes meeting. Let's watch and listen to that.
We should say this is the first formal meeting. There was, of course, the greeting on the tarmac, in which President Trump applauded Vladimir Putin briefly as he approached. They walked together, had a photo op.
And then it seemed that President Trump offered to have Vladimir Putin ride with him to the meeting site, which is very close by. So the meeting actually began when they were inside that vehicle. No interpreter.
There was some question raised, Ambassador Bolton, about how good is Vladimir Putin's English. You said during the break that you've seen him actually correct his Russian translator about the translation into English.
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I've been in meetings with him where he's done just that. And he makes jokes in English from time to time. I think his English is good enough to have a conversation with Trump in that car ride.
And undoubtedly, playing off this flip to a three-by-three meeting initially, he was going to get some words in about that, too.
COOPER: You believe he would use that car ride as an opportunity?
BOLTON: Yes, I think he'd say, look, Donald, if you want to have a three-on-three, of course it's OK, but we're going to have a one-on- one, too, right? And we'll see how that plays out.
COOPER: Rahm, what do you make of the video we saw, which was a full spray, very quick, of the president, both presidents and the two advisers, we saw Lavrov and Ushakov and Witkoff and Rubio with the president. How do you read that?
RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: That looks more like a meeting off of a G20 where you're doing kind of one-on-ones and they're kind of 20-15 minute rather than, hey, there's no table, so there's no negotiation. And when you scorecard this, you've already got a red carpet greeting, which is a red carpet greeting, versus kind of Zelenskyy's rough up in the Oval. That way is there you've got a person, you're out of the diplomatic isolation, you've got one-on-one time, you're probably, as Ambassador Bolton said, probably you get more time there, and you've also gotten treated exactly like a superpower.
When you start going down the checklist, it's score, score, score. And when you compare Zelenskyy, you've got roughed up in the Oval Office.
COOPER: Let's just play a quick sound from that Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval, just in case people didn't see it or don't remember.
EMANUEL: It's memorable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're either going to make a deal or we're out. And if we're out, you'll fight it out. I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It obviously went on for quite some time.
EMANUEL: Yes.
COOPER: You juxtapose that to the reception.
EMANUEL: The reception here, and, you know, this takes America out of kind of the arbitrator role towards, you know, tilting the scales here. COOPER: Why can't you have a meeting where something gets done without a table?
EMANUEL: I mean, you can have it. I mean, the table is not the big deal there. It's the substance that's set at the table.
But one is set up for the structure of a negotiation, and the other one is set up for basically a conversation, which is not a negotiation. They have different temperament, different feelings. Now, it doesn't mean when you go to the larger one, there isn't a table there.
But I think this tells you not only the audible, but the kind of context and the environment in which are you really going to start to work and pin down. As I said, there's a sovereignty, there's an independence, and there's territory. There's three kind of buckets here, and I don't see that -- I don't see that kind of setting.
COOPER: You're nodding your head about it.
EMANUEL: Yes.
BOLTON: I think as one who's sat along the sides of a lot of these meetings, the two people in the front are the ones who are having the conversation. The rest are just listening unless they're called upon.
I think, though, it's interesting, obviously, Trump is the host, and he's the one who asked for the switch to three-to-three in the beginning. One would assume he's got a pitch that he's going to make to start this off, to move it in the direction he wants to move it in, to try and -- to caution against Putin taking the meeting out of control.
[15:50:00]
So it would be interesting to find out, after it's over, what was the first thing that Trump wanted to say to him, because that could set the tone for everything that follows.
COOPER: I also just want to correct something, because there was some question about there's a story that's long been reported that in the Helsinki meeting, I believe it was, that President Trump asked the interpreter not to take notes. But you're saying that's not correct.
BOLTON: No, he asked her not to take notes, but we talked to her after it was over to find out what was said.
COOPER: Oh, sorry. The story is that he took her notes afterward.
BOLTON: No, no, no. There were no notes.
COOPER: That's not good. There were no notes.
BOLTON: He asked her not to take notes, but good interpreters, who have to listen to people ramble on for long periods of time and then interpret back by memory, have good memories even over two-hour periods. And that's why I was confident in that meeting he didn't give anything.
COOPER: And you actually checked up on him.
BOLTON: I had Fiona Hill check. While we were getting a debrief from Trump, Fiona went and talked to the interpreter.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I do wonder, I mean, watching the Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy, you had in that meeting J.D. Vance, the vice president, playing the bad guy.
EMANUEL: Literally.
PHILLIP: Literally, like playing the guy who was pinning Zelenskyy against the wall.
And then Trump kind of came in and said, well, you know, you're not ready to negotiate essentially and kind of shut the whole thing down. In this context, what do you think about Rubio and Witkoff, I'm really not sure what role, if any, they're going to play.
I mean, Ambassador Bolton, you said they might just be sitting there listening, taking it all in, but does Trump need a kind of foil on his team to kind of move the negotiation forward? I'm not sure.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's also a reminder, when you play that Zelenskyy clip, of the unpredictability of Donald Trump, which makes today a very important day anyway, but even a more like sort of what are we going to get day, right? Normally, when you have a summit meeting like this, as the ambassador noted, Rahm has been involved in this, it takes months and months and months to prepare. There's a general framework.
When the leaders get together, maybe there's one or two last things to work out that they need to eyeball each other over. This is a who knows, right? Brought together in a week.
However, Trump, after that Zelenskyy meeting, we're out, right? You're not ready to negotiate or we're out. That sent shockwaves across Europe, that Trump was going to withdraw.
At the moment, though, Trump has flipped some because he's been disappointed in Putin and is now allowing, you know, through NATO and the European allies, American weapons to go back into Ukraine.
COOPER: And he has said --
KING: So he flipped again. Where is he now?
COOPER: He has said that there would be no negotiating land without Ukraine.
EMANUEL: There's an undercurrent to all this. And the undercurrent is none of us have confidence -- I'll speak for myself here. You don't really have confidence that Putin can't really work Donald Trump. And we've seen him swing 180 degrees in a short period of time. So the undercurrent around here is not about Putin. It's about whether Donald Trump's going to be steady with the strategic objectives for the United States, not his own personal gratification.
PHILLIP: What do you think are the strategic objectives for the United States? I think that is also a massive question. We don't know.
First of all, I think we do know that he does not care all that much about Ukraine in this conflict. So what does he think the strategic objectives are? We know that he cares about the minerals that are on Ukrainian soil.
We know that he wants the conflict over because he made some promises. He wants to keep them. He wants that Nobel Peace Prize.
Beyond that, I think that's a massive question mark. And maybe he's going to be winging it in this meeting, but that's a lot to be winging.
EMANUEL: And if you were Ukraine, given America's broken promise in both Budapest and Minsk, that we've committed to their security and sovereignty and never really have shown up, you're literally the meal here. And you're not even -- maybe they'll get a collect phone call afterwards.
BOLTON: Well, remember, also, we don't know exactly whether Trump is going to focus on the question of a ceasefire or the final terms of an agreement that ends the hostilities. They're two very different things.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Also, the way we're talking about it is at a relatively high level. I think, you know, the Russians and I think in the United States have said it's a photo-op. And a photo-op is extremely important to both people.
Just the fact -- look at this. We haven't had much happen, and already we've got Putin back home, great news.
And here in the United States, it could be peace, you know, the sign of peace. He's got Putin there. They're already -- each side gets a win by actually not doing much of anything right now.
COOPER: I mean, just from both -- both of you have been involved, you've been in the rooms when this happens. What -- if it's the president -- if it's President Trump as the host of it, starting it off, is it, here's what we think should happen? Is it a casual conversation that becomes a business conversation?
I mean, how does it open up? How does it work?
BOLTON: Well, I'll just say, since Trump is aberrational compared to every other Republican president that I've worked for, I think he will open up with talking about how he's been disappointed in Putin, how he wants to see peace. And it won't follow any pattern.
[15:55:00] It'll ramble for five or ten or 15 minutes. And then I think Putin will respond by trying to bring things back into what the pattern that he wants.
He's not going to argue with Trump. He's not going to make Zelenskyy's mistake. He's going to say, Donald, you know, we're here because we want peace. That's what that sign above us says. And then he's going to go into the pitch that way.
EMANUEL: Look, beforehand, you would have -- if you really had planning for this, the president would outline, here's where I see things are today. And if you want to walk out of here with a ceasefire, this is the price for my ceasefire.
And it'd be 1, 2, 3, --
COOPER: You put it out there on the proverbial table.
EMANUEL: Very early on the table.
COOPER: President Trump previously said he would know in the first few minutes of this summit whether it would be a good meeting or a bad one. Well, the meeting has been underway now for more than a few minutes.
When we come back, we'll discuss the latest on the negotiations with someone quite familiar with what may be going on inside Vladimir Putin's mind. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
