High stakes diplomacy and canceled Halibut Olympia, insights from the Alaska Summit
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.1 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Normally, foreign policy summits between world leaders involve painstaking planning and organization days and weeks in advance. The hectic and last minute nature of the meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska provided a window into how so much of what’s happening to try and end a brutal war in Ukraine, is being made up on the fly.
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, who has covered her share of high stakes diplomatic meetings between some of the world’s most powerful people, spoke with Scott Detrow about what was different this time.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org.
Email us at [email protected].
This episode was produced by Kira Wakeam. It was edited by Sarah Robbins and Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Finland President Trump. I'm reading from a sign that is plastered across the front windows of Finlayson department store. |
| 0:11.9 | I'm Mary Louise Kelly in Geneva. About 100 yards away is Villa Lagrange. This is this grand 18th century villa. |
| 0:19.6 | It is the site of the Biden-Pooten summit, which is coming up in two days' time. |
| 0:25.3 | Michael host, Mary Louise Kelly, has seen her share of political tettit-tets around the world. |
| 0:30.0 | But what did she think of the recent summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska? |
| 0:37.2 | This is not my first rodeo as summits go, and I've never seen anything like it. |
| 0:41.4 | It was kind of shocking, even for a foreign policy veteran like Mary Louise, from the location, |
| 0:47.4 | hosting Putin on U.S. soil, after years of allegations of war crimes, to the organization |
| 0:52.7 | or lack thereof. |
| 0:55.9 | Mary Louise says it was all a far cry from the kind of planning that has gone into summit she has attended before. And although that |
| 1:00.8 | planning ahead, it happens for a really good reason. Because they're not just planning whose plane lands |
| 1:06.5 | first and how do we keep it secure and what's the motorcade arrangement. They're trying to figure out if things go terribly wrong, where's the nearest hospital? |
| 1:14.3 | How do we get there? |
| 1:15.3 | They're doing contingency for contingency for contingency plans. |
| 1:19.2 | So all of that did not happen the way it usually happens. |
| 1:23.1 | She says things at this summit came together so hastily that many people she talked to in Anchorage |
| 1:27.9 | weren't even aware that the city was the site of such a high-stakes meeting. There's one other |
| 1:33.3 | incident that gives some insight into just how quickly and chaotically all of this was organized. |
| 1:38.2 | Guests at an upscale hotel near the summit location found confidential government documents |
| 1:42.8 | on a public printer there. |
| 1:45.1 | NPR broke that story, which detailed some of the sensitive information contained in the documents, |
| 1:50.1 | including, among other things, the lunch menu for the two world leaders. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.