If it's Wednesday, the path to peace in Ukraine faces new uncertainty as Russia appears to slow-walk

efforts to get President Putin and President Zelensky to meet face-to-face, despite President

Trump's push for direct talks.

Plus, after weeks of delays and walkouts from Democrats, Texas House Republicans are officially poised to pass their redistricting plan,

setting the stage for more states to follow suit as Democrats vowed to fight fire with fire.

And more National Guard troops are deployed to Washington as the president looks to tighten control over the district.

And the Justice Department

launches an investigation into whether local crime statistics were manipulated.

Welcome to meet the press now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, where the next step in the Trump administration's effort to end the war in Ukraine remains unclear at this hour.

Moscow appears to be slow walking a potential meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky, while also trying to insert itself into discussions about Ukraine's security.

Now, one of President Trump's main objectives coming out of his historic summits in Anchorage

and at the White House was to secure a leader-level meeting between President's Putin and

Zelensky.

And as recently as last night, President Trump appeared confident he could get it done.

I had a very successful meeting with President Putin.

I had a very successful meeting with President Zelensky.

And now I thought it would be better if they met without me, just to see.

I want to see what goes on.

You know, they had a hard relationship,

very bad, very bad relationship. And now we'll see how they do. And if necessary, and it probably would be, but if necessary, I'll go and I'll probably be able to get it closed. I just want to see

what happens at the meeting. So they're

in the process of setting it up, and we're going to see what happens.

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