Trump and Putin are set to meet. Do they want the same thing?
Consider This from NPR
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🗓️ 12 August 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
Two minutes —
That’s how long President Donald Trump says it will take him to figure out whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about finding a way to end his war with Ukraine.
Details are still scarce — but Putin and Trump are set to meet Friday in Alaska.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t invited.
What does Trump hope to achieve, and can he get it from Putin? Ambassador John Bolton, Trump's national security advisor in his first term, was with Trump the last time Trump met with Putin. Bolton weighs in.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Come Friday, presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska. |
| 0:05.2 | The ultimate goal, ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. |
| 0:09.4 | At a recent press conference, President Trump said he would know pretty quickly which way it would go. |
| 0:14.4 | And at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I'll know exactly whether or not a deal can be with. |
| 0:19.6 | How will you know that? |
| 0:21.3 | Because that's what I do. I make deals. But meetings between Trump and Putin are often unpredictable. |
| 0:28.1 | Seven years ago, the two presidents held a notable summit in Helsinki, Finland. |
| 0:33.6 | You might remember the other major story dominating the headlines back in 2018 |
| 0:42.3 | was Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. |
| 0:49.9 | Days before the Helsinki summit, Mueller announced charges against several Russian nationals. |
| 0:55.4 | The indictment charges 12 Russian military officers by name for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. |
| 1:04.8 | Hours before the summit, President Trump had posted on social media that the relationship between the U.S. and Russia had, quote, never been worse. |
| 1:14.8 | Then the two presidents met behind closed doors for two hours. When they emerged, President Trump appeared to have changed his tune about Putin and Russia, going so far as to question the U.S. intelligence communities finding that Russia |
| 1:30.3 | had worked to influence the 2016 presidential election. People came to me, Dan Coates, came to me, |
| 1:36.2 | and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not |
| 1:43.2 | Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be. |
| 1:47.7 | Ambassador John Bolton, then President Trump's National Security Advisor was with the president in Helsinki. |
| 1:55.0 | And this time in Alaska, Bolton says the SNAP summit is another example of the way the president likes to do things. |
| 2:03.2 | I think this is Trump believing that he can read the other side. |
| 2:06.9 | He views international relations as basically being the personal relations between heads of state. |
| 2:12.6 | Consider this. Will Trump be able to use his relationship with Putin to get what he wants? |
| 2:18.4 | Or will Putin use Trump to get what he wants? |
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