Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Friday, June 18th. I'm Nailibutu. Here's what

you need to know today. The record-breaking, sweltering heatwave in the West, plus how

TV is embracing queer people and stories. But first, today's one big thing, where the

US-Russia relationship goes from here.

It's Friday, which means it's time to talk politics. Let's go back to a moment earlier

this week. When President Biden was speaking to the press in Geneva about his meeting with

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Putin had just done a lot of lying to reporters in his

news conference. When it was Biden's turn to face the media, things got a little testy

when he was pressed on the meeting.

Why are you so confident he'll change his behavior, Mr. President?

Yeah, I'm not confident. What do you do? What did I say? What did I say? What did I say?

What did I say? What? Let's get it straight. I said, what will change their behavior is

the rest of the world reacts to them and they diminish the stage of the war. I'm not confident

of anything.

That was in exchange with CNN's Caitlin Collins. Axios' Hans Nichols is here with us to talk

about that moment in the aftermath of President Biden's first foreign trip. Hey, Hans.

Morning.

Hans, the headlines are reading that relationships between the two countries are at a cold war

low. Can we first unpack this moment for America and Russia? What does a summit mean for foreign

policy?

Look, I finally get to use this line and that is that all happy summits are the same and

all unhappy summits are uniquely different to sort of paraphrase toll story. And what

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