Trump sees 25% chance Alaska summit with Putin will flop

President Trump said there’s a quarter chance that Friday’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin will end in failure.

The president is set to meet with Mr. Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss a way to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Mr. Trump told Fox Radio’s Brian Kilmeade on Thursday that the summit will set up a second meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but the first meeting could flop.

“This meeting sets up the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal,” Mr. Trump said.

He said there could be a “give and take” over boundaries during a possible second meeting, describing the process as “a chess game.”

Mr. Trump suggested that if the meeting goes poorly, “I’m not calling anybody — I’m going home. But if it’s a good meeting, I’m going to call President Zelenskyy and the European leaders.”

He also said he’s not sure if the press conference he gives after the summit will be with Mr. Putin.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be a joint. We haven’t even discussed it. I think it might be nice to have a joint and then separate,” he said. “So something like that will happen. Or if the meeting doesn’t end well, I’ll just have a press conference and head out.”

The president said if the summit is a dud, he’ll have a press conference “to say that the war is going to go on.”

His comments differ from those given by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said in a Fox News interview Thursday that the two leaders will hold a joint press conference after the meeting. The Kremlin has also confirmed that a joint presser is part of the plan.

“So tomorrow, bright and early, he will be departing the White House for our joint military base in Anchorage, Alaska, where he will engage in a one-on-one meeting with President Putin, which will be followed by a bilateral lunch with the respective delegations from both countries, and then a press conference,” she said.

She said the meeting with Mr. Putin will give Mr. Trump the opportunity to “sit down and look the Russian president in the eye and see what progress can be made to move the ball forward to end this brutal war and to restore peace.”