ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And I'm Mary Louise Kelly in a very noisy press tent. We're here at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. This is a sprawling base. It's the biggest military installation in Alaska. As you can probably hear, there are sound checks underway behind me. Energy is running high. Expectations may be running a little lower for what may be achieved here today, as Presidents Trump and Putin hold talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
Well, watching closely will be Ned Price. He was deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a senior State Department official in the Biden administration. He argues that with this meeting, Putin has laid a trap for Trump. And Ned Price joins us now. Welcome.
NED PRICE: Thank you, Mary Louise. Good to be here.
KELLY: Start right there. I want to explore how you believe Putin has engineered a trap. What's the trap?
PRICE: Well, we've heard a lot from President Trump in recent days about his plans. And President Trump said earlier this week, he's going primarily just to hear out President Putin. And one might reasonably ask what he hopes to hear, after several fruitless phone calls with President Putin, that's any different. My fear, as you said, is that President Putin is going in with his own plan, and it's really to set a trap for President Trump to do two things - No. 1, to take the pressure off, and No. 2, to keep the pressure off.
What do I mean by that? No. 1, taking the pressure off - you know, we're talking on Friday, the day of the summit. I think it's important that we remember what was supposed to have happened last Friday. That was a self-imposed deadline that President Trump put forward for tariffs and secondary sanctions targeting Moscow if President Putin didn't stop his assault against Ukraine. Of course, President Putin didn't, and instead of facing those repercussions, he got an invitation to the summit. And I think President Putin really orchestrated this summit to keep the pressure off in that sense.
But No. 2, I think he wants to do something even...
KELLY: Fair to say, it has been a good week for Putin and that he's already scored something of a win just by having this summit on U.S. soil. Go on - No. 2.
PRICE: Standing next to the president of the United States on U.S. soil is absolutely a win. But No. 2, I think President Putin wants to do something even more important. He wants to bring President Trump firmly back into his camp, into his orbit, after several weeks of President Trump really uncharacteristically rhetorically siding with Ukraine and actually doing things to the benefit of Ukraine.
And I think President Putin calculates that he can do that by appealing to President Trump's real-estate-mogul sensibilities. He can put forward a pretty outlandish proposal for land for peace. He can say, this is the ceasefire proposal. With this proposal, the war will stop. You'll have your ceasefire.
But dressed up in those details, I fear it will be Russia keeping 20% of Ukrainian territory, some degree of demilitarization, perhaps a requirement that the government change, and a prohibition against defense and deterrence capabilities for Ukraine going forward so that President Putin, going forward, can just rest, refit and ultimately reattack. I think that's what President Putin is trying to do here. I hope President Trump is smart enough to see through that.
KELLY: Although isn't talking better than not talking? You're a former diplomat. Is there not value to diplomacy?
PRICE: There absolutely is, Mary Louise. There absolutely is. And if President Trump, I think, had stood by the first preconditions that he put forward and really - namely that President Zelenskyy be there to represent Ukraine, I think there could have been a lot of merit there.
But that really gets to one of my concerns. Long before either gentleman stepped foot in Anchorage, I think President Trump has already caved. He's already caved on at least a couple points. No. 1 was the one I just mentioned - President Zelenskyy was supposed to be there. The White House said to reporters, I understand, that this would not go forward if President Zelenskyy wouldn't be there. And within hours, President Putin was repeating his insistence that he not meet directly with Zelenskyy, and the White House dropped that demand. And then No. 2, President Trump...
KELLY: Well, although President Trump has resurfaced it and said that he very much hopes that a second meeting will follow on the heels of this one, then, and that all three presidents might be there soon.
PRICE: We all could hope. But President Trump, as I mentioned before, also folded on the self-imposed deadline - the deadline that he himself on - imposed on President Putin to stop the war by last Friday. President Putin maneuvered out of those sanctions, out of those penalties, and that really gives me great pause about what we'll see today.
KELLY: How much hope do you hold out, Ned Price, that there will be a ceasefire announced walking out of this summit? An imperfect ceasefire, perhaps, temporary - but a ceasefire better than no ceasefire.
PRICE: Well, I think we would all like to see an immediate, unconditional, comprehensive ceasefire. But ceasefires come in a lot of different forms and flavors. And to go back to one of my earlier points, my concern is that President Putin will try to dress up surrender as a ceasefire. It would be very easy for him to say, yes, yes, President Trump, we'll stop the fighting today. That's what we'll do. In return, we'll take 20%, Zelenskyy has to step down, Ukraine can't join NATO and Ukraine has to demilitarize in important ways going forward.
On paper, that would be a ceasefire. But that would ultimately be surrender. That would not be the just and equitable peace that Ukraine needs and that dictators and would-be dictators the world over need to see. The world needs to see that aggression has costs and consequences, ultimately not rewards.
KELLY: So let's end with what you see as the best-case, worst-case scenario for outcomes here today. Start with the worst case.
PRICE: Well, worst case, I think, President Putin is able to achieve his two goals, as I wrote. One, to keep the pressure off, and No. 2, more importantly, to bring President Trump back to his side, to have put forward an outlandish proposal in which President Trump sees some merit, and President Trump goes back to his default state of beating up in - Zelenskyy, pressuring the Ukrainians and really siding with the Russians.
KELLY: And best case?
PRICE: Well, in best case, I think we might all hope that President Putin would agree to an immediate, unconditional, comprehensive ceasefire. I think the chances of that happening are pretty slim.
KELLY: Thank you, Ned.
PRICE: Thank you.
KELLY: Ned Price - he was a top national security official in the Biden administration, most recently deputy ambassador to the United Nations, and one of many voices we are bringing you today and all this week, as our coverage of the presidential summit here in Alaska continues. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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