EXPECTATIONS GAME: Trump describes ideal negotiations timeline, relationship with Putin

Here's my interview with President Trump recorded on Air Force One during the trip here from Washington, a trip that started early this morning at Joint Base Andrews. Okay, President just boarded Air Force One. We're getting ready to go on. We'll be on the flight for six hours. We'll do the interview on there, and then we'll see a special report in Anchorage on the other side.

Soon after takeoff, President Trump decided to gaggle with pool reporters.

You had said earlier this week that Putin would face severe consequences if you get the sense from him that he's not interested.

What do you mean by that? Economically severe. Yes, it will be very severe. I'm not doing this for my health, okay? I don't need it. I'd like to focus on our country, but I'm doing this to save a lot of lives. Yeah, very severe. Thank you very much, everybody.

You like doing those things?

It's almost like a competition. It's like winning at golf. You know, they're coming in, every question is a kill. They hope you're going to make a mistake. They're looking, they had a lot of, they had a field day with Biden, that's why he didn't do it.

Did you make any news there?

Every, I don't think so, nothing. I always go out, I I say is there breaking news in other words what I leave if there's breaking news that's a bad thing that means they got me on something let's go after you he's a good

guy for everybody we started after a short break for a call with a world leader in the president's office on board you just had me in the office here and you had a phone call with the leader from Belarus, Lukashenko, and you talked about this meeting. Can I ask you what he told you about the possibilities?

Well, I really called him to thank him. He released 16 prisoners, and it was a very nice thing. They've been trying to get these 16 people out for a long time. Biden was obviously unable to do it, even other countries, because it's not just Americans. And he was great. He let them out. And I just called to thank him.

And believe it or not, there's about 1,300 more. And I think he'll let them out, too, at some point in the very near future. And what about his thoughts about this meeting that you're going to in Alaska? He was very positive about it. He's friends with President Putin, as you know, very, very close neighbors, and they work together. And he thinks that President Putin wants to make a deal. He wants to stop this horrible killing.

He mentioned it himself. He said it's a horrible situation. And he said he has great respect for me and for the country, but he didn't have a lot of respect for our country under a certain different leader. And I can understand that, because nobody else did either.

So what are your expectations? I mean, is the goal of this meeting in Alaska to walk away with a ceasefire?

So when you talk about deals, that's all I do. My whole life I do deals. You never know, you don't like to have too many expectations because you have to weave and bob and you don't know what's gonna happen. But we're gonna go and find out.

I'd like to see a ceasefire. I wouldn't be thrilled if I didn't get it, but everyone says, you're not going to get the ceasefire. It'll take place on the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very — but I'm not going to be happy with that. So, we'll see what happens.

I'm going to be — I won't be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire. Now, I say this, and I've said it from the beginning. This is really setting the table today we're gonna have another meeting if things work out which would be very soon or we're not gonna have any more meetings at all maybe ever.

Don't you sense that Putin comes to this table maybe in an economic pinch and that maybe the things you've already done have put him in an economic pitch. Is there an economic side to this, as Russia hoping to open up to the world?

Well, he lost an oil client, so to speak, which is India, which was doing about 40 percent of the oil. China, as you know, is doing a lot. And others, I haven't known a few countries. And if I did what's called a secondary sanction or a secondary tariff, it would be, you know, very devastating from their standpoint.

If I have to do it, I'll do it. Maybe I won't have to do it.

He's coming, though, with the thought that maybe there's going to be a deal on the economy. He's coming with businessmen and...

Yeah, they're bringing a lot of people. Over 500 people are coming, a lot of them are businessmen. And they, what they really would like to do is, look, we built in a short period of time the greatest economy ever, ever. I had the four greatest years ever in, as an economy,

and this is gonna blow it away. We're doing well. We were a dead country. And I say this often. I'll say it loud and clear. We were a dead country a year ago, a dead country, not respected by anybody.

We had inflation at levels that we had never had before. They say 48 years. I say it was worse than ever before. So if you were to paint a picture of what perfect looks like coming out of Alaska today, what does that

look like in your mind?

Look, it's not for me to negotiate a deal for Ukraine. But I can certainly set the table to negotiate the deal. And our next meeting will have President Zelensky and President Putin and probably me. I'd like to focus on doing our country, but, you know, I get these interruptions. I've solved six wars in six months, when you think about it.

And that's from Pakistan to India. That was going to be a terrible one. Planes being shot down. That was getting ready to flare, and then going to be a terrible one. Planes being shot down. That was getting ready to flare in their nuclear powers and so many others. And, you know.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Congo, Rwanda. In fact, did you see that Hillary Clinton yesterday said that if you got this deal done and not capitulate to Putin, that she would nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize?

If President Trump were the architect of that, I'd nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Well, that was very nice. I may have to start liking her again. I will say this. This is an important meeting. The second meeting potentially is more important. It could be more of a more finality.

It's not for me to negotiate for Ukraine, but I think I have a pretty good idea what they'd like to see and what's good and what's not good. But more importantly than the deals and all of the things we've been talking about are the lives. They've lost right now 5,000 to 7,000.

They're losing a week. Mostly soldiers, Russian and Ukraine soldiers. Think of this. You have Russian soldiers, you have Ukrainian soldiers. They're losing, on average, 5,000. Last week, they lost 7,011 soldiers

and some other people where bombs were lobbed into Kiev and other places. It's something that has to stop. And I'll tell you what, if I didn't win this election and if I wasn't doing this, you right now could be in a third world war.

That was heading to a third world war. You've said before that we got a lot of BS thrown at us by Putin. What is it about an in-person meeting that makes you think he's not going to, in your words, give you BS? I mean, how are you going to trust him because you can look across the table at him?

Well, look, I've known him very well. I had a very good relationship despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It was a hoax. And that really made the relationship much harder. But I had a very good relationship with him. We had no problems.

We had, you know, a country that was — we were getting along. We were doing fine. We have tremendous potential. You know, Russia has very valuable land. We have tremendous potential to have a great relationship, a great business relationship.

But we couldn't do it because of the crooked, demented people that created the phony Russia, Russia, Russia. And I told him, I said, you know, Vladimir, there's no way we're going to make a deal. You know that.

He said, well, I think it's going to be tough. I said, no, not tough. It's impossible. because I have wise guys that created a phony deal, and until that settled up, that was the hoax, the big hoax. The greatest, well, one of the greatest hoax. I think we have a lot of others that we could talk about, all by the same group of very, very bad Americans.

I'm gonna be nice when I say it that way. But we have a potential to do some very good things at this meeting. One of the things I think we'll discuss, and again, it's about Ukraine, but we have nuclear treaties to discuss. We have a lot of things to discuss that normally would be something that would come naturally,

but it's not so natural now because of Ukraine.

You had Steve Whitkoff go talk to Vladimir Putin. So there has to be some sense that you have going into this that you're going to have something because otherwise you said you'd go in and look him across the table and be able to say in the first two minutes whether it was going to happen or not.

I'll be able to tell very quickly whether or not this will be a good meeting. A good meeting really is more, in my opinion, scheduled to be the second meeting, but I won't be happy about that. I'm not looking to waste a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money doing this. I want to get it done. And I want to really stop them this week, not next week.

So we're going to have a second meeting. Now, it could be that if this meeting's bad enough, that I'm gone.

1986, Reagan walks away from Reykjavik with Gorbachev, and it was a strong moment. I mean, you could foresee if it goes down a bad path, you get up and walk away.

I'm not doing it based on history, based on anything else. I'm doing it based on a deal. If we make a deal, great. If I see that there's no hope of making a deal, I'm out of there. It's over. I'm out of there.

This isn't my war. This is Biden's war. This is Biden screwed this up, just like he did with Afghanistan with that horrible retreat and the way he did it. I'll never forget it.

That was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country. Well, this is Biden's war, too. This is a war that should have never happened. I saw it for four years. It didn't happen. And I understand Putin.

It was the apple of his eye. Ukraine was the apple of his eye. There was no way he was going to move on it. I'll tell you, you know, you have a very similar thing with President Xi of China and Taiwan. But I don't believe there's any way it's going to

happen as long as I'm here. We'll see. He told me, I will never do it as long as you're President. As President Xi told me that. And I said, well, I appreciate that. But he also said, but I am very patient.

And China is very patient. I said, well, that's up to you. But it better not happen now.

These guys, both Xi and Putin, have said things before that they didn't live up to. Or they did other things. And, you know, when you were campaigning, you said, we can solve this right away, 24 hours. You got into it. You've explained it's much more complex.

It's tougher, right?

So I thought this would be, I settled six wars recently. Like Congo was going on. This was with Rwanda. It was going on for 31 years, and I got it settled. We have a case with, take a look at Cambodia. Take a look at so many.

And the most difficult ones turned out to be easy. The easiest one, which should be this one, turned out to be the toughest.

And that's because of Putin?

Well, it's because of a lot of things. It's because of personalities that don't get along very well. I mean, President Zelensky and President Putin did not get along. Again, I inherited this. I came in, I got very angry at people yesterday. I came in and I said, what the hell? I inherited this mess. I inherited a mess from Biden with the economy, with inflation, with high taxes, with so many other things.

You've said that there could be very severe consequences if Putin doesn't do a ceasefire, if this falls apart. But you've also in the past said that sanctions, you don't think, really affect Russia because he's gotten around them before. What does Sevier look like?

Sevier, let me just tell you one other one. Cambodia, Thailand, it was starting, and I got it right at the beginning. But many people are dead right along the border. And I happened to be talking to one of the two parties, and they said, are you guys going to war again?

Because they've been fighting for, they said, as they said, 500 years. I said, how long are you fighting? They said, 500 years. On and off, right? I said, this is not good. I got that one solved.

So we're going to see what happens. We're going to have a meeting today. Hopefully it'll be good. If it's bad, if it's something I don't see a future in, I'm a deal guy. If it's something I don't see a future in, I'm gone.

I'll leave.

I don't have to be a deal. I'm out of here. And I go back to the United States, and I preside over the economy that, wait till you see what's happening with all of this. You know, we have trillions of dollars pouring in. Even people that were against tariffs only because they didn't understand tariffs, they didn't even know what a tariff was.

You had economists that didn't even know what a tariff was. They're all my biggest fan now. They're all saying, you see it. We have an economy that's going to be the best ever, I think, in the history of our world.

When you land in Air Force One, it sends a different signal. It's a pretty good way to travel. And we're going to land in this base in Alaska that's going to have a lot of military equipment there on the ground.

It's pretty impressive. Well, I think people are going to be impressed. And I hope your cameras can look at it. It's a very big base and it's got a lot of great equipment. We have F-22s. We have the B-2 bomber that everyone saw. How about that?

Thirty-six hours back and forth. Not a screw was loose. Not a plane went down, even from a mechanical standpoint. If you take a look at the last raid into Iran, it was the helicopters, Jimmy Carter. What a shame that was, that whole thing.

And then they ended up taking our great patriots as prisoners. And it was just the exact opposite. This was a flawless campaign.

And it sent a message to the world.

It sent a message, and that plane is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. But when you land, you'll see the B-2s. You'll see, I think, the most beautiful fighter jet in the world is the F-22. You're going to see F-35s all over the place.

It's a big base. You're going to see lots of equipment, and I hope your cameras can cover it because it will be very impressive.

Mr. President, thanks for the time. Thanks for the ride, and we'll talk to you on the way back. Just deplaned, we're in Alaska, Air Force One here on the ground, just minutes before

President Putin is scheduled to land. President Putin is scheduled to land.

They rolled out the red carpet, literally, the red carpet and a number of B-2s and F-22s