President Trump may not be expecting much from his meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland, but Washington and the world will be watching with eager anticipation to see what comes of the pair’s first official one-on-one sit-down.
“I go in with low expectations. I’m not going in with high expectations,” Trump said during an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday, before tweeting he would face criticism even if he were “given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia.”
However, suspense regarding the meeting between the two presidents, who have only spoken face-to-face twice before on the sidelines of multinational summits, has intensified in recent days.
Lawmakers, national security experts, and foreign affairs pundits, have generally applauded initiatives aimed at mitigating escalated tensions between the U.S. and Russia. But the Trump administration’s apparent lack of an agenda and its willingness to facilitate a private meeting between Trump and Putin, with only interpreters in tow, have stoked concerns.
“In Putin, you have got a trained KGB agent who does his homework. My fear is that Putin could come in with maps of Ukraine, maps of Syria, and try to cut some deal and frankly take advantage of this president,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, told NBC on Sunday.
“This is not a meeting of equals. It’s not even a meeting of rivals. It’s a meeting of the attacker and at this point a willing victim because the president has not done anything to really deter the attack from going forward,” Samantha Vinograd, a National Security Council staffer during the Obama presidency, added on CNN Sunday.
Russian President for International Affairs Yuri Ushakov told Russian-language business magazine Vedomosti on Saturday that dealing with Syria and radical Islamic terrorism were priorities for Putin, which the Kremlin believes can be achieved in part by tamping down Cold War rhetoric, according to a translation by Forbes. Ushakov failed to mention the prospect of a denuclearization recommitment through the reaffirming of the New START Treaty, which is due to expire in 2021.
“Economic relations need to be better developed. It will be one of the topics that will be discussed,” Ushakov continued. “We have some proposals.”
The consternation experienced by Trump’s critics has only been exacerbated by the president’s bellicose displays with traditional allies during his trip to the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Belgium, calling Germany a “captive” of Russia because of its energy imports. Trump also caused a stir with his working visit to the United Kingdom, during which he told CBS News on Sunday that the European Union was a “foe” of the U.S.
Trump told CBS News he would reveal his objectives “after the meeting” with Putin, while national security adviser John Bolton described the get-together to ABC News as “basically unstructured” without any “concrete deliverables.” Trump’s administration on the eve of the gathering did not even seem to have consensus on whether it was a “meeting” or a “summit,” with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman refusing to categorize it as a “summit” regardless of presidential tweets to the contrary.
The ongoing federal Russia investigation also casts a long shadow over the meeting.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller issued an indictment in federal court against 12 senior Russian officials, charging them for being involve “in a sustained effort” to hack into email accounts and servers owned by the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The indictments prompted both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to implore Trump to confront Putin over Kremlin-linked attempts to meddle in U.S. elections and push for the Russian strongman to extradite the officials ensnared in Mueller’s probe in the absence of a formal treaty.
“I don’t believe the meeting should take place but if it is going to happen, President Trump must press Putin hard on the issue of election interference. He can’t simply raise it, accept Putin’s denial and then let him off the hook,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Sunday. “Second, the President must demand that the 12 Russians named in the indictment be sent to the U.S. to stand trial.”
Schumer additionally warned against easing economic sanctions placed on about 700 Russian nationals and companies, which have frozen assets, prohibited travel, and prevented entities from being financed through U.S. banks and markets, per Bloomberg.
The likelihood of Trump broaching the issue of extradition is low following Bolton’s dismissal of the idea as “pretty silly” on ABC News on Sunday. Trump himself told CBS News he “hadn’t thought” about making the request.
Unlike Trump’s historic June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, the White House has adopted an understated approach to the Putin meeting.
Former Trump NSC spokesman Michael Anton lowered the bar during a Fox News interview Sunday, saying “just being together, exchanging pleasantries, clearing the air” could be considered a win for the administration.
“If they get a personal relationship on track to improve things between the two countries, that would be about the most you could hope for,” Anton said. “I don’t expect to hear a lot of substance.”
Trump’s 90-minute, one-on-one meeting with Putin at the Finnish Presidential Palace is scheduled to start at 6:20 a.m. ET., after which discussions will be expanded to include aides and other officials in a formal setting as well as over a working lunch.
Trump and Putin will address reporters at a joint press conference at 9:50 a.m. ET, before Trump is interviewed by Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Putin will sit down with Chris Wallace, their colleague at the cable news network.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump are then expected to start their return journey to Washington, D.C., following a week away.
