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unidentified
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C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | |
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
| We are still at our core, a democracy. | ||
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| As you're calling in, we're going to take you to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Time Politics reporter Nick Popley joins us. | ||
| Nick Popeye set the stage today at the White House. | ||
| What more have you been able to find out about timing and sort of sequence events here for this series of meetings for the president today? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, good morning, John. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| It's certainly shaping up to be a very consequential day here at the White House. | ||
| As we continue to follow the fallout from President Trump's summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart, we know that President Trump has sort of backed down from his earlier demand for a ceasefire and is now pushing for a final peace deal in order to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| And this is something that has really raised eyebrows in Europe and particularly amongst Zelensky and his officials in Ukraine who are visiting the White House today, who will be speaking with the president at around one o'clock. | ||
| And then the president will be meeting with the European leaders who are here to sort of give support for Putin for Zelensky. | ||
| And they hope to find out more information from the president about what he really wants out of this and how he plans to end the war in Ukraine. | ||
| He's floated this peace agreement, so the question is now, what does that really entail? | ||
| Does it involve giving up territory? | ||
| Does it involve security guarantees for Ukraine? | ||
| And if so, what would those security guarantees look like in practice? | ||
| Past security guarantees have not worked as well as Ukraine would have hoped. | ||
| So the vision, the hope today is that Ukraine can get some answers and that President Trump can explain his position a little bit more clearly. | ||
| And so there'll be a lot of eyes on how that meeting goes. | ||
| The leaders of those countries may speak with the press afterwards. | ||
| And so it'll be very interesting to see what they have to say and the tone coming out of that meeting, especially after President Trump was in Alaska and met with President Putin and did not take questions from reporters afterwards. | ||
| Certainly all eyes on the White House, which is probably why it sounds like they're cutting the grass there this morning to make sure everything looks ship shape ahead of these meetings. | ||
| For the White House folks that you've been talking to, how much concern are you hearing about a potential repeat of the sequence events that happened in February when Vladimir Zelensky was in that infamous Oval Office meeting and it ended with him being asked to leave the White House? | ||
| Is there concern about a repeat of that happening? | ||
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unidentified
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I don't think there's a whole lot of concern about that happening and I think that's part of the reason why the European presidents are coming here. | |
| So President Starmer will be here, Macron will be here. | ||
| And I think they're largely here to put the pressure on the President of the United States and to show their support for President Zelensky. | ||
| And so I think the goal for them being here is to really ensure that that type of February meeting where it devolved into a shouting match does not occur this time. | ||
| And so I don't think the White House is preparing for something like that to happen, but you never know. | ||
| Are you and your fellow colleagues going to be able to ask questions of Vladimir Zelensky and Donald Trump? | ||
| Have you been given any guidance of a press conference this afternoon? | ||
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unidentified
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We have not been given any guidance about a press conference, but it does appear that the press pool will be allowed in, at least for a spray, at some point during the Zelensky meeting, as well as during the meeting with European leaders. | |
| And there could be an opportunity there for the press pool to ask questions. | ||
| And it's not uncommon for the president to take questions. | ||
| He didn't do this, of course, in Alaska with President Putin, but certainly it is a very likely possibility that they will take questions at some point. | ||
| And then, of course, the European leaders and President Zelensky will be able to comment afterwards on their own. | ||
| And one of the things about having several leaders involved in these discussions is that if any one leader is to put a spin on the talks, they can sort of provide a more holistic review of how the discussions went. | ||
| And that's part of the reason why I think last week, last Friday in Alaska, they made it, instead of being a one-on-one meeting, made it a three-on-three meeting so that additional people in the room could provide their account of what happened. | ||
| Certainly plenty of action going on at the White House today. | ||
| There's some reports that at least from the Washington Post today, it might be in other newspapers as well, that the White House is hoping for potentially a trilateral meeting. | ||
| If this goes well with Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zelensky, and Donald Trump, perhaps as soon as later this week, are you hearing anything on that front? | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, the trilateral meeting was always dubbed by President Trump as the most important meeting that would take place in order to reach a lasting peace deal. | |
| So we're going to be watching this closely to see how the meeting goes today. | ||
| President Trump will certainly be facing calls for a trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Putin, and himself. | ||
| So we'll see how that goes. | ||
| But from what I'm hearing, it seems like it could happen as early as this Friday. | ||
| Unclear on where that meeting would take place. | ||
| Of course, the last meeting was in Alaska with President Putin. | ||
| So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. | ||
| And we'll hopefully get more details on that later today. | ||
| If you get a chance to ask either president a question today, what are you going to ask? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, probably about the security guarantees. | |
| You know, President Trump has claimed that Putin has agreed to give some security guarantees to Ukraine as a condition for ending the war. | ||
| But we don't know a whole lot about these security guarantees. | ||
| There are so-called Article 5-like security guarantees that would, in effect, protect Ukraine against future attacks or future advances by any country. | ||
| And Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Article 5 essentially says that an attack on one country is an attack on all. | ||
| And so the United States and its allies in Europe would, in effect, get involved militarily, perhaps, if Ukraine were to be attacked. | ||
| And so what I'll be looking for is, you know, for any information the President can share on that, is this a legally binding document? | ||
| Is the United States contractually obligated to help Ukraine fight Russia or future attacks? | ||
| Or is this more of a, you know, we'll give financial aid or we'll give ammunition to Ukraine? | ||
| So, you know, any details about how far the president is willing to go to protect Ukraine would be something I'm very interested in hearing and I would probably ask the president about. | ||
| Well, Nick Popley, we will let you get to it. | ||
| Thankfully, not as hot of a day in Washington today as it was hot and humid last week. | ||
| So if there's a lot of standing outside, it won't be so bad for you. | ||
| Thanks so much for your time, starting your day with us in the Washington Journal. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to C-SPAN's coverage, live coverage of the White House today, where President Trump will meet today with Ukrainian President Zelensky, as well as European leaders. |