Donald Trump gives talks 75% chance of success while European leaders worry about concessions to Moscow – key US politics stories from Thursday 14 August
Donald Trump has insisted he won’t let Vladimir Putin “mess around” with him at their high-stakes summit over Ukraine and is giving the talks a 75% chance of success.
Amid concerns from European leaders that the Russian president will cajole Trump into imposing a settlement on Ukraine, the US president told reporters on the eve of Friday’s talks in Alaska: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me.
“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes... whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting. And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
Meanwhile in Washington DC, the White House said there would be a round-the-clock presence of local and federal law enforcement officers after Trump’s federal takeover of its police department and dispatch of national guard troops.
