NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander says he won’t forget the “looks on the faces” of President Donald Trump’s team at his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Reporting from Anchorage on Friday, Alexander told MSNBC host Jen Psaki that the mood in the Trump camp appeared deflated after the two leaders held closed-door talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. The much-touted meeting failed to secure a ceasefire.
“What struck me, Jen, in particular, was really just the looks on the faces of the American delegation here,” Alexander said, naming Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
“[Press Secretary Karoline] Leavitt appeared to be a bit stressed out—anxious—their eyes were wide, almost ashen, at times,” he continued. “Those were some of the sort of images … that will stick with me as we leave here.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Alexander noted that, “behind closed doors with Putin,” it appeared as though Trump “didn’t come away with anything that he claimed he wanted.”
On Saturday, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—an Obama appointee—said reports that Trump administration members left the meeting looking shaken suggest that “this was a bigger disaster than they’re letting on.”
Trump himself conceded at a joint presser following his three-hour meeting with Putin that the U.S. and Russia “didn’t get there” on the peace deal he’s been pushing.
Putin—who was allowed to speak first at the presser—lectured on the need to resolve what he described as the “primary root causes” of his full-scale assault on Ukraine.
Alexander remarked, “It was surprising to me that [Trump] let his guest, Vladimir Putin, speak first.” He also noted that the summit, which did not include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, ended more than an hour earlier than the White House had planned.
“Even by the standards they set, things ended abruptly, quickly here,” he told Psaki, who previously served as White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden.
Putin, who launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was greeted in Alaska with what Alexander called a “red carpet photo op” and a ride in Trump’s presidential limousine.
The Russian dictator, 72, left with no new sanctions on his country despite Trump having threatened them for months before chickening out. Trump’s long-sought ceasefire deal failed to materialize.
“The bottom line at the end of this,” Alexander said, “is really that Vladimir Putin, who arrived here, in effect, a pariah on the world stage, gets to go home and try to say that he is now a partner with America, the largest superpower in the world. He got, in effect, everything he wanted from this moment.”
Trump, 79, started his Sunday with a furious barrage of Truth Social posts complaining about the negative coverage around the summit.
“It’s incredible how the Fake News violently distorts the TRUTH when it comes to me,” Trump posted. “There is NOTHING I can say or do that would lead them to write or report honestly about me. I had a great meeting in Alaska on Biden’s stupid War, a war that should have never happened!!!”
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