MSNBC host Antonia Hylton suggested that President Donald Trump’s team, particularly Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, may have been “frightened” by what they witnessed during his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage.
Speaking on Saturday night’s episode of The Weekend: Primetime, Hylton discussed the meeting with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, an Obama appointee. She asked, “A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors.
What did that indicate to you?” McFaul responded, “We should all be glad that we did not go to Alaska, because I was in Helsinki with you. And I was in Geneva when President Biden met. They traveled a long way for nothing in return, those journalists.” He added, “But that suggests to me that this was a bigger disaster than they’re letting on.
To your point, they’re trying to spin it, although they’re not even trying to spin it. That’s a really interesting thing.” Reflecting on his own White House experience, McFaul noted, “When I worked at the White House and we would have meetings like this, I was the SAO—the senior administration official—that would call up journalists, that would call The New York Times to say, ‘This is what was discussed,’ to push it this way.
They’re not even attempting to do that because they know they don’t have anything to work with.” The Alaska summit, widely regarded as a failure, did not result in the anticipated peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Despite three hours of talks and a red-carpet welcome, Trump appeared to downplay the outcome.
“We didn’t get there—but we have a very good chance of getting there,” he told reporters, adding, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal. I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I’ll, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell them about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them.”
Prior to the summit, Leavitt had defended the president against critics. Appearing on Fox & Friends on Thursday, she dismissed detractors, saying, “I think it’s pathetic that some of the chatter that we see from these so-called experts has zero accomplishments on their own résumés to point to. President Trump knows what he’s doing.”
Hylton and McFaul’s discussion highlighted the tension within Trump’s team following the high-profile meeting, suggesting that the summit may have been far more chaotic behind closed doors than publicly acknowledged. Observers continue to question what, if anything, was achieved during the heavily publicized talks in Alaska.