Expert Q&A: Should Trump Meet Putin?

EXPERT INTERVIEW — Four days into what the Trump administration has said will be a 100-day push for peace in Ukraine, the president has made several public remarks about the war: He has called the conflict “an absolute killing field” and said “it’s time to end it”; he has issued a rare – for him – rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin, threatening new tariffs and sanctions unless Putin agrees to “STOP this ridiculous War!” as he posted to social media; and he has said a meeting with the Russian leader is in the works. 

The Biden Administration – along with many European nations – refused to meet with Putin following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, given the charges of war crimes leveled against the Russian leader and a general feeling that a high-level meeting shouldn’t happen until Putin offered concessions. 

Should Donald Trump meet Vladimir Putin – as a way to break the diplomatic logjam? 

The Cipher Brief put that question and others to John McLaughlin, a Cipher Brief expert who served as Acting Director of the CIA, and who has counseled previous administrations on the wisdom of engaging with “bad actors.” 

A meeting with the U.S. president shouldn’t be ruled out, McLaughlin said, but he added that “it’s a gift, and in return for a gift, the American president ought to get something before this even starts.” He also warned that for all of Russia’s current challenges in the war itself, negotiating with Putin won’t be easy. 

“He’s not very strong right now,” McLaughlin said, “but he’s also very savvy, shrewd, kind of a feral character and very much defending what he sees as Russian interests. And he’s not a nice guy.”

McLaughlin spoke with Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can also watch the full discussion on our YouTube channel.

Nagorski: Is it a good idea or bad idea for Donald Trump at this moment to meet with Vladimir Putin?

McLaughlin: I’ve written in the past, and taken criticism for the idea, that we should probably not shy away from meeting with adversaries. Putin, however, is a special case. He’s not just an adversary. He’s someone who has aggressively invaded another country and so far he has not been all that impressed with our efforts to discourage that or punish it. So he’s in a special category. But I guess I would say if the president wants to do this, he’s probably going to do it. And I wouldn’t say it’s a totally bad idea because there’s merit in understanding Putin better.

But there are big caveats here. The first thing is that just getting a meeting with the American president would be a gift to Putin, a big win for him because this war has made him, at least in the northern hemisphere, somewhat of a pariah. He’s still received in some parts of Latin America and the Middle East, of course, but in terms of our allies and the countries that are closest to him, except for China and North Korea, he’s a pariah. So this would be, in a way, getting out of the penalty box just to meet with the American president.

So it’s a gift, and in return for a gift, the American president ought to get something before this even starts. Putin is a KGB case officer. He’s a trained recruiter of other human beings. President Trump, I think, is feeling a great deal of confidence right now, as he should. I have a sense that he thinks he is able to walk in and be as manipulative and effective with a human being that he’s sitting across from as I think Putin is. I would be skeptical of that. And I don’t mean that critically of President Trump — I would say it about any president going to meet Putin. Know in advance what you want at the end. Putin will know that – he will not come in improvisationally. So on the American side, Trump would have to know, very clearly, What do I want at the end of this?

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Second, such a meeting ought to be prepared by Trump’s advisors. He shouldn’t go anywhere near Putin until a number of people who work for him [do so] — his Secretary of State, his National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, it could be someone lower level, someone who is credible with Putin and whom Putin knows has access to the President. Before the President gets anywhere near Putin, all of that should be prepared in advance, not while the president is in Putin’s presence or within 24 hours of a meeting.

That implies, of course, that you know what you’re trying to get and that you’re willing to not have the meeting if it appears you’re not going to succeed. Sometimes presidents go to meetings and their job is to close something that isn’t quite closed yet. Trump would feel confident that he could do that, but I would not try that with Putin.

Third point, the president shouldn’t do this without close consultation with our NATO allies, particularly the frontline states, and of course, with Ukraine itself. In other words, Zelensky should be on the same page as President Trump before President Trump meets with Putin, because who has more at stake in this than the Ukrainians? And Putin is not in some winning position here. He’s lost or had injured somewhere around 600,000 people. He’s had to draw on North Korean troops. This is not something someone would do if they were fully confident of their reserve capability and their ability to mobilize. So, Putin is not in a very strong position here. The Ukrainians need to be involved in any decision that the president is going to make.

Nagorski: What’s the downside and the danger here, specifically with Putin, if any number of those things are not done?

McLaughlin: What would worry me is that the United States would agree to a negotiated settlement to the war without firm security guarantees for Ukraine, and there would be a temptation to do that, to declare victory and step away from this. My conviction, based on following the Russians for a long time and listening to the Europeans, is that [Putin] would come at Ukraine again once he had rebuilt, and we would be right back in the same awful decision box that he put us into by invading Ukraine. And moreover, he would be tempted without some kind of security guarantees for Ukraine to seek some kind of provocation with regard to the Baltics or some of the frontline states like Poland or the Czech Republic. And all of the Europeans are afraid of this.

It seems to me the overarching strategic goal should be some security for Ukraine beyond whatever agreement is reached. It doesn’t have to mean that Putin withdraws completely from Ukraine — it could mean that Zelensky agrees to cede some of the territory that Putin has taken, but in return for assurances of sovereignty and security on the bulk of Ukraine. That’s not the preferred outcome, of course, but realistically that’s all that’s left after the fighting and negotiating is over.

Then the tough point is how do you get their security after that? It could be a series of bilateral agreements between the United States and Ukraine, Germany and Ukraine, Poland and Ukraine, other European countries and Ukraine. Putin would see through this pretty quickly and realize that’s not NATO membership, but it is the military equivalent of it, and maybe stronger in some ways because it wouldn’t necessarily require unanimous consent as NATO intervention would. Of course, NATO membership would be the ideal outcome. But short of that, then some kind of security arrangement that would rely more on bilateral arrangements, because if you don’t have the Allies involved in this, and something goes bad, we’re kind of on our own. It would be foolish to go in without some kind of prior consultation, if not complete unity, on every sentence or every idea.

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Nagorski: General Kellogg has made clear that there are going to be some demands made of the Russian leader. And also we have now President Trump himself sounding very critical of Vladimir Putin. Any of that give you any more hope that the things we’ve been talking about will go better?

McLaughlin: A little. This is the second Trump administration, and he’s had a lot of time to reflect on things he did the first time around on things like the negotiations [he held] with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. People say he’s looking for a Nobel Peace Prize. This would be one way to compete for that. But I think it would not go to him unless this was an agreement that constrained Putin to the satisfaction of the people who award the Nobel Peace Prize. So, a lot of things come together here to raise the hope that he will think of Putin a little differently than he did the first time around.

We don’t know the nature of his relationship with Putin. I don’t mean to suggest anything illicit or clandestine. I just mean that when he met with Putin before, there’s no real record of that. We don’t really know what kind of personal chemistry there is, what they might have talked about. Leaders, when they do this, there’s a residue they both remember. Now again, we’re talking about this as though Putin’s just another senior bad guy we may meet with, but we really have to say, at the end of the day – No, remember, he did an awful thing here. He broke all the rules. He’s an indicted war criminal. He’s not the normal bad leader — he’s a pariah.

Nagorski: You’ve mentioned Kim Jong-Un and the North Koreans a couple of times in this conversation, and we all remember those summits that Trump had with him. Donald Trump has a penchant for doing things in a non-traditional way. When would you say there is a utility to that?

McLaughlin: I think even long-time diplomats would agree that there’s value in diplomacy and ambiguity. After all, for years our whole approach to Taiwan has been mostly based on the whole concept of strategic ambiguity. To the extent that a leader can keep others guessing about where they’re going, there is value to that. I don’t quite subscribe to the “Madman theory”, the idea that if someone acts a little crazy, people will be afraid of them and not do anything we don’t want them to do. But the idea of ambiguity, yes, of course. There is value there.

Recall that in the Clinton administration, toward the end of that administration, [Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright had done a series of meetings with Kim Jong-Un’s father, Kim Jong-Il, and the Clinton administration felt they were getting close to an agreement on limitation of long-range missiles. And they were very close to authorizing that President Clinton actually meet with Kim Jong-Il. I think that’s what left me with the feeling that if you can prepare the way that Madeleine Albright did — and I knew Madeleine Albright well. She was not a pushover for these people. She was probably tougher than any of them. If you can prepare in a way so that you know what you’re going to get and you have allies locked up on it, it’s not a bad idea. 

I guess the thing I would worry about with President Trump is he’s very confident and I think he believes he can walk into a room, sit down with people, understand them, kind of like a case officer, and move them to his position. And I don’t think that’s how you deal with Putin. He’s not very strong right now, but he’s also very savvy, shrewd, kind of a feral character and very much defending what he sees as Russian interests. And he’s not a nice guy.

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