Fox News host Brian Kilmeade gave President Donald Trump an ego boost as he probed the MAGA figurehead’s negotiation plans ahead of his highly-anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin tomorrow.
After months of publicly urging and pleading with Putin to end his full-scale attack on Ukraine, Trump is meeting the Russian president in Anchorage, Alaska. The summit, which will be held at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, near Anchorage, will mark the first time Putin has visited the U.S. since 2015.
The president hopes to make a deal to end Putin’s war with Ukraine after several failed negotiations with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky was reportedly not invited to the summit, with Trump telling media outlets that there will be a follow up meeting with the European leaders after, EuroNews reported.
Asking for a preview of Trump’s negotiation tactics, Kilmeade talked up Trump as a “big athlete” in a Thursday phone interview on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show.
“I know you’re a big athlete. You not only watch sports. You play sports. You always have to try to pre-think what’s going to happen. You have to picture how it’s going to happen, so you know how you act,” said Kilmeade, asking if he plans to use “economic incentives” to keep Russia at bay.
“Well, I’d rather not say because I don’t want to play my hand in public, but whatever my hand is, economic incentives. And disincentives maybe are more important in a way, but incentives economically,” said Trump. “Russia’s got a tremendous potential. They have the largest piece of land by far.”
Trump added, “It’s massive. It’s got great wealth on it.”
Kilmeade responded, “But all they do is oil. All they do is oil and gas. They can’t even grow—they can’t even farm.”
Trump joked, “That’s better than I make shirts, T-shirts.”
Seemingly paying Putin a compliment, Trump added, “They have a lot of advantages going over most countries, because of the fact they have oil and gas at massive numbers, like we do. And, yes, economic—economic sanctions are very powerful and economic incentives are very powerful, both.”
Ahead of the meeting, Trump’s diplomatic approach appears to be working ... for now. Putin has reportedly praised Trump for making “quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict."
Trump told Kilmeade exactly how he would know if his talk with Putin was going well.
“If it’s a bad meeting, I’m not calling anybody. I’m going home,” Trump told Kilmeade. “We’re going to be calling President Zelensky if it’s a good meeting.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox and Friends earlier Thursday that the president “wants to exhaust all options to try to bring this war to a peaceful resolution.”
