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WASHINGTON — President Trump said there’s a 25% chance that his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin will end in failure.
Still, the dealmaker-in-chief insisted that he is the only reason the Russian dictator is coming to the table in an interview with Fox Radio host Brian Kilmeade.
“I think [Putin] wants to get it done. I really feel he wanted the whole thing. I think if it weren’t me, if it was somebody else, he would not be talking to anybody,” Trump said.
“I’m the toughest one that he’s ever had to deal with. He’s never had to deal with anybody like me.”
Trump also said that a successful meeting on Friday could result in him staying in Alaska to host a follow-up meeting featuring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I believe now he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal” to end the long-running conflict, the president continued, adding that, “I’m going to know very quickly.”
Trump described the high-profile encounters as a preliminary step toward peace, saying, “I don’t know that we’re going to get an immediate ceasefire, but I think it’s going to come.”
“Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling the president, Zelensky, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” he told Kilmeade.
“I don’t know where we’re going to have the second meeting, but we have an idea of three different locations and we’ll be including the possibility, because it would be by far the easiest, of staying in Alaska,” he continued.
“If it’s a bad meeting, I’m not calling anybody, I’m going home.”
Many details of the Alaska summit remain unknown just a day ahead of time, including whether the leaders will jointly address the press afterward.
“I would say I’ll have a press conference in either event,” Trump said.
“If it’s negative, I’ll have a press conference to say that the war is going to go on and these people are horribly going to continue to shoot each other and kill each other, and I think it’s a disgrace, and I’ll head back to Washington.
“Or I’ll have a press conference that’s positive.”
Trump acknowledged he has been overly optimistic in the past.
“I’ve stopped six wars this year. This was going to be one of my easy ones, but it never works out that way. This turns out to be probably the most difficult,” he said.
