A key senator on the Foreign Relations committee called Donald Trump’s Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin a “disaster” Sunday and blamed the U.S. president for legitimizing his Russian opponent in front of the world.
“It was an embarrassment for the United States. It was a failure. Putin got everything he wanted,” said Chris Murphy, the ranking Democratic member of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on European security cooperation.
Murphy told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump was forced to abandon his main commitment — a call for a ceasefire — during the meeting and was similarly unable to convince Putin to drop demands for Ukraine to cede more territory, something the senator from Connecticut said was “stunning” to see a U.S. president consider.
“He wanted to be absolved of his war crimes in front of the world. He was invited to the United States — war criminals are not normally invited to the United States of America,” Murphy said.
Trump “walked out of that meeting saying, ‘I didn’t get a ceasefire. I didn’t get a peace deal. And I’m not even considering sanctions,’” the senator continued. “And so Putin walks away with his photo op, with zero commitments made, and zero consequences. What a great day for Russia.”
Murphy’s comments to NBC come as two top Trump officials who traveled with the president to Alaska for the summit Friday, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, did the rounds on separate Sunday morning programs defending the outcome of the president’s meeting with Putin.
The optics of the meeting are being endlessly scrutinized in the mainstream press, partly due to the few specifics released so far about what the two men discussed.
Among those moments been picked apart by analysts included the arrival of the Russian president, which was preceded by U.S. troops, in uniform, rolling out a red carpet on the tarmac.
On Sunday, Witkoff told CNN’S State of the Union that the U.S. secured what he claimed was a “game-changing” development in the discussions: Putin’s willingness to consider accepting a U.S. security agreement protecting the future sovereignty of Ukraine’s borders. This was the first time negotiators were able to gain ground on the issue, he explained.
“We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he said.
Witkoff wouldn’t specify whether the security guarantee could lead to what Trump and his followers have long opposed — a promise to directly engage U.S. troops in defense of Ukraine should Russia continue crossing Trump’s red lines.
Murphy, on Sunday, seemed to imply that such a guarantee would be the bare minimum standard necessary for any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
“That [security guarantee] is an essential element of a peace agreement because any commitment that Vladimir Putin makes to not invade Ukraine again isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on,” said the senator. “He’s made that commitment many times. So yes, there has to be a guarantee that if Putin were to enter Ukraine after a peace settlement, that there would be some force there, a U.S. force, a U.S.-European force there to defend Ukraine.”
He would go on to hammer Trump over reports that Witkoff wouldn’t confirm when pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper, which revealed that Trump had signaled his own willingness to accept Russian demands for Ukraine to cede the entire occupied Donbas region as part of a potential agreement. Murphy said that the reported development was “another sense that Putin is just in charge of these negotiations.”
Chris Van Hollen, another Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, was equally critical of Trump’s meeting with the Russian president during an interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz on This Week.
Heading into Friday’s summit, Trump warned of “severe consequences” if Russia continued to oppose peace efforts and said that he was working towards an immediate ceasefire. Afterwards, he claimed in a Truth Social post that “It was determined by all [in attendance] that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”
Van Hollen called this news a “setback” for the U.S.’s European allies and Ukraine, while accusing Trump of being “flattered” by Putin.
“There’s no sugarcoating this. Donald Trump, once again, got played by Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin got the red carpet treatment on American soil. But we got no ceasefire, no imminent meeting between Putin and Zelensky,” said Van Hollen.
Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to the Biden administration, agreed.
“President Trump’s stated goals were very simple, get an immediate ceasefire, and in the absence of a ceasefire, impose what he called severe consequences,” Sullivan said. “Well, the summit has come and gone. There is no ceasefire. There are no consequences.”
Trump is now scheduled to meet Monday with European leaders including Finnish president Alexander Stubb, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and the UK’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Stubb is known for his personal relationship with Trump, and is poised to be on-hand to quell any disputes between Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who will also be in attendance.
Zelensky is reported to be wholly opposed to any demand to recognize Russian occupation of the Donbas as legitimate.
