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Patrick Wintour
Vladimir Putin will face “very severe consequences” if he does not agree a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine at his summit with Donald Trump in Alaska, the US president said on Wednesday.
Speaking after a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including Britain’s Keir Starmer, Trump also suggested he would push for a second summit if his meeting with Putin goes well – this time including his Ukrainian counterpart.
“If the first one goes OK, we’ll have a quick second one,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “I would like to do it almost immediately, and we’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself, if they’d like to have me there.”
Trump did not provide a timeframe for a second meeting. He is to meet Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. The meeting will reportedly be held at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, a military facility crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war.
Asked if Russia would face consequences if Putin did not agree to stop the war after the Alaska meeting, Trump said: “Yes, they will … very severe consequences.”
Trump says he will seek ‘long-term’ control of DC police
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled he expected other Democratic-led cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.
The president’s comments came as the White House took credit for dozens of arrests overnight in Washington as part of Trump’s campaign to fight a “crime crisis”, which the city’s leaders say does not exist.
Trump earlier this week invoked a never-before-used clause of the law that sets out the federal district’s governance structure to take temporary control of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond the 30 days allowed under the statute.
It comes as the New York Times reported that protesters last night gathered around law enforcement officers, including homeland security agents, who set up a police checkpoint in the busy U Street corridor in north-west Washington.
Crowds chanted ‘go home fascists’ and told drivers to turn away from the checkpoint on 14th Street, warning that they could be stopped for reasons including not wearing seat belts or broken taillights. The checkpoint was closed just before 11 pm.
Read our full report here:
In other developments:
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Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be.
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Trump took part in a virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders ahead of his summit in Alaska with Putin which the German chancellor described as “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump said he would call him right after the meeting with Putin.
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At the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself.
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California governor Gavin Newsom, who revels in trolling Trump on social media, used the president’s bizarre writing style to promote a news conference on his state’s plan to counter Texas gerrymandering, scheduled for Thursday at 11.30 am Pacific Time.
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The White House announced that Trump revoked an executive order issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, which made it government policy to promote competition throughout the US economy. Unlike many of Trump’s orders, this one, which ended 72 federal initiatives to fight corporate monopolies and aid workers and consumers, was released without any publicity at all.
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Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ Antoni, was in the crowd outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when Trump supporters rioted in a failed effort to keep him in office.
