James S. Robbins, dean of academics at the Institute of World Politics, discussed what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hope to get from their meeting on Friday in Alaska. Robbins noted Trump’s confidence but doubted Russia’s willingness to make real concessions, with Andrew Walworth on Thursday’s edition of the RealClearPolitics Podcast. “We’re talking about an initial meeting of what’s going to be a very hard series of negotiations to try to settle this war,” he said. “I think President Trump has a lot of faith in himself as a dealmaker. He thinks if he can just sit down with Putin, they can somehow hash it out. And good luck to him.” “But I just don’t think the Russians are interested in anything other than taking everything they have and just saying, okay, that’s it for now.” “From Putin’s point of view, it’s him and Trump,” Robbins said, “Just like the old days, right? Just like the bipolar Cold War days, when the leaders of the two countries would settle all the world’s issues. So I think it’s in Putin’s interest to promote and enhance the idea that he and Trump are on the same level and they’re meeting as equals.” “Also bear in mind that their previous meeting was in the context of domestic politics at the time, which was trying to tie Trump to Russia in various ways that we now know were fake,” Robbins said about Sen. John McCain calling Trump’s 2018 meeting with Putin “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” “That type of overblown rhetoric was more acceptable in the public space in terms of criticizing Trump and Russia. I think that we may see some more of that as an echo of that earlier domestic thing. But perhaps people now understand more the seriousness of this, that it really is the United States meeting with Russia. It’s not that Trump is going to his master who elected him – some of the crazy stuff that people were talking about – we’re done with that now. So let’s reset it,” he said. “I think Trump’s going in with a much stronger team and a much stronger hand, and we’ll see what comes out of it because again, if this doesn’t work out to the president’s satisfaction, I think that he will go to the enhanced sanctions and start really trying to damage Russia’s economy, which frankly hasn’t been damaged enough.”
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