The stakes of a possible Trump-Putin summit: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the web model of From the Politics Desk, a night publication that brings you the NBC Information Politics staff’s newest reporting and evaluation from the White Home, Capitol Hill and the marketing campaign path.

Joyful Friday! In at this time’s version, we dig right into a tentatively scheduled summit subsequent week between President Donald Trump and Russian chief Vladimir Putin. Plus, Kristen Welker previews her interview this weekend with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. And Aria Bendix solutions this week’s reader query on the Trump administration’s newest vaccine strikes.

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— Adam Wollner

Trump seems at hand Putin a diplomatic win with a tentatively scheduled summit

By Alexander Smith

Simply when Ukraine and its European allies thought President Donald Trump was coming round to their view of the battle, he appeared to provide an enormous win to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

For Kyiv, this was Trump’s deadline to Putin: cease the combating by Friday or face robust new financial sanctions. As a substitute, Trump has handed Moscow a diplomatic coup by agreeing to satisfy Putin face-to-face in a matter of days, their first encounter for the reason that invasion of Ukraine.

Trump had initially recommended that such a summit would solely go forward if Putin agreed to satisfy with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, one thing the Ukrainian president’s administration has lengthy referred to as for however has been resisted by Russia. On Thursday, Trump dispelled the concept that they must get collectively — elevating the specter of a bilateral negotiation that freezes out Kyiv.

The newest: Gabe Gutierrez and Monica Alba report that the assembly between Trump and Putin is tentatively scheduled for the tip of subsequent week. The situation continues to be being mentioned, a senior White Home official stated, however prospects embody the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, Switzerland and Rome.

Additional particulars and logistics of the assembly are nonetheless unclear and stay very fluid, together with whether or not Zelenskyy can be concerned.

The stakes: “The hazard for Ukraine is definitely fairly grave,” stated Jonathan Eyal, worldwide director on the Royal United Providers Institute, a London-based assume tank. “There can be a way of alarm in European capitals.”

For Eyal and others, Ukraine’s nightmare is now one step nearer to actuality: “Trump can be so happy by what he perceives as the nice achievement of getting Putin to the negotiating desk that he grabs any form of supply that’s made,” Eyal stated. “The hazard of half-baked compromise, which Trump can declare as his fundamental achievement, could be very excessive.”

That compromise could possibly be a brief ceasefire that may enable Russia to restock its military and provides its economic system a break from worldwide sanctions, in line with Hope for Ukraine, a nonprofit group primarily based in Roseland, New Jersey.

Even when there isn’t any truce settlement, “a gathering with Trump — regardless of the result — can be an enormous diplomatic victory for Putin,” Yuriy Boyechko, Hope for Ukraine’s govt assistant, stated in an e-mail. “Putin desires to interrupt his diplomatic isolation,” and such a gathering “will stroke his ego.”

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The ripple results of the rising redistricting wave

Evaluation by Kristen Welker

The redistricting battle has boiled over.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vowed Thursday in an interview with NBC Information to name “particular session after particular session after particular session” till state Republicans can go new maps to pad the get together’s majority in Congress, as Republicans ramp up their authorized threats towards the Democrats who fled the state to dam their progress.

Democrats are vowing to push again. Governors like Illinois’ JB Pritzker, California’s Gavin Newsom and New York’s Kathy Hochul are warning they could transfer ahead on efforts to redraw their very own states’ districts to spice up Democrats if Texas enacts new congressional traces.

This push by nationwide Democrats to go “nuclear” places them in keeping with the battle that their voters have stated they need to see from their leaders, at a time the place ballot after ballot exhibits the get together at its lowest marks with the American public in a long time.

Nevertheless it’s a dangerous wager — probably extra so for Democrats than Republicans.

Democrats are up towards a major time crunch to get a particular election onto the poll this fall that would enable them to redraw maps in California. Hochul’s robust speak in New York is chastened by the legal guidelines there, which require a prolonged legislative course of that wouldn’t possible result in new maps till the 2028 elections. And Pritzker’s float of a redraw in Illinois runs up towards extra sensible considerations — can Democrats squeeze any extra juice out of a congressional map that has 14 Democrats and three Republicans?

And if all these efforts are profitable, creating a brand new world the place America redraws its congressional districts consistently for short-term political achieve, will that be the ultimate nail within the coffin for the already endangered species of political moderates on Capitol Hill?

We’ll focus on this situation and plenty of extra on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” which incorporates unique interviews with Pritzker, former Lawyer Normal Eric Holder and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

✉️ Mailbag: The influence of RFK’s newest vaccine insurance policies

Due to everybody who emailed us! This week’s reader query is about Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest strikes on vaccine funding:

“Will there be sufficient Covid and flu pictures out there this fall?”

To reply this, we turned to well being reporter Aria Bendix:We’re not anticipating any main provide points proper now. Kennedy’s resolution this week to chop $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts doesn’t apply to the present pictures. Quite, he’s slashing federal funds for analysis tasks meant to develop new vaccines, comparable to inhaled Covid or flu vaccines or pictures that defend towards chook flu. mRNA vaccines are seen as a crucial device for the following pandemic, since they are often produced and up to date rapidly.

So far as this fall and winter are involved, flu vaccine producers have already begun delivery doses to well being care suppliers and pharmacies in anticipation of flu season beginning round October. And the FDA accepted new formulations of the Covid vaccine to be rolled out later this 12 months.

Nonetheless, there should still be a number of impediments to getting vaccinated: It’s not clear whether or not insurers will cowl Covid vaccines for wholesome youngsters or pregnant folks after Kennedy stated the CDC was not recommending them for these teams. And flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal — which made up a really small portion of final 12 months’s pictures — received’t be out there, per a choice from a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory panel.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. In the present day’s publication was compiled by Adam Wollner and Dylan Ebs.

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CORRECTION (Aug. 8, 2025, 5:07 p.m. ET): A earlier model of this text misattributed a remark about Putin’s diplomatic isolation. The assertion was made by Yuriy Boyechko, not Gabriella Ramirez.