The NPR Politics Podcast - "I Did What I Came To Do": President Biden Meets With Russia's Vladimir Putin

Episode Date: June 16, 2021

In Geneva, President Biden and Russia President Vladimir Putin met for hours. At separate news conferences Putin described the talks as "constructive" and Biden said he did what he came to do. Both leaders agreed to keep talking. This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and NPR's Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, I'm Pure Politics listeners. It's way past my bedtime in Anchorage, Alaska, and it's still completely bright outside. This podcast was recorded at... It is 2.40 Eastern on Wednesday, June 16th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but the sun will probably still be shining. Enjoy the show. I've never seen that, and it seems like it's cool to have for a couple days, but might get annoying if you have to deal with it all summer. I don't know. I actually saw it in Helsinki, which is good for today, where like the sun went down really, really late. Like it was

like very disorienting way to bring it all together. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And we are talking the Biden-Putin summit, which just wrapped as we speak. Air Force One is taxiing to take off from Geneva. And Ayesha, I'm excited about this.

We have NPR's Moscow correspondent, Lucian Kim, joining us. Hey, Lucian. Hey, how's it going? I'm really glad to have you because I feel like we have talked so much about the American perspective. It'll be really interesting to hear your view from Moscow on how this has been portrayed and the mindset, especially, of Putin going into this. So thanks for joining us. Absolutely. Glad to be here. So as I said, President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met today in Geneva.

They spoke for several hours. And while the two nations' deep differences were not exactly solved today, both men said in separate press conferences that today's summit was pretty constructive. I did what I came to do. Number one, identify areas of practical work our two countries can do to advance our mutual interest and also benefit the world. Two, communicate directly, directly that the United States will respond to actions that impair our vital interest or those of our allies. And three, to clearly lay out our country's priorities and our values

so we heard it straight from me. So before we get into what happened today and what both Biden and Putin said happened today, at times those were a little bit different. Ayesha and Lucien, first let's just remind everybody what the stakes were and what the goals that each leader had for this summit were. Ayesha, let's start with you. What the Biden administration wanted to do was sort of, and they didn't say reset the relationship, but in a way they wanted to change the tone. When I talked about having been mentioned Helsinki earlier, the reason why I was there was because former President Trump was meeting with Putin at that time. And so I think there was definitely a desire to have a contrast from what that relationship with Trump and Putin, which was on Trump's end, very complimentary of Putin. It was also still very contentious policy rise. And so I think that that's what they wanted,

a change. They wanted to say, Moscow, this is where we stand. We think we can work together in some areas. But, you know, here's a line in the sand we don't want you to cross. And if you do, there'll be consequences. And that was what they were trying to do. What Putin wanted, he wanted to end this downward spiral in relations that started actually before the Trump administration. Things started getting quite bad under President Obama towards the end of his administration after the 2016 election interference.

And what Putin was trying to do was start talking to the U.S. again. The whole relationship with the U.S. defines who Putin is. He needs America. And a meeting like this legitimizes him as Russia's leader and as the leader of a global power. Part of that is what presidents and diplomats call strategic stability. Basically, that's just avoiding any armed conflict between the two largest nuclear powers. And Putin has repeatedly commended Biden for extending the New START nuclear treaty, which is the last arms control agreement between the United States and Russia.

The other part for Russia of being recognized as a world power is that they have a say in these global hotspots in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Iran, that Russia is one of the players and sits at the table alongside the United States. So Putin came out, he spoke first, his press conference seemed to last longer than Biden's press conference. And he basically said, this was a good meeting. We, you know, we came into it, it wasn't hostile, we had a good conversation, we disagree on a lot of stuff, but we're going to keep talking. First of all, did that tone surprise you? And second, what else jumped out to you from what Putin said? The tone actually didn't surprise me that much as someone who's been watching Putin for many, many years. Putin can really lay on the charm when he needs to.

He can be a great host. He can be a great listener. This is part of his training as a KGB officer to sort of even put on at least an act that he's empathizing and listening with his interlocutor. So it's not that he was just charmed by that crystal bison that Joe Biden gave him. Yes. But what was almost, you know, the main news for me as the summit got started was that it sounds sort of ridiculous, and I'm not being sarcastic, is that Putin was on time. Yeah, he was late for President Trump at the Helsinki summit. And at this summit, he was

actually on time. In fact, Russian state television was complaining that Biden was late by nine minutes. So nine minutes is super early for Joe Biden. Yes. I do want to emphasize the fact that Putin was on time. It showed that the Russian side was really interested in just getting down to business. The fact that they went through all their issues faster than expected might actually be a good sign. I mean, they just went down through the agenda and it seems like they addressed all the questions, all the issues that they wanted addressed. government networks and other things at the end of last year. There, of course,

been these ransomware attacks that the White House has said are the fault of criminal actors in Russia. What did the two men say about what they discussed about cyber attacks and hacking and ransomware? So Biden said that he laid out 16 areas of critical infrastructure that should be off limits to any type of attacks from, you know, water issue to energy infrastructure. He said that the these 16 areas that he told Putin are off limits and basically that if there is, you know, if action is taken against them, that there would be serious consequences. He basically laid out that the U.S. He said Putin doesn't know everything that we can do, but we can do a lot, and that there would be real consequences for it. So that's what he said on that.

But they are supposed to try to work together on cyber issues. There was at least a little bit of an olive branch where they said they would try to work together on cyber issues. So he did there. There was a bit of a, you know, at least a little bit of an olive branch where they said they would try to work together on cyber issues. Lucien, what struck you about what Putin said about this topic? Well, on almost any controversial issue that Putin was asked about, he came back with, well, what about the U.S.? Right. Sort of this whataboutism. And that's what happened with cyber attacks as well. He said, well, come on, you know, look at the U.S. He cited some kind of survey that showed that most cyber attacks originate in the U.S. and other countries and not in Russia. He said that Russia has answered all sorts of official queries from the U.S. and other countries and not in Russia. He said that Russia has answered all sorts of

official queries from the U.S. government about cyber attacks, ransomware attacks originating in Russia, but that Russia hasn't gotten any response to its queries to the U.S. So in that sense, yeah, he was pretty combative. But I do think cybersecurity is actually something that Russia thinks is important. Maybe one of the reasons why Russia is so interested in cybersecurity as a topic is because, again, it's one of these issues that elevates Russia to the same level as the United States. Russia's cyber capabilities are truly impressive. Russian hackers are world famous. And I think that also gives the Kremlin certain leverage over the US. So last question for both of you. Do you think this changes anything? Do you think that path to stability and predictability is more possible based on today? Or do you think it's kind of back to where things, that in a few months they will look at and see whether they actually made progress or not, that none of these issues were solved. There's no way to really know today whether this has really led to a change.

It's really the actions that take place in the coming weeks that will tell the story. The proof will be in the pudding or in the eating, as Biden would say. Which, by the way, Lucien, okay, Aisha and I had never heard, we had never heard this in the eating. And apparently that's the original phrase and everyone on the internet is yelling me because I was like, what? Have you heard this phrase, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as opposed to just the proof is in the pudding? I have, and so have most Russians. So I don't know where you guys have been all this time. In America, I guess. In America, in the USA, buddy.

Lucien, any final thoughts on either Pudding or the future of U.S.-Russia relationships? Well, absolutely. Of course, you know, we're going to have to wait and see what happens. But I actually think

it's quite significant that they met and started talking. A final statement was released by Putin and Biden. It's sort of the lowest common denominator. It's an agreement saying that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, which I don't know how reassuring that is that we have to actually put that in writing. But this is the basis for this much heralded dialogue on strategic stability. That basically just means that military people and diplomats from both countries will now start talking about maybe a future arms control agreement to follow on the New START agreement. That's very positive, actually. And after President Biden said in an interview that he agreed that Putin is a killer,

that remark went down horribly in Moscow. And Moscow called back its ambassador in Washington and strongly urged the U.S. ambassador in Moscow to go home. Those ambassadors are now returning to their postings. The U.S. embassy has basically been paralyzed here in Moscow, not working. And at least, you know, this will lift us off from, you know, really the very bottom that we've reached. All right. Well, Lucien Kim, NPR's Moscow correspondent, thank you for hanging out with the NPR Politics Podcast. It was so fun. I mean, you guys should have me more often, especially considering how present, you know, Russia is in American politics.

Yeah. Lucien, we should definitely have you on more often if I have anything to say with it. OK, well, that's great. And thanks for having me on today. I think you got some good stuff coming up, right, Scott? I think so. Yeah, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll go back to Geneva. Franco Ordonez has been there with us. He's been traveling with President Biden.

He was there when Biden and Putin first shook hands. So I talked to him earlier today. When we come back, we're going to hear from Franco and me. So Ayesha, I'll talk to you later. And let's both eat some pudding and say that phrase the normal American way. Yes. All right. We'll be right back. An internal investigation found that a cop with the California Highway Patrol sexually harassed 21 women. But those findings were kept secret until a new state transparency law passed. We dug through hours of tapes to find out what happens to officers who cross the line. Listen to On Our Watch, a podcast from NPR and KQED. And we're back. And as we've talked about in the podcast earlier this week,

NPR's Franco Ordonez is on this trip with President Biden. He's in Geneva. He was at the summit. He saw Biden and Putin shake hands to start the day. Earlier in the day before the press conferences, I hopped on the line with Franco to talk about his viewpoint of all of this. Hey, Franco. Hey, Scott.

So let's start with Biden's arrival at the summit. He pulls up to the villa. He gets out. He shakes hands with Vladimir Putin. And you were standing there watching that scene. What was it like? What did you notice? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely interesting. I mean, it's kind of a race. You know, being in the motorcade, we were dropped off at kind of like the entrance of the villa. It's a historic villa. And we had to run up this hill. We're racing to get in position before the president and Russian president come out. And they came out as much like many other arrivals.

There were some words shared by the Swiss president. Neither President Biden nor the Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at that moment. You know, and they, you know, they shook hands, they were smiling. But, you know, definitely after a week of these summits and meetings, especially, you know, it definitely felt a little more stiff. I mean, just think about the, you know, the exchanges with French President Emmanuel Macron. They were, you know, it definitely felt a little more stiff. I mean, just think about the, you know, the exchanges with French President Emmanuel Macron. They were, you know, embracing and walking together on the beach, you know, and same at NATO. You know, people were really happy to be with Biden. It was all smiles and warm words because they really wanted to cooperate. But here was,

it was different, you know, it was, you know, stiff from the start. And on that note, we need to talk about that. I was watching the feed of the summit. I saw all the press outside bunched together trying to get in. I saw the back of your head for a while on TV and I was like, hey, Franco. But there was an incident a little bit when you and other American reporters tried to get into the room as you were supposed to be able to be led into the room during that first sit down between Biden and Putin and their two foreign ministers. What happened? Yeah, it was really, you know, it was really chaotic after the leaders, you know, shook hands and went back in the building. The press was supposed to go through a side door. And we all,

you know, went over there and tried to get, you know, get in position. There was a lot of shoving as they tried to move both press corps in, it was really difficult because a lot of people wanted to get in. There was a lot of yelling from both U.S. officials as well as Russian officials. No, no, stop pushing! Stop pushing! Get down! Get down! And at some point, at one point later on, a few U.S. reporters were able to get in. And one U.S. official actually, you know, motioned for me and kind of grabbed me and started pulling me over. And then another, but another secret, another agent, another security agent, a non-U.S. security agent,

who was much bigger, you know, kind of grabbed me and put a stop to that right away and pushed me back pretty forcefully. So you got pushed by a Russian security official? You know, I did not ask for his ID, and I was trying to get in and trying to find every angle. Well, Franco, NPR politics listeners appreciate you physically doing the work for us to try and get in the room at this moment. That sounds kind of weird and scary. Yeah, thanks so much, Scott. So let's just zoom out for one moment. You mentioned you've been on this entire trip. You've heard President Biden speak every time he's spoken publicly. How would you frame his goals for this meeting? What was he trying to do? What was he trying to tell Putin in this

one-on-one conversation? You know, I mean, in the various press conferences that he's given along this trip, and let's be very clear, I mean, like this visit in Geneva was really what everything was leading toward. And the president, you know, said that he had very clear hopes that this meeting would lead to some type of agreement on issues where they can cooperate, things like arms control or climate. But, you know, he also said that he clearly wants to lay down some red lines for Putin, you know, and, you know, warn the Russian leader that crossing them could lead to consequences. You know, and that he's talking there about election interference, cyber hacking. But all week, you know, White House officials have, you know, really downplayed expectations for any big deal. So, you know, there's a lot of anticipation. You know, we will see what comes out of this. At the same time, you know, it's a meeting, it's a photo

up. Really, the hard work is going to come later on once we see, you know, what the two leaders, what the two countries do next. Will Russia stop hacking or stop harboring some of these officials? And I think there's a big question mark about what kind of outcome will come out of this. All right. Well, that is a wrap on this podcast on the big Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden summit. Franco, you've been on the road all over the world this week. Great reporting. I hope you have a safe trip back all over the world this week. Great reporting. I hope you have a safe trip back to America. I hope that's the only time you're roughed up today. I really appreciate it, Scott.

I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Franco Ordonez. I also cover the White House. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.