President Donald Trump scrapped a trip to his New Jersey resort to focus on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Tuesday press briefing.
"This is normally the time when the president goes on vacation, but not this president," she said. "There [were] discussions about him working from Bedminster for a couple of weeks, but he decided against it. He's a man on a mission. He wants to move. Get things done quickly. He wants to strike when the iron is hot."
Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine a key focus of his administration, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week and meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House this week.
Leavitt said Trump is working on arranging a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy and then a trilateral meeting involving Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy.
The reported trilateral meeting might come in Budapest, sources told Politico, but Leavitt declined to confirm the location, and noted that step might not even come if the Zelenskyy-Putin talks do not advance the peace negotiations.
"I'm not going to litigate the private conversations between the president and President Putin, apart from what the president has already spoken on," Leavitt said. "There are many options being discussed by our national security team with both parties."
The president typically spends his summer at his golf club in Bedminster when Congress is in recess.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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