Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Aug. 19, 2025

August 19, 2025 · The White House · 0:31:56

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed the media at the White House on August 19, 2025, carried on the White House channel, leading with the Russia–Ukraine peace process. She described the Friday bilateral in Anchorage — the first visit by President Putin to the United States since 2015 — as “very productive,” with multiple key points agreed that opened the door to the phase-two discussions held at the White House the day before with President Zelenskyy and the European leaders.

Leavitt then announced the next phase as the White House presented it: following the previous day’s conversations, President Trump spoke with President Putin by phone, “and he agreed to begin the next phase of the peace process, a meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, which would be followed, if necessary, by a trilateral meeting between President Putin, President Zelenskyy, and President Trump.” Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, and Special Envoy Witkoff would coordinate with Russia and Ukraine to make it happen as soon as possible, she said. She quoted Finland’s President Stubb — “in the past two weeks we’ve probably had more progress in ending this war than we have had in the last two and a half years” — and NATO Secretary General Rutte: “Without President Trump, this deadlock with Putin would not have been broken.”

Why it matters

This briefing is the White House’s formal announcement of the Putin–Zelenskyy meeting track — the deliverable the Anchorage summit and the August 18 Washington meetings were built to produce — with the coordinating officials named and the trilateral held in reserve.

Scoreboard candidate

Scoreboard candidate: the Putin–Zelenskyy bilateral meeting, and a possible trilateral with President Trump, as announced by the Press Secretary on August 19, 2025 — a dated process commitment flagged for the scoreboard editors; the entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Aug. 19, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the Press Secretary at the briefing.