President Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin held a rare meeting Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.

Trump has visited Alaska several times as president, pushed for expanded oil, gas and mining permits there, and even got funding for new polar icebreakers, a popular stance in a state he won with 54% of the vote in 2024.

In a sudden about-face, Donald Trump now thinks it would be “better” if Russia and Ukraine met without him. For the better part of this week, the U.S. leader has bragged that his recent meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were “very successful”—in spite of the fact that the internationally controversial decision to invite his Russian counterpart to Alaska proved fruitless.