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Trump to meet Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on second day of key US diplomacy
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Trump, Netanyahu to discuss next phase of Gaza plan
01:28 • Source: CNN
Trump, Netanyahu to discuss next phase of Gaza plan
01:28
• Netanyahu meeting: President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida today. Netanyahu is expected to press Trump on taking more aggressive action against Israel’s enemies, but the US president has grown wary of some Israeli actions.
• US-Venezuela tensions: Trump said the United States had taken out a “big facility” last week as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela but did not provide further details.
• Ukraine war talks: Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Trump yesterday amid efforts to end the conflict started by Russia, but the leaders did not announce any major breakthroughs. Trump held a “positive call” with Russian President Vladimir Putin today, the White House said, and US and Ukrainian teams could meet again as early as next week to finalize the peace plan.
President Donald Trump has finished a Monday morning call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, a White House spokeswoman said.
“President Trump just concluded a positive call with President Putin concerning Ukraine,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN.
The call came a day after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the war, though after three hours of talks, neither man announced any major breakthrough.
Leavitt did not immediately provide a readout of the Trump-Putin call.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Florida, according to Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
In a video released by the PMO Monday, the pair are seen shaking hands. They are also seen sitting in chairs against a backdrop featuring the US and Israeli flags.
Netanyahu is set to meet US President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago at around 1 p.m. ET today. The leaders are expected to discuss developments to a peace plan that was implemented in October to end Israel’s war in Gaza
President Donald Trump said the United States took out a “big facility” last week as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela, but did not provide further details on the reported US action.
The stray comment came amid a discussion of the president’s ongoing campaign against Venezuela and its leader Nicolas Maduro, including strikes on alleged drug boats and a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.
Trump did not expand on the action that he claimed took out a plant or facility, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment. It is also unclear what facility the president was referring to or where it was located.
One US official said the president was describing a drug facility, but declined to provide further detail about the action. There have been no reports from Venezuela of a major facility being destroyed.
Trump has been threatening strikes on land in Venezuela for weeks as the US has launched strikes destroying 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. American officials have said previously that targets could include drug production facilities or known trafficking routes.
More now on yesterday’s talks between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latest peace plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine proposes that the US guarantees Kyiv’s security for 15 years, Zelensky said earlier today.
The option of “extending these security guarantees,” would be included in the documents too, Zelensky added in a series of voice messages sent to journalists as he issued the latest update on the ongoing talks.
The Ukrainian leader asked Trump to consider security guarantees lasting “30-40-50 years,” he said. “President (Trump) said he would think about it,” Zelensky added.
Once again, Zelensky stressed that “without security guarantees, this war is not really over,” and called for them to be strengthened by the “presence of international troops” in Ukraine as well as signed off by the US Congress and Ukrainian parliament.
Two of the plan’s 20 points remain unresolved – who will control the future operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the issue of territory, Zelensky said.
On the thorny question of territorial concessions, Zelensky said “there is no detailed concept for a free economic zone” yet, referring to the US proposal to create such a zone in parts of the eastern Donbas region once Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the area.
He added that the 20-point-plan itself “needs to be confirmed in a referendum,” which would require a ceasefire of “at least 60 days,” to hold, and that a meeting with Russian interlocutors could only happen once Trump and European leaders agree to a proposal.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump will call his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin very soon to update Moscow on his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Kremlin confirmed today, without specifying the exact time of the planned call.
Trump spoke to Putin for more than an hour yesterday by phone before he met with Zelensky in the latest round of peace talks seeking to reach a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He is expected to call Putin again to update him on those talks.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to offer much comment on Trump and Zelensky’s public summations of their meeting, saying it was “inappropriate to offer public comments on specific points of discussion.”
He did reiterate, however, that “Russia thinks about ending the military conflict in the context of achieving its goals,” and Moscow’s view that Kyiv should withdraw its troops from the Donbas region.
Peskov also batted away Zelensky’s suggestion that Russia should prepare a “Plan B.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his fifth US trip since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. His visit comes with a ceasefire deal that ended large-scale fighting between Hamas and Israel in October set to enter a new phase.
Netanyahu was Trump’s first foreign visitor to the Oval Office in February after he began his second presidential term. He gave Trump a gold-plated pager, a reference to Israel’s deadly operation in Lebanon in September 2024, which targeted pagers used by Hezbollah members.
The Israeli prime minister visited the White House again in April, after Trump unveiled reciprocal tariffs on most countries, hitting Israel with a level of 17%.
In July, Netanyahu met Trump at the White House, bringing a letter nominating the president for the Nobel Peace Prize. “He’s forging peace, as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other,” Netanyahu had said as he presented Trump with the document.
Netanyahu also visited Washington in September to discuss the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal. After their meeting, Trump laid out his administration’s 20-point proposal for a comprehensive end to the war in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to meet in Florida later today, at around 1 p.m. ET.
The pair are expected to discuss developments to a peace plan that was implemented in October to end Israel’s war in Gaza. While the first stage of the plan has been carried out, Trump is determined to move to its far more complicated second phase.
This next phase includes the disarmament of Hamas, the beginning of reconstruction in the enclave, and the establishment of post-war governance.
Some context to the visit: However, Israel is insisting that the remains of a final hostage are returned from Gaza before the second phase begins – though it also knows that Hamas may not be able to find and return all the remaining dead hostages, according to three Israeli sources.
While Hamas has indicated that it would be willing to discuss “freezing or storing” its weapons, it is not clear if this would meet Israel’s demand for the militant group to disarm under the ceasefire.
“Phase two is not frozen because of one point,” an Egyptian official told CNN earlier this month. “It is frozen because every step affects Gaza’s future, and the parties are not yet willing to pay the political cost of making a final decision.”
Tal Shalev, Jeremy Diamond, Oren Liebermann and Ami Kaufman contributed to this reporting.
Welcome to our coverage of today’s events concerning President Donald Trump’s administration amid a busy two days of US foreign diplomacy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the second head of state to meet US President Donald Trump in as many days. Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to discuss a peace deal to end the war started by Russia.
Here’s what went on during more than three hours of talks yesterday:
War either ends or goes on indefinitely: Trump insisted he had no deadline in mind for ending the Ukraine war, but he also seemed to suggest that now was the ripest time to finally end the conflict.
Putin absent but not forgotten: Russian President Vladimir Putin did not travel to Palm Beach. But Trump spoke to the Russian leader for more than an hour on the phone before the talks with Zelensky began. Trump also said he would speak with Putin again after his meeting with Zelensky.
The last 10%: Heading into the meeting, Zelensky said 90% of the terms of the peace plan had been agreed to. Afterward, Zelensky used the same figure, though Trump said he didn’t like using percentages. The main sticking points include the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and the questions of land concession.
Complicated relationship: Since their first, disastrous meeting in February, each meeting between Trump and Zelensky during Trump’s second term has been closely watched for its tone. Upon greeting Zelensky at his Palm Beach estate, Trump offered praise, and Zelensky began and concluded his remarks by saying thank you to Trump.
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