MORNING REPORT

Monday, August 18 | By Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

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In today's issue:

▪ Zelensky, Europeans to meet with Trump

▪ Red states send National Guard to DC

▪ California preps for redistricting election

▪ Israel erupts in protests

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty and Thierry Monasse/Getty

Zelensky, Trump set for high-stakes meeting

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies will meet with President Trump at the White House this afternoon to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, just days after Trump met in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

Trump after meeting with Putin said what happens next in terms of securing a ceasefire that the Russian leader opposes will largely depend on Zelensky and Ukraine.

That worried leaders in Europe, who fear Trump is tilting toward Putin and could press for Zelensky and Ukraine to make more concessions to reach a broader peace agreement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will all be in Washington to make their collective case to Trump.

The idea is to give Zelensky backup, and make sure there is not a repeat of the disastrous February Oval Office meeting involving Zelensky, Trump and Vice President Vance that became an ugly shouting match.

Trump on Sunday evening previewed the stance he will be taking during the meetings, writing on Truth Social that Zelensky must agree to some of Russia's conditions for the war to end — namely ceding Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and agreeing never to join NATO.

▪ The Hill: Follow along here for live updates from the meeting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's envoy to the region Steve Witkoff, the two U.S. officials in the room with Trump for the Putin meeting on Friday, on Sunday took to the airwaves to calm nerves.

The biggest news likely came from Witkoff.

He told CNN's "State of the Union" that Putin had agreed to "robust" security guarantees for Ukraine, which he called a "game changer" in the negotiations.

The plan would essentially give Ukraine NATO-style security guarantees modeled after the alliance's Article 5, which decrees an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.

These guarantees would not come from NATO, Witkoff said Sunday, but from the U.S. and other European allies.

"Everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with, but assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO," Witkoff said.

ELEVATED STAKES: The next steps in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine may hinge largely on today's meeting.

Rubio said Sunday the sides have a long way to go to reach a peace deal, but that the U.S. was encouraged enough by what they heard Friday from the Russians to think it was worth moving forward. Separately, the White House is hoping for a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky later this week, The Washington Post reports.

The secretary of State said it was a "stupid media narrative" to think that European leaders were coming to Washington to prevent Trump from bullying Zelensky into a deal.

"We've been working with these people for weeks, for weeks on this stuff. They're coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow," a seemingly frustrated Rubio told CBS's Margaret Brennan. "We invited them to come. We invited them to come. The president invited them to come."

Rubio added Trump and the U.S. had made it clear to Russia that it would need to make concessions to Ukraine, and that any deal in the end will have to be agreed to by Kyiv.

Zelensky, who held a news conference with the European Commission president in Brussels on Sunday before traveling to Washington later in the day, said Kyiv could not enter into negotiations with Moscow "under the pressure of weapons" and insisted on a ceasefire.

Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said Trump's "resolve to get a peace deal is vital" but signaled expectations for an agreement remain low, saying "the harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon."

"Even as delegations met, Russia launched new attacks on Ukraine," Kallas said. "Putin continues to drag out negotiations and hopes he gets away with it. He left Anchorage without making any commitments to end the killing."

▪ The New York Times: Zelensky brings backup to the White House as Trump aligns more closely with Putin.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Putin's goals go beyond a land grab and aim at Ukraine's capitulation. Kyiv and the West hope to draw a line.

TIMELINES: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Friday predicted the Russia-Ukraine war could end before Christmas — if there's a meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky.

"Make no mistake, this war is a war of aggression by Putin against Ukraine," Graham, a Trump ally and a staunch supporter of Ukraine, said in a post on the social platform X. "However, I have always said Ukraine will not evict every Russian soldier and Putin is not going to take Kyiv."

Editor's note: Smart Take with Blake Burman will return on Tuesday.

3 Things to Know Today

Firefighters who battle wildfires are suffering fatal health effects after facing blazes in Los Angeles and around the country without respiratory protection.
Hurricane Erin gained strength as a Category 4 storm today as it churned north with a large wind field, testing emergency preparations in the Caribbean and meteorological models along the East Coast.
Dollar General recalled instant coffee sold in 48 states under the Clover Valley brand because of the "potential presence of glass."

LEADING THE DAY

The Associated Press | Julia Demaree Nikhinson

WASHINGTON AND NATIONAL GUARD: Hundreds of National Guard members who have arrived in the nation's capital, soon to include troops deployed from Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, are guarding federal buildings and tourist locales and could start carrying weapons, according to the Trump administration.

National Guard troops "may be armed, consistent with their mission and training, to protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence," an administration official told reporters.

Clusters of D.C. residents protested on street corners over the weekend as tourists stopped to photograph National Guard soldiers and video the lines of police vehicles crisscrossing the city with lights flashing.

Roughly one week into the president's order declaring a public safety emergency in the nation's capital, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sunday reported more than 300 arrests "and counting," the majority reportedly conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Police and federal officials swept tents and makeshift encampments off D.C.'s green spaces downtown last week and urged the homeless to find beds in shelters or risk fines or arrest.

Trump's anti-crime crackdown — with the D.C. police chief in charge of the police department following an emergency lawsuit filed by the city on Friday — is effective for 30 days under the federal Home Rule law for the city. The president says Washington is "a nightmare of murder and crime" that the D.C. government has failed to control. Trump says he'll seek to extend his authority with approval from Congress when lawmakers return after Labor Day.

Trump has criticized Washington's potholes, damaged curbs and what he describes as poor maintenance, although 18 square miles of the city, or 29 percent, is federal property. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a top adviser to the president on illegal immigration, took aim on Sunday at graffiti around Washington, a feature common in large cities and tackled by D.C. workers using repeated scrubbing and paint.

"Graffiti left untouched to scar public spaces is the visual declaration of a society's surrender," Miller wrote in a post on X.

▪ The Hill: Restaurant attendance takes a dive in DC after Trump's police actions.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: San Francisco's aggressive sweeps since last summer have cleared the homeless from streets and sidewalks.

▪ The Hill: Democrats face challenges in countering Trump on crime.

REDISTRICTING BATTLES: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who vows to thwart GOP efforts to gain House seats by mounting a tit-for-tat redistricting effort among Democrats in his state, has said California is ready to move ahead with a special election in November for a ballot initiative to draw new congressional maps. For the politically ambitious and term-limited Newsom, his plans pose political risks.

▪ Los Angeles Times: Newsom's decision to fight fire-with-fire could have profound political consequences.

▪ CBS News: Democrats unveil maps of California's redistricting plan.

▪ The Hill:Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state signaled an end to their standoff against Republicans' special session, which concluded.

▪ The Hill: In Texas, a contest that could be impacted by redistricting is a likely primary battle between Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Greg Casar (D-Texas). In what many Democrats call an ironic twist, Doggett is pushing for Casar to step aside.

ELECTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES: Georgia Republicans who want to capture the seat held by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) are unhappy about the potential for a brutal GOP primary among former football coach Derek Dooley, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), The Hill's Caroline Vakil reports.

In New York City's mayoral race, the leading candidate on the left, Zohran Mamdani, is hunting for endorsements from moderates.

In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D), the first woman to hold that office, was indicted on Friday on charges of abusing public funds. Louisiana has a long history of politicians accused of misdeeds, The New York Times reports.

WHEN & WHERE

Trump will greet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House at 1 p.m. They will hold a bilateral discussion in the Oval Office at 1:15 p.m. Trump will then officially welcome European leaders, who arrive at the White House at noon, in the State Dining Room at 2:15 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, Trump will pose for a photo with the leaders. At 3 p.m., the president and the European leaders will engage in a multilateral discussion in the East Room.
The House will hold a pro forma session on Tuesday at 10 a.m. and will return to work in Washington on Sept. 2.
The Senate will hold a pro forma session at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

ZOOM IN

The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite

CONGRESS: The House and Senate won't be back to work in Washington until after Labor Day, but Republicans are poised for fireworks tied to earmarks, once banned and now on the rise, in annual appropriations measures.

The conservatives' backlash against earmarks came after Punchbowl News reported that Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) loaded more than $810 million in earmarks and directed spending for Maine in the fiscal 2026 spending bills crafted by her committee.

Collins, who faces a tough reelection battle next year, argues she has a better sense of her state's funding needs than unelected bureaucrats in Washington who otherwise would get to decide how to dole out federal funds without congressional guidance.

Other Republicans are working hard behind the scenes to steer more money to their home states.

But GOP fiscal hawks are lining up against members of the congressional Appropriations committees. Divisions could scuttle chances that spending bills will be passed before a Sept. 30 deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports.

Conservative lawmakers believe Trump's "big, beautiful" bill, now law, did not shrink federal funding enough and they want to correct that with significant reductions in appropriations that would take effect in the new fiscal year and beyond.

▪ Politico: Community project funding, aka earmarks, long shunned by deficit conservatives, is back on the menu of options to avoid a government shutdown in September.

CONTRACEPTION: Lawmakers and activists are scrambling to stop the State Department from destroying nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives funded by the newly extinct U.S. Agency for International Development. The contraceptives were meant to be burned at a medical waste facility in France last month, but it is unclear if this occurred.

ECONOMY: Trump's tariffs could raise the costs of some of the most popular imports in grocery stores, from coffee and olive oil to wine and spices. Businesses and consumers are watching when and by how much prices tick up. Here are six imported grocery products that could be impacted by U.S. tariffs.

▪ The Hill: Trump's choice to lead the data-driven Bureau of Labor Statistics stunned Wall Street and Washington. For one, he's not a statistician.

▪ The Hill: Why does the federal jobs report get revised?

ELSEWHERE

The Associated Press | Ohad Zwigenberg

GAZA: Tens of thousands of Israelis flooded streets across the country on Sunday, staging some of the largest anti-war protests in months as the military prepares for a major assault on Gaza City. The protests come as the humanitarian crisis in the enclave deepens and anxiety mounts over the conditions of the remaining hostages.

"We don't win a war over the bodies of hostages," protesters chanted. Even some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have called for a deal to end the fighting. Mainstream Israeli media has increasingly spotlighted the dire starvation crisis in Gaza after months of Israel's near-total aid blockade, horrifying some Israelis and triggering protests.

But an end to the war does not seem near. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is balancing competing pressures at home and abroad. Far-right members of his Cabinet threatened to topple Netanyahu's government the last time Israel agreed to a ceasefire that released hostages earlier this year.

▪ The Guardian: Israel's plan to displace 1 million Palestinians spreads fear in Gaza.

▪ CNN: The State Department will halt all visitor visas for people from Gaza as it reviews the process that allows them to temporarily enter the U.S. for medical and humanitarian reasons. Far-right Trump ally Laura Loomer took credit for the pause following her claims that the families arriving from Gaza "threaten our national security."

OPINION

What kind of peace in Ukraine? by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Trump's efforts to secure a Nobel Peace Prize have become Orwellian, by Zeeshan Aleem, opinion writer and editor, MSNBC.

THE CLOSER

The Associated Press | Kristina Blanchflower, Hakai Institute

And finally … ⭐ It took 10 years for detectives in marine science to identify a bacteria that wiped out about 90 percent of the population of sunflower sea stars in the Pacific with a gruesome wasting disease. The outbreak created a cascade of ecosystem destruction: The demise of the sea stars resulted in an explosion of sea urchins, on which the sunflower starfish had fed. The surge in sea urchins resulted in destruction of around 95 percent of the kelp forests in Northern California within a decade. The kelp forests provide food and habitat for a wide variety of animals including fish, sea otters and seals.

The solution? Scientists, with the bacteria now identified, could potentially test which of the remaining sea stars are healthy and consider whether to relocate them, or breed them in captivity to later transplant them to areas that have lost almost all their sunflower sea stars. Scientists may also test if some populations have natural immunity and if treatments like probiotics may help boost immunity to the disease.

"It's incredibly difficult to trace the source of so many environmental diseases, especially underwater," said University of North Carolina microbiologist Blake Ushijima, who was not involved in the research. He said the detective work by this team was "really smart and significant."

A related infographic from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is HERE.