David E. Sanger

Thank you, Natalie.

Well, certainly that's my take.

And after it leaked, the first thing I wrote was it read like it had been drafted in the Kremlin.

And the reason for that is parts of it, it turned out, essentially had been because they talked to the Russian representative as they began to develop this weeks before they got to the Ukrainians.

And so the first draft of it was incredibly pro-Russian and basically gave Vladimir Putin everything he wanted.

Now, when you go and you probe with the administration, how did this happen?

Their immediate answer is, well, we were trying to replicate our success in Gaza.

Now, Rachel, you remember that because we talked about it a lot and you and I were in Israel together when that agreement came to fruition and the hostages were released.

And that also was a 20-point plan, right?

And they had put it together by sitting down with the Israelis and

and getting a list of their demands and their red lines and all that, and then through cutouts and representatives basically doing the same thing with Hamas, and then going back to try to force compromises in certain areas.

And so soon after the president returned from Israel,

Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, who the president had called in on this one again and who had played a central role in the Gaza negotiations, and Steve Witkoff, his envoy for everything, and J.D.

Vance, the vice president, and Marco Rubio, who's got two important titles here, secretary of state and national security advisor, all met together.

And basically, they argued to the president, hey, let's try with Ukraine and Russia.

exactly what we did in Gaza.

And the president gave them a green light in part because, Rachel, he didn't have any other options.

So they started with having a Russian representative, a Harvard Business School-educated head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, come to Miami and meet with Witkoff and with Jared Kushner and basically laid out Russia's concerns.

A lot of that was in the document.

And it wasn't until weeks later