War Notes: Peace Takes Time ⏳☮️

Encourage friends and family to subscribe to War Notes here.

NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Crime crackdown 🚔: The Trump administration is winning on its crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C.

Wow 🚨: There have been over 450 arrests since Trump's federal takeover of D.C. began last week.
- 🚔Last night alone, 52 people were arrested, including an alleged MS-13 gang member.
🤔 The success of this federal takeover is leaving the Left with a huge headache over one important question: How should Democrats respond?
- 💭 If they criticize sending in federal law enforcement, they run the risk of sounding like they don't think crime is an issue.
  - 🚨 And it is an issue – 67% of Americans think that crime in U.S. cities is a major problem.
💭 Some Democrats are taking a different approach to the crime crackdown: saying that Republicans are the ones with rampant crime.
- 📺 Mike Nellis used this strategy on the show last week:
  - "You wouldn't like it if suddenly a Democratic president was sending the National Guard to Alabama, which by the way, you're more likely to be murdered in Alabama than in California, and there's plenty of other Republican states where the murder rate is high. Where is the cry out for that?" Nellis said.
- At first glance, this talking point that shifts the issue of crime onto the hands of Republicans sounds good – until you look at the facts.
- 📰 Axios explains how this is technically true, but the issue is blue cities in red states.
  - 🏠 Like my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, which has a Democratic mayor and prosecutor for all of recent history but a Republican governor.
  - New Orleans, Louisiana, whose last non-Democratic mayor was just after the Civil War.
- Law enforcement and prosecution happen at the local, not state, level.

Peace at What Price 🕊️

Alert 🚨: The White House announced earlier today that a meeting between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy is being scheduled.

🎤 "Both leaders have expressed a willingness to sit down with each other, and so our national security team will help both countries do that," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Zoom out 📷: Trump's plan for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is moving along – and doing so at a quick pace.

⏰ Over the past 24 hours, there have been a multitude of developments in the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
- Trump has been working for months to get Putin and Zelenskyy to the table — and he finally has.
💣 As the peace talks have intensified over the last few days, so have Russia's attacks.
- 📰 "Russia bombards Ukrainian city hours after Washington summit," Reuters reports.
  - "The bombardment on that city as well as other locations in Ukraine was Russia's largest so far in August, according to the Ukrainian air force. It followed Donald Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders in Washington on Monday as the U.S. president seeks an end to Russia's war in Ukraine."
Yes — the stakes are high.
- Lives are being lost every day in Russia and Ukraine.
But ☮️: If we truly want to reach a meaningful peace deal, we have to be patient.
Thought bubble 💭: Shouldn't we give Trump some more time to see if his plan works?
🌎 Following the historic summits of Friday and yesterday, the world is anxiously awaiting a detailed peace deal to be announced.
- Reality check ✅: Getting two countries — who each believe that the land of Ukraine is rightfully theirs — to come to an agreement is not going to happen overnight.
🌎 Intricate details of how America and its European allies will keep Ukraine safe from potential attacks in the future need to be decided upon.
- Trump has promised Ukraine that "security guarantees" will be included in a peace deal, but what those guarantees are is unclear.
  - 📺 "You have my assurance, and I'm president," Trump said on "Fox & Friends" this morning when asked for assurance that American troops would not be sent to Ukraine as a part of the deal.
Two or three 🤔: Just yesterday, President Donald Trump mentioned a potential trilateral meeting with Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump himself.
- Now, the White House said that Trump "wants these two countries to engage in direct diplomacy."
  - This could mean a bilateral or trilateral meeting — with or without Trump in the room.
- Where in the world? 🌎: Although we don't know exactly when or where the Putin-Zelenskyy summit will take place, Politico reports that Budapest, Hungary, is a potential location for the historic meeting.
  - 🎤 When asked about details of the meeting, Leavitt said during the press briefing that she "can neither confirm or deny reports about location, but we will have more information about that soon."
  - 🌎 Switzerland and Austria have offered their countries as potential meeting locations.
    - Note 📝: The International Criminal Court has a warrant out for Putin's arrest, which makes finding a location for the potential meeting even more difficult.
      - 💭 This ain't easy.

Hot take 🔥: Our friend George Will headlines in his new column, "European leaders can do what Trump won't do to stop Putin."

📰 "Eighty-five summers ago, the United States, which began as an emanation of Europe, was saluted by Britain's prime minister in the House of Commons. On a dark day (June 4, 1940) he anticipated the day when 'the New World, with all its power and might, steps forward to the rescue and the liberation of the old,'" Will writes.
- "Now it is the Old World's turn to rescue the United States. It needs to be liberated from the chimera that it has no substantial stake in the outcome of high-intensity, state-on-state violence inflicted by a nuclear power obedient to a man who has actual beliefs: crackpot, but real, and menacing."
Watch tonight 📺: George Will joins us tonight on how long President Trump has to make a deal.

Warning to Republicans 🚨

📺 Last night on the program, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., issued a warning that we've been telling you for months.

"President Trump is not talking enough about the economy and specifically inflation. People are tired of paying more to live worse," Kennedy said.
- Fact check ✅: True — there is a disconnect between how the Trump administration views the economy and how average Americans are feeling financially.
- Republicans would be wise to listen to Kennedy.
💭 Don't believe him? Just look at the numbers:
- 🛒 53% of Americans say that the cost of groceries is a major source of stress.
- 🥦 The price of vegetables jumped 38.9% from June to July.
- ☕️ The cost of coffee surged 14.5% in July, compared to the same time last year.
- 🥩 Ground beef has gotten 11.3% more expensive over the past year.
- Plus ✅: Home Depot announced today that customers can expect to see a rise in prices.
Zoom out 📷: Americans don't care about good stock market reports when their wallets are being emptied from day-to-day purchases.

💰This divide in the economic reality of Americans is seen in the Republican Party's attempt to gain support for the big, beautiful bill, which is contributing to the anger of many Americans.

"'We should sell it, not be afraid': Republicans double down on Trump's megabill," writes Eleanor Mueller of Semafor.
- "Democrats hit the GOP hard over the party-line megabill's treatment of health care, chiefly its setup of almost $1 trillion in Medicaid cutbacks to help pay for tax cuts and more national security spending. And the public appears to have listened; one July poll found six in 10 voters oppose the law, in part because of its cuts to social safety nets."
Watch tonight 📺: Eleanor Mueller, author of the above article, and Lauren Wright break down how Republicans can win on the issue of the economy.

WATCH ON BALANCE WEEKNIGHTS AT 9P/8C

Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

Make sure to let us know your thoughts on social media and by replying to this email.

See the latest videos and coverage from On Balance