Although Donald Trump did not answer journalists' questions at the press conference following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US president did give an interview to Fox News in Anchorage, the site of the Alaskan summit.

Trump spoke optimistically to Sean Hannity despite making it clear before the summit that he would feel like a failure if a permanent ceasefire was not reached at the summit, but no such deal was reached. “As far as I know, there’s no deal until we make a deal, but we’ve made a lot of progress,” he said, adding that he believes Putin is not only open to peace but “wants to make it happen.”

When asked why they couldn't agree on a ceasefire and what the"big issue" was that they disagreed with the Russian president, Trump didn't give a clear answer, only saying that someone would make it public anyway. He then said that now"it's up to President Zelensky to make it happen (the ceasefire), and maybe the European nations should get involved a little bit."

Standing with Zelensky, he also said that he would be open to a trilateral meeting with the presidents of Ukraine and Russia."If I want to, I'll be there. They're organizing a meeting now with President Zelensky, President Putin and me, not that I want to be there, but I'd like to see it happen," he said.

When asked by the reporter how he would rate the meeting, Trump said, in a sense, a 10 because he “got along great” with Putin. He said that the Russian president is “a very smart man” and that there was no particular reason why he finally sat down to talk to him. “I think he respects our country now. He didn’t respect it under Biden, I can tell you, he had no respect for it,” he added.

During the interview, Trump also said that he was “very happy” that Putin shared his opinion at the joint press conference that the Russia-Ukraine war would never have happened if he had been in office at the time.

Finally, he said that after the meeting with Putin, he would advise Zelensky to"make a deal."

You can find our minute-by-minute coverage of the Alaska summit here: