Surprise! The hastily arranged “HIGH STAKES MEETING” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin gave Putin everything he sought in the summit while giving away nothing. The meeting ended just hours ago with neither president taking questions, and Trump huffing off without a single thing to announce other than some mealy-mouthed agreement about which neither gave any details. One could argue that so long as the U.S. retained Alaska through the meeting, it might be considered a win, all things being equal. The end came so suddenly and with so little fanfare that even Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich characterized Trump as having been “steamrolled.”
From a report in Mediaite:
“We were told we would have an opportunity to put questions to both leaders after a joint press conference in the event the meeting went well enough that they could set the stage for a second meeting,” she added. “And President Trump said if that didn’t happen, he was likely to call off the joint presser and just address the media solo and send people home. Neither of those things happened. ”
“And what was really stunning to me as someone who has been in a lot of these press conferences was a few things that were very unusual,” she said. “You had Putin come out and address the press first. We are on U.S. soil here. And that left the media scrambling to get their headsets in. Usually, it is the leader of the country — the host country of a summit that speaks first and addresses. Putin started off in Russian. And we all had to get our heads set on and listen to him rattle off the diatribe about the history of the U.S. and Russia.”
The very fact that Trump hosted Putin on U.S. soil was already a gift to Putin (Biden met Putin in neutral Switzerland) given that Putin has isolated Russia since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, then invaded Ukraine unprovoked, and has been accused of committing war crimes by bombing civilians – yet Trump brought him to a U.S. military base, International Criminal Court warrant be damned. Heinrich wasn’t finished; it got worse:
“The way that it felt in the room was not good,” she reported. “It did not seem like things went well, and it seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled, got right into what he wanted to say. And got his photo next to the president and then left. Of course, that is only the piece of the picture that we have right now, and certainly President Trump, who is the host and who is, the president, would not want to, I think, enable something that would make him look weak.”
Yes, we all know that there is nothing worse to Trump than looking weak, and he has a warped definition of strength. But weak he does look. For a guy who went to the meeting with dreams of a Nobel Peace Prize dancing in his head, he leaves looking like he got owned. Putin walks away without having made a single commitment and now looks to get even more aggressive in Ukraine, not facing significant pushback by the U.S.
Again, it could have been worse? One supposes, because any “deal” with Putin involves trusting him sufficiently to take the time to write it down. It is conceivable that Trump could have made big concessions in favor of lip service and gotten nothing. At least we know he got nothing and apparently didn’t give much up in return. The entire matter looks to have been little more than a P.R. coup for Putin.
And we know how dearly Trump believes in P.R. He got steamrolled, even on Fox News.
**** Please follow me now on Bluesky
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and also on X at @JasonMiciak.
Zoomers, we are always in need of donations. We work hard to get you analysis that you will not find in the mainstream media, but all media have been hit hard since the big companies have gobbled up and monopolized commentary. Anything you can spare will be immensely appreciated. And thank you to all who have donated generously already. Ursula
2 old criminals on stage together bfd right?
T.A.C.O.
Trump’s precious Nobel was literally there for the taking. Pootie’s plane landed and parked right next to Trump’s on a United States Air Force Base and there was plenty of time to prepare for what he COULD have and SHOULD have done. As soon as Putin got to the end of his red carpet, well away from his plane Special Ops troops should have swarmed him with a regiment of soldiers or Marines swiftly moving in with orders to shoot to kill any fooking Russian security goons who tried to intervene. Pootie should have been trussed up like a chicken and place in the hold of Air Force One which could have flown across the northern U.S. with plenty of fighter escorts with orders to shoot down any Russian planes that came within a hundred miles. Canada would have I’m sure agreed to help. Instead of D.C. Air Force One could have stopped off at a U.S. Air Force base in the northeast. I’m pretty sure we’ve got one in Maine. Transfer a half dozen guys covered up from head to heel in a black hood to six waiting Air Force transports to take off and again have fighter cover with tanker support arranged to get across the Atlantic. Or perhaps land at our base in Iceland to refuel in the middle of the night. In hangers. Sneak Pootie out to a waiting sub but still make a show of flying those planes out in the morning just after sunup. Several could land in the Netherlands and several in other places.
The sub could deliver Pootie safe and sound to a helicopter that would fly him to the Hague to face charges at the ICC for war crimes.
THAT might well have impressed the Nobel Committe enough to actually consider giving Trump the peace prize.
Your fantasy is mine too!
I thought Putin would own the entire situation, which he did. I did think that he would lead tRump on with little enticements that didn’t mean anything to keep him engaged, while Putin got whatever he wanted from the interchange. Apparently Putin did it way more efficiently than I imagined.