… or something
RADDATZ: The president went in to that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire and there would be consequences if they didn't agree on a ceasefire in that meeting, and they didn't agree to a ceasefire. So where are the consequences?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
RUBIO: That's not the aim
RADDATZ: The president… pic.twitter.com/fuO9q1Y5ze
RADDATZ: The president went in to that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire and there would be consequences if they didn’t agree on a ceasefire in that meeting, and they didn’t agree to a ceasefire. So where are the consequences?
RUBIO: That’s not the aim
RADDATZ: The president said that was the aim
The clear consensus is that the Alaska meeting was a disaster — for America at least. Russia is very happy with the way it came out. They have Trump once again making the case for Ukrainian surrender of half their country (even parts that are not currently occupied by Russia!) in return for their pinky swear to not invade the rest of the country. What a deal.
Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall St Journal agrees:
Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t have scripted his first visit to the U.S. since 2015 much better.
The Russian leader strutted along a red carpet at a U.S. air base and posed smiling with President Trump, who had weeks earlier been expressing mounting frustration with him and threatening to hit Russia and its trading partners with sanctions. He met with Trump under a sign that read “pursuing peace.”
When they emerged 3½ hours later, the leaders said they hadn’t reached a deal. Instead, Putin used the stage to press his demands on Ukraine. Neither Trump nor Putin, who is facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes, took questions from the U.S. press.
Putin, by clinching a long-awaited summit with Trump, scored a win. The Kremlin leader has staked his legacy on dismantling the post-Cold War world order and resurrecting Russia’s great-power status to put it on par with the U.S.
“Putin achieved exactly what he wanted: He simultaneously preserved his relationship with Trump, avoided additional sanctions, and received the blessing to continue his war,” said Andrey Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political analyst and a columnist at New Times, an independent Russian-language magazine.
European and NATO leaders announced Sunday that they’ll be joining President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for crucial talks with President Trump, rallying around the Ukrainian leader after his exclusion from Mr. Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The remarkable move — with one European leader after another announcing that they’ll be at Zelenskyy’s side when he travels to the White House on Monday — was an apparent effort to ensure that the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated the Ukrainian president in a heated Oval Office encounter.
“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,” said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s military mission at the United Nations.
“It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,” he said in a phone interview.
I think it’s a good thing that they are doing this. But there is no guarantee it will work. Trump, Vance and their little dog Marco could very well decide that it’s time to publicly dump on our European alliances to show their manhood. It’s all about performance after all.
The stage is being set for the U.S. to adopt “neutrality” and essentially throw in with Russia against Europe. Whether that happens is unfortunately left up to the whims and stupidity of Trump and his henchmen.
By the way — Marco Rubio will never be president. He has destroyed what was left of the tattered remains of his integrity so thoroughly that no sane person could ever support him and MAGA will blame him for failing their Dear Leader. He’s a goner.