What did Donald Trump do today?

He handed Vladimir Putin a massive diplomatic win and strategic advantage in exchange for nothing.

 

The headline news from Trump's hastily-arranged summit meeting with Vladimir Putin is that no agreement was reached regarding anything of substance where Russia's war on Ukraine was concerned. That is probably the best possible outcome for Ukraine and its allies, given how much Trump has invested in being able to end the conflict on any terms, no matter how unfavorable to Ukraine. But it was still a coup for Putin, who succeeded in boxing Trump in diplomatically while shoring up his domestic political flank.

Most of the meeting took place behind closed doors. No readout was available, although Trump did offer some post-meeting spin in an interview taped immediately afterwards. The general mood was similar to the infamous Helsinki meeting in 2018: Trump was visibly excited to greet Putin with full ceremony as he got off the plane to a red-carpet welcome, but subdued afterwards. A Fox News reporter put it this way: 

JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS: The way that it felt in the room was not — not good. 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.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iu4j537hox5huj4bwnwgub4z/post/3lwhzahl5hg2h 

In the press conference that followed the three-hour meting, Putin, in a breach of protocol, spoke first, delivering a lengthy speech in Russian. In his remarks, Putin nodded towards Russia's historic ownership of Alaska, and put words in Trump's mouth about what Trump "understands" and who he finds "trustworthy." Above all, Putin seized the initiative to frame their meeting—which had pointedly excluded Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy—as having produced an "agreement."

When Putin finally gave Trump a chance to add his remarks, Trump pushed back weakly on the idea that there was any agreement, but essentially conceded the frame:

TRUMP: Thank you very much, Mr. President, that was very profound, and I will say that I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway. So there's no deal until there's a deal.  

If anything, Trump seemed unsure about what had actually happened, and veered away from offering any specifics. 

The remainder of Trump's remarks centered on his grievance about the "Russia Russia Russia hoax." (Trump sought and received the Putin regime's assistance in manipulating the 2016 election, something that was confirmed by a Republican special counsel appointed by Trump's own deputy Attorney General.) In the Fox News interview afterward, Trump said that Putin had blamed Americans' ability to cast their votes by mail for his "loss" in 2020. 

Putin conducts sham elections to legitmize his hold on power and had his chief political rival murdered with nerve poison.

Why does this matter?

• Nobody, least of all the President of the United States, should be praising Vladimir Putin's ideas about democracy.  

• People in Ukraine will die because Trump went into this meeting unprepared and desperate for a personal victory regardless of what it meant for American interests. 

• It should not be possible to manipulate an American president this easily, or this publicly.