What did Donald Trump do today?

He figured out how everyone else saw his meeting with Putin, and responded emotionally.

Trump spent a fair amount of time on his personal microblogging site today, lashing out emotionally at the coverage of his half-day summit with Vladimir Putin. It's not a surprise that he's upset: even Trump-friendly media is acknowledging it was a complete failure to advance American aims, or even move towards a negotiated peace, as Putin succeeded in getting a propaganda victory and more or less publicly bullying Trump into agreeing with his negotiating points. 

Trump is absolutely determined to save face and be able to take credit for a war that he'd bragged he could settle on his first day in office. That desperation has played into Putin's hands, since Ukraine's chances of surviving the war are much slimmer without American support. Trump's latest "negotiating" tactic is to simply demand that Ukraine surrender in advance to the single biggest Russian demand—that it be allowed to annex the Ukrainian territory it currently controls.

It was coverage of this demand—"absurd even for him," as one pundit put it—that seems to have gotten most under Trump's skin today. In one post, he conjured up an emotionally overwrought hypothetical in which he negotiated a deal where Russia gave up Moscow and was still criticized by the "fake news media." In another, he seemed to be ordering the firing of an MSNBC anchor, the former George W. Bush spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace. 

For the record, the Putin regime has not shown any sign that it is willing to give up its capital and largest city, which is about 400 miles from the front lines. And while Trump has characterized the process of giving eastern Ukraine to Russia as a "land swap," it's clear that Ukraine wouldn't be receiving any Russian territory in return. 

In reality, what Trump is calling a "land swap" is Ukrainian surrender on Russian terms, without any guarantee of security that Russia won't simply overwhelm what is left of the country later. 

For some reason, in the same series of posts, Trump also labeled Russia's unprovoked 2022 surprise attack on Ukraine as "Biden's stupid war." Blaming Biden for it happening during Biden's term is about as close as Trump has ever come to denouncing the invasion itself: in the past, he has also blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, on the theory that Russia was entitled to launch a war to prevent Ukraine from NATO. Or, in other words, Trump's stance is that only Russia is allowed to decide whether a neighboring country allies itself with the United States. 

Today, Trump repeated his demand that Ukraine must renounce any plans to join NATO in order for peace talks to move forward, which remains a major goal of the Putin regime.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't stand up to the dictator of a hostile nation should find an easier job.  

• Trying to get people fired for pointing out your mistakes doesn't fix your mistakes.