Trump Just Embraced Putin’s Main Talking Points on Ukraine

Surprise, surprise: Donald Trump is ready to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to block Ukraine from joining NATO—and to keep a slice of stolen land.

Ahead of his meeting with European leaders Monday, Trump put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to end the invasion of his own country by handing over seized territory and dropping his dreams of belonging to the powerful military alliance.

“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight. Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Sunday night.

NATO had originally promised membership to Ukraine in 2008. After the bloc reupped its offer in 2021, Russia demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from becoming part of the military alliance. Also note Trump’s casual Russian propaganda in his post: At least two soldiers (one from each side) were killed as part of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN earlier Sunday that Putin had agreed that the U.S. could offer Ukraine an “Article Five-like protection” but not the real thing. Russia also agreed to implement a law not to “go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty,” Witkoff said. “And there was plenty more.”

In a statement Sunday, Zelenskiy seemed less than convinced. “It is important that America agrees to work with Europe to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. But there are no details how it will work, and what America’s role will be, Europe’s role will be and what the EU can do, and this is our main task, we need security to work in practice like Article Five of NATO, and we consider EU accession to be part of the security guarantees,” he said.

Zelenskiy and other European leaders are expected to meet with Trump Monday afternoon. Once again, Trump has preempted peace negotiations by showing his entire hand.

But Trump’s likely been planning to fold to Russia for months. In April, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told U.S. allies that liberating all Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine was “an unrealistic objective” and pulled back from America’s push to have Ukraine join NATO, in compliance with a long-standing complaint from Putin. Hegseth later walked back his comments somewhat, but Trump still defended Hegseth’s initial words as “pretty accurate.”

Washington’s malcontent over the sudden federalization of its law enforcement has apparently come as a surprise to Donald Trump.

In a post on Truth Social Friday morning, the president claimed that the people protesting his decision to leverage hundreds of National Guards members to combat a seemingly unfounded rise in crime were actually paid Democratic agents.

“It’s just been found that the Democrats are buying protestors in order to fight my attack on crime,” Trump wrote. “These are criminals who support crime. They are unelectable!”

Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to Washington Monday, federalizing the capital’s police department to combat what he described as a crime-riddled hellscape. To justify the government infringement, the country’s most powerful Republican pointed to rising crime rates, immigrant populations, and homelessness—though the figures he used were from 2023, before violent crime plummeted across the country. In 2024, crime in the nation’s capital was down 35 percent, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department.

Trump turned his attention towards Washington’s crime after 19-year-old DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, better known as “Big Balls,” was attacked almost two weeks ago by a couple of 15-year-olds who stole his iPhone.

Large crowds protested law enforcement checkpoints set up around Washington throughout the week, booing and jeering at the increased police presence.

But the president’s efforts to discredit the protesters as partisan plants paves the way for a larger initiative: leveraging the National Guard to enact his will in cities across the country. On Wednesday, border czar Tom Homan spilled that he considered Washington’s sanctuary city status practically null and void in light of Trump’s directive, telling Fox News that “there is no sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants in D.C. (This is false: Trump’s directive does not override city laws.)

During a press conference Monday announcing the imminent takeover, Trump warned that several of America’s liberal bastions could experience the same fate, specifically calling out New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Oakland.

Vice President JD Vance’s quiet vacation to the English countryside is becoming a real disturbance.

The vice president appears to be making no friends in the Cotswolds: Staff at The Bull in Charlbury reportedly told management that they would refuse to serve Vance if his family’s reservation at the sixteenth-century pub was accepted, according to The Daily Beast.

Meanwhile, other members of America’s political class have breezed through the town without complaint. Vance’s predecessor—Vice President Kamala Harris—was practically feted when she dined at The Bull mere weeks ago to celebrate Steve Jobs’s daughter Eve ahead of her wedding.

“It’s been the talk of the village—it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened here for a very long time,” one local told The Sun at the time.

Vance, on the other hand, has been pissing his Cotswolds neighbors off since his arrival in the tranquil neighborhood. Earlier this week, police affiliated with the vice president’s Secret Service were accused of going door-to-door to obtain residents’ information.

“We have had the police knocking on every door. They wanted the names of everybody living there and details of their social media. I know several people refused,” an unidentified dog walker from the hamlet told The Observer.

Vance’s office and the local police have denied the claim, telling press that the only residents they interacted with were to ensure passage through a blockade for the vice president.

“[We] are supporting the United States during the Vice President’s visit to our area to ensure the safety of all involved,” a spokesperson for Thames Valley Police told the Daily Mail. “A restricted access area has been put in place in a small part of Dean as part of our operation. We spoke to affected residents to ensure we are able to facilitate movement within the restricted access area. Residents were under no obligation to answer any questions and were not asked about social media.”

Vance’s presence has brought helicopters and SUVs to the quaint town. Villagers also expressed their malcontent with Vance after his expanded security detail overcrowded a local supermarket, blocking several handicapped parking spaces with his Secret Service entourage.

When Donald Trump seized the Washington, D.C., police and announced the deployment of scores of federal agents and National Guardsmen to the nation’s capital, he said these forces had license to do “whatever the hell they want.” Reportedly, what some of them want is to take down signs protesting their presence and leave sex toys on the ground.

Alex Koma, a politics reporter at Washington’s NPR member station, reported Friday that, according to residents of D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, a gaggle of federal agents gathered around a pro-immigration banner for a photo, before tearing it down and leaving a dildo in its place.

Footage of the incident, from a Ring doorbell surveillance camera across the street, shows a handful of agents surrounding the poster (which stated “Chinga la migra [Fuck ICE]. Mount Pleasant melts ICE”), before one of them rips it from the fence to which it’d been affixed. (The alleged dildo placement isn’t clearly visible in the video.)

This instance of immature vandalism joins other noble deeds performed by the forces descending on the capital on Trump’s orders, along with ambling around the city’s safest neighborhoods, bothering residents smoking cigarettes on a stoop, and sending a reported 20 officers to arrest a man for throwing a Subway sandwich at an agent (despite the man having offered to turn himself in, per his lawyer).

Donald Trump’s loyalty test is stretching far beyond the confines of the White House.

The Trump administration has released a scorecard to rank the endeavors of some 553 companies and trade associations to advance the president’s agenda and his “big, beautiful bill.”

Organizations are ranked on the sheet as strong, moderate, or low, Axios reported Friday, with ratings built off social media posts, press releases, video testimonials, ads, White House event attendance, and other budget law–oriented efforts.

The data is being circulated among White House senior staff as a temperature gauge on how to interact with companies and open calls with K Street (a nickname for Washington’s business district).

Some of these “good partners” include Uber, DoorDash, United, Delta, AT&T, Cisco, Airlines for America, and the Steel Manufacturers Association, according to Axios.

The scoresheet “helps us see who really goes out and helps vs. those who just come in and pay lip service,” a senior White House official told the publication. But that doesn’t mean the project is done—instead, the administration plans to continue updating the list, considering it an evolving document as more corporate behavior plays out in relation to Trump’s agenda.

“If groups/companies want to start advocating more now for the tax bill or additional administration priorities, we will take that into account in our grading,” the official said.

Loyalty has been a chief internal priority for Trump and his team since before the election. That common denominator carried more weight than practically any other quality as the forty-seventh president selected dozens of nominees to lead different agencies, nearly all of whom had previously lent a hand to Trump in his criminal trials, donated money to his political campaign, or helped build out one of his presidential transition playbooks, such as Project 2025.