Trump’s Attempt to Flex for Putin Is Already Backfiring

President Donald Trump wanted his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week to be a grand display of power in an attempt to pressure the Russian autocrat into a ceasefire. 

Instead, for some, it came off as an act of fealty to one of the world’s most detested leaders.  

“Look at what happened on Friday. U.S. military personnel, in uniform, literally were on their hands and knees rolling out a red carpet for the most murderous dictator of the twenty-first century,” Democratic Representative and former Army Ranger Jason Crow told Face the Nation on Sunday. “Somebody who has kidnapped and is holding prisoner tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Somebody who started this whole war.…  This is a historic embarrassment and defeat for U.S. foreign policy,” he concluded. 

Those on the center-right reacted similarly. 

“I think Trump may have thought that having a B-2 flyover accompanied by F-22s, the aircraft that, of course, were involved in Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran, was somehow suggesting a show of force to Putin,” former ambassador and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman told The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol. “I don’t think that’s how Putin saw it. I think he saw it as a mark of respect, actually.… What it did was resuscitate him both domestically and internationally as a respected player on the international stage.” 

Russian politicians and media cast a celebratory light on the summit. 

“Putin gave Trump nothing, but still got everything he wanted. Trump finally listened to his demands,” an anonymous Russian foreign policy official told The Guardian.

“Western media are on the verge of completely losing it,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova declared, prior to the summit. “For three years they told everyone Russia was isolated and today they saw a beautiful red carpet laid out for the Russian president in the U.S.” 

The contradictory reactions to Putin’s visit—dismay from liberals and conservatives alike, rejoicing from pro-Putin Russians—only reaffirms that the Russian president has the leverage here, not Trump. 

President Donald Trump openly admitted Monday that he wants to end mail-in voting to keep Democrats out of office.

During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the U.S. president readily gave up the game on his latest plot to rig the midterm elections.

“We got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy,” Trump said. “If you [don’t] have mail-in voting, you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me.”

Trump pledged that he would sign an executive order ending mail-in voting, falsely claiming that the United States was one of the only countries that still kept the practice. Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Switzerland are among the more than 30 countries that allow mail-in voting.

Trump’s newfound “movement” is predicated on claims of widespread voter fraud that are also false. Notably, Trump made no complaints about alleged mail-in voter fraud when he won in 2024, but he had a lot to say about mail-in ballots before and after losing the 2020 presidential election.

While the president does not have the power to strip states of their rights to oversee elections, Trump is clearly hoping to create a pretext for discounting mail-in votes during the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump also referred to his controversial redistricting gambit in Texas, which he hopes will gerrymander the state in Republicans’ favor.

In a brazen show of disdain for the First Amendment, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a video Sunday of eight masked agents tearing down a sign protesting the agency’s presence in Washington, D.C.

The video, which Alex Koma of Washington’s NPR member station posted about on Friday, shows the agents surrounding the banner in the District’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood—which reads “Chinga la migra (‘Fuck ICE’).” Mount Pleasant melts ICE”—before ripping it off a fence.

A masked agent then tells the camera, “We’re taking America back, baby”—a process that apparently entails disregarding D.C. residents’ rights—and, continuing in Spanish, “This is for America. The United States is number one.”

Bizarrely, the video also indicates that the agents, in removing the sign, revealed a dildo that had been perched behind it. The sex toy is blurred in ICE’s video, but it can be clearly seen in photos shared online by Koma, who reported that, according to residents, the gaggle of agents had actually left the dildo at the scene of their free speech violation.

Within hours of the banner’s removal, another sign was reportedly put in its place, which states, “No deportations in Mount Pleasant,” and “No a la migra (‘No to ICE’).” Another sign that was hung up since then reads: “They are fascists. We are artists. We melt ICE.”

ICE captioned its video: “Make D.C. Safe Again!” But it seems like the only thing federal troops accomplished was violating the First Amendment and unveiling a dildo.

MAGA loyalists are seething as President Donald Trump prepares to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy—and the European leaders he’s brought along for support—to the White House on Monday. 

Trump has had an extremely contentious relationship with Zelenskiy. He’s berated him to his face in front of millions in the Oval Office and has constantly dismissed Russian aggression and Ukrainian requests for more military aid. 

 Zelenskiy and Co.’s visit comes just days after Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which the U.S. leader moved even further away from ceasefire talks, much to Putin’s delight. But the EU crew accompanying Zelenskiy has Trump’s base worried that he’ll be “cornered” into making financial concessions to the European Union he’s promised never to make. 

“A big day at the White House. We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America!!!” Trump wrote Monday in a feeble attempt to frame the meeting positively for his supporters. “Lets see what the results will be??? President DJT.” 

Zelenskiy will be accompanied by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. 

MAGA was not pleased.

“After little Volodymir’s meltdown at the last meeting he is back but this time must be chaperoned by Europe’s regional manager caste,” author Hans Mahncke wrote on X. “The whole spectacle is so pathetic and humiliating.”

“Will Zelensky fck this peace deal up?” MAGA hardliner Gunther Eagleman chimed in. 

Trump also tried Sunday night to assuage his fans’ concerns. “The Fake News will say that it is a big loss for President Trump to host so many great European Leaders at our beautiful White House,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Actually, it is a great honor for America!!! President DJT.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that the EU wasn’t calling in the cavalry to give Zelenskiy much-needed backup but that they were cordially invited.  

“They’re not coming here to keep Zelenskiy from getting bullied,” he told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. “They are coming here tomorrow because we’ve been working with the Europeans.… We invited them to come.”

Six of Europe’s most powerful leaders aren’t coming all the way to D.C. with Zelenskiy just to hang out. It’s clear that they see Trump’s recent moves toward Putin as a real threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, and this meeting as a last chance to pull Trump away from Putin’s anti-NATO, anti-EU, and anti-Ukrainian agenda.  

Despite what Donald Trump claims, authoritarianism is scaring away diners in Washington, D.C.

During a joint press conference Monday, Trump attempted to defend seizing the nation’s capital by claiming that doing so had reignited the city’s night life. “The restaurants the last two days are busier than they’ve been in a long time,” Trump said. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

WUSA9 reported Sunday that restaurants in the nation’s capital saw a more than 25 percent dip in reservations in the days after Trump federalized the city’s police forces. Trump also deployed scores of federal forces and National Guardsmen to the city, giving them license to do “whatever the hell they want”—but apparently, that didn’t include getting a table at Le Diplomate.

Last Monday, when Trump invoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 to seize control of the Metropolitan Police Department, online reservation service OpenTable recorded a 16 percent decrease in reservations from the previous year. On Tuesday, as the National Guard mobilized, reservations dropped 27 percent, according to OpenTable.

The next day, reservations were down 31 percent, and the trend continued for the rest of the week. The two days Trump claimed had notably high visits, Saturday and Sunday, saw 20 and 22 percent drops, respectively.

Trump has claimed that his takeover is in response to a terrifying rise in crime—which is actually down. But the president’s sweeping law enforcement crackdown has already proven uniquely disruptive to city life.

As much as Republicans would like to make it seem that people are scared of roving criminals, it seems people are much more fearful of militarized law enforcement. The sudden decline in dining out could take a serious bite out of the city’s economy, as the district’s Restaurant Week—a week when restaurants offer discounted menus to entice new potential customers—is set to begin Monday.

This story has been updated.