The mainstream media are in unison: Donald Trump didn’t get what he wanted from Russian President Vladimir Putin. And those on the left and right, for days after the Alaska summit, covered the story wall-to-wall, debating whether Putin was the clear winner.
“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to; there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”
Without a concrete deal, many in the media – including Fox News – piled on by calling the summit, where no questions from the assembled journalists were allowed, largely a waste of time.
Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News senior White House correspondent, said the president lost control: “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.”
Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier said he couldn’t understand what had been decided by the leaders. “This joint news conference was anything but. It was not a news conference. There were no questions taken by either leader. There were many yelled by reporters there. But we don’t have a sense of what exactly is in this agreement or this deal.”
MSNBC’s anchor Alicia Menendez put it more harshly: “It is not Yalta. This was not a global superpower sitting down and carving up territory and talking about maps. This was egomaniacs.”
Predictably, MSNBC opinion host Nicolle Wallace lambasted the president for his what she described as his timid answers.
”And today we had an American president standing next to a ruthless dictator who got that American president to refuse to affirm who we are, and our commitment to NATO, and our commitment to this sort of post-World War II global order.”
Despite the criticism, by Monday, President Donald Trump offered rare praise for the media. Yes, praise!
“I think the media has actually been very fair…that’s all we ask for is fairness,” he shared. That’s not what he said in the morning on Truth Social, railing against “fake news” for violently distorting what he’s done. Why was he praising the media when we know he can’t stand them?
Almost all, including the media, agree on a long-term solution: an end to the war. “I’m in this to stop the killing,” Trump said. Zelensky told reporters during Monday’s sitdown with Trump that the guarantees he needs from the U.S are “everything” and was careful to praise Trump, unlike his meltdown the last time they met. Yet he insisted, “Peace will take time.”
Trump, according to multiple media reports not denied by the White House, is pushing Ukraine to give up land now controlled by the Russians in the crucial Donbas region, with the president abandoning the notion of a cease-fire that he had embraced before the Putin meeting. He does want to give Zelensky NATO-like security guarantees.
I haven’t heard anyone say Russia should give up land, and that’s a nonstarter for Ukraine. Plus, Donald Trump said Ukraine needs to give up any hope of joining NATO. Trump now seems to be siding with Russia. And many in the media have their claws out.
Maybe it’s because Putin showered him with praise at the summit, saying if Trump had been president, this war never would have happened. Putin endorsed the claims about the 2020 election being stolen. Trump said “he and Putin got along great.” Why does the president keep changing his positions since he was for a cease-fire up until he met Putin in Alaska? The president seems more concerned with pleasing Putin than taking a consistent position.
On the table is giving up land that Russia does not control. Bill Taylor, former Ambassador to Ukraine, said on MSNBC, “This makes no sense.”
Also on MSNBC, Washington Post columnist Max Boot called the meetings “happy talk…I don’t think this war will end in the foreseeable future.” Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum had a more positive spin for the president. “We’re now further along in this process than ever before.”
Did the Donald Trump/Vladimir Putin summit, or the meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, move the needle? It doesn’t seem like it. Will more meetings — possibly one with both leaders and Trump — more phone calls, stop the killing? If so, when? There is still so much that is not clear.
As both sides know, after three and a half years, time is running out for Ukraine. And even the leader of the biggest superpower can’t seem to solve it. The media need to get behind the president — at least for attempting to solve what is seemingly an impossible problem.
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