Under increasing pressure to release the incriminating Epstein files, the Art of the Deal-maker believed he could wing an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, appease Putin, and earn himself a Nobel Prize. But his reckless ignorance continues to put the entire world in peril.
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Donald Trump shuffled restlessly on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson just outside Anchorage. He glanced back toward Air Force One, then to the Tupolev Tu-214 idling catty-corner to the presidential jet. His eyes shifted to an aide, then back to the Tupolev.
Was Vladimir Putin really making the President of the United States wait?
Putin emerged a few minutes later. He paused at the top of the staircase and descended slowly, cautiously, stopping midway to steady the limp in his leg. He ambled his way across a red carpet laid down by American troops earlier in the day and clutched Trump’s hand. It was a reunion of old friends. Back in Moscow, state media told a different story: “Alaska is ours.”
***
Trump’s meeting with Putin was supposed to be a feather in his diplomatic cap, the kind of pomp-and-circumstance, made-for-television outing that validates his pathological hunger for respect. Instead, senior White House officials found themselves scrambling to salvage a meeting that went off the rails almost immediately and ended with Putin leaving the summit early — and skipping out on his taxpayer-funded filet mignon and halibut lunch. So much for comradeship.
The leaders came together in Anchorage with the lofty goal of ending the Ukraine War, which began in 2014 and has subjected a generation of Russians and Ukrainians to the brutal meat grinder of attrition warfare. This was the same war Trump had so casually pledged to end “in 24 hours” if voters elected him to a second term. Instead, senior White House officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff found themselves mired in their eighth month of fruitless negotiations. Alaska, Trump promised, would be their breakthrough moment.
What resulted was a comedy of errors. Trump wanted the event thrown together quickly as a means of distracting from the growing domestic scandal around his administration’s bungling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Breaking with established diplomatic protocols, Trump green-lit the meeting even though Russian officials hadn’t agreed to a preliminary accord — a sort of pre-agreement that ensures both leaders can sign a document and claim victory back home.
The decision stunned America’s veteran foreign-policy experts, who knew from experience just how difficult it was to get the Russians on paper for the smallest matters, let alone something as seismic as a Ukraine War ceasefire. But Trump remained confident that he could negotiate a deal in the room with Putin, a kind of real-world display of Art of the Deal bravado and statesmanship. That would have been a historic achievement. As it turned out, Putin and the Russians had other plans.
The Russian president was quick to offer Trump the photo-op he longed for, but Russian officials dodged, ducked, dipped, and dove to avoid the Americans’ efforts to start diplomatic talks. It was clear by the time both leaders sat for a joint press conference that Trump was furious with Putin’s gambit. A sour-faced Trump sat just feet away from his counterpart as Putin joked with his staff and turned the press conference into a circus.
Putin did not appear to be taking the meeting seriously, and why should he? Back in Moscow, state-aligned media blasted propaganda about Trump’s subservience and eagerness to win Putin’s approval. Trump’s petulant pouting was being broadcast live to a global audience. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy was nowhere to be seen, having been pointedly excluded from the event at Trump’s order.
The Russians could hardly have hoped for a better outcome. Hours later, Putin would authorize a massive missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Far from bringing Putin to the negotiating table, Trump’s misfire of a summit seemed to embolden the Russian leader to resume targeting civilian buildings.
Phones started ringing at the State Department. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer were alarmed at the coverage they saw. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy, who had been pointedly excluded from the Alaska summit, said he would visit Washington to meet with Trump directly. Leaders representing the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Germany, and Italy announced they’d make the trek, too. The message was clear: Trump’s half-baked summit had just created a serious problem. Who was going to fix it?
***
There was no red carpet to greet Zelenskyy when he arrived at the White House on Monday for a series of high-stakes talks with Trump and European leaders.
The mood had shifted since the last time Zelenskyy sat in the Oval Office back in February. At the time, Vice President J.D. Vance had baited Zelenskyy into a shouting match that led to the collapse of ceasefire talks. Now Vance sat in silence as Zelenskyy and his European allies tried to understand the damage Trump had caused in Anchorage. For once, Trump didn’t mention the huge ratings his Oval Office summit would generate.
Unlike in February, Monday’s talks ran hours over schedule as Zelenskyy and European leaders worked to find a path out of a war that has slaughtered over 500,000 troops and countless civilians. In audio captured by a live microphone during the conversations, Trump can be heard reassuring Macron and Starmer that he thinks “[Putin] wants to make a deal for me.” Given Trump’s tendency to hide in comfortable fantasies, it’s hard to say if he’s just making it all up anymore.
Speaking to NBC News on Monday night, Macron struck a less than confident tone about the conversation. “I think if we have a deal which is compliant with the longstanding goal of peace, this is great news,” Macron told Kristen Welker. “Your president is very confident in the capacity he has to get this deal done.” Very confident, indeed.
Monday’s meeting wasn’t without its own drama. Midway through the day, Trump abruptly left the conference to call … Vladimir Putin. He returned nearly 40 minutes later to announce yet another classic Trumpian twist: He would personally arrange a face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. Even as Trump debated with his European counterparts, he appeared to be engaging in cross-diplomacy with the Russians directly.
Distracted by the nonstop diplomatic developments, few reporters noticed that the Trump who emerged from the White House on Monday evening was unrecognizable from the blustering, combative man who accused Zelenskyy of ingratitude back in February. This Trump wrapped his arm around Zelenskyy, squeezed his hand tight, and offered a toothy smile for the assembled cameras. This was Trump the New York schmoozer.
“I had a very good meeting with distinguished guests,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social, his bespoke social network. “This was a very good, early step for a war that has been going on for almost four years.” Then he went further, promising not only a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting but an additional, trilateral meeting with the three of them together — the same meeting he had just denied Zelenskyy in Anchorage.
Speaking to reporters later in the day, Zelenskyy did his best to project confidence in Trump’s latest promises.
“We had a very good conversation,” he said. Then, pulling a classic line from the Trump phrasebook, the embattled Ukrainian leader doubled down. “Maybe the best one.”
***
For most Americans, the Ukraine War seems to exist in a place out of time. Have they always been fighting? Or have the details become blurred in our consciousness, washed clean of any specifics by the daily river of blood flowing through Kharkiv and Kyiv and the Donbas?
What’s clear from Trump’s disastrous Anchorage meeting and the emergency summit of world leaders that followed is that no one in the White House has a plan for ending this war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been sidelined in favor of Trump loyalists like Ukraine envoy Witkoff, a man so incompetent that both Ukrainian and Russian officials say he’s done more harm than good. In a sea of sycophants, no one is willing to tell Trump his peace strategy is fatally flawed.
Trump, it turns out, is that fatal flaw. The president’s pathological inability to be patient has resulted in no fewer than six conflicting “official” U.S. foreign policies toward ending the Ukraine War, ranging from threatening American airstrikes on Moscow to forcing Ukraine into surrendering Crimea and the Donbas to Putin. In the absence of actual leadership, American foreign policy is flailing while Ukrainian civilians foot the bill for Trump’s presidential mood swings.
Zelenskyy and Putin may ultimately meet in a conversation stage-managed by Trump. Then again, they might not. It wouldn’t be the first, or second, or third ceasefire meeting Trump has announced only to back out days or weeks later. It’s impossible for us to know Trump’s mind. Even Trump doesn’t.
In the meantime, the war will rage on. Thousands more Ukrainians will die from targeted strikes on civilian areas. Trump will continue to prize popularity over effectiveness, even if that means sacrificing a free people into the jaws of Putin’s illiberal gangster regime in Moscow. For now, bolstered by the praise of world leaders he wants so badly to impress, Trump feels popular. For now, Ukraine has a chance.
Donald Trump shifted restlessly in his chair as the heads of Europe urged him to bring Putin to the negotiating table. His eyes shifted to Macron, then to Starmer, and finally to Zelenskyy. He leaned forward, his voice flecked with impatience after an unusually long work day.
“This is a very important subject,” Trump said. “Good job.”