Nearly a year ago, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris faced off in their first and only presidential debate, and when the discussion turned to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Democratic vice president told her Republican rival what he didn’t want to hear. Vladimir Putin, Harris said, turning toward Trump, “would eat you for lunch.”
The prescient assessment came to mind anew about the Republican’s failed summit in Alaska. As NBC News summarized:
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from a nearly three-hour meeting on the Ukraine war and struck a cordial tone in brief public statements, but left without announcing a ceasefire or peace agreement. ... Trump appeared buoyant at the start of the summit, deflated by the end.
“We didn’t get there,” the American president conceded during brief remarks to reporters.
The first summit between the two men, held in Helsinki in 2018, was a national embarrassment for the United States. Trump defended America’s adversary, took cheap shots at his own country, and sided with Putin over the judgment of American intelligence professionals. Soon after, one U.S. official summarized a consensus view, concluding that it was clear whose side Trump was on, and “it isn’t ours.”
Then-Sen. John McCain, a month before his death, went so far as to call Trump’s appearance in Helsinki “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
But the second summit was, by most measures, even worse — because as the American president acknowledged, the stakes were vastly higher. When Trump kowtowed to Putin in Helsinki, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine was still on the horizon. When they met in Alaska, Russia’s war in Ukraine was an intensifying and deadly crisis.
Trump’s first failure was humiliating. Trump’s second failure was consequential.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut explained, simply, “Putin got everything he wanted.”
There’s ample evidence to bolster the point:
Trump handed Putin a victory before the summit even began by extending an invitation and giving the Russian leader the legitimacy he craved.
Trump handed Putin a public-relations victory in Alaska, literally rolling out the red carpet for the dictator, literally applauding him, welcoming into the presidential limo, and treating Putin with deference, even letting the Russian leader speak first (and longer) at their pseudo press conference.
Trump handed Putin a strategic victory by abandoning the White House’s own policy: The American president said he’s no longer seeking a ceasefire as a precursor to broader negotiations — the policy Trump spent months trying to secure — which necessarily strengthens Moscow’s hand.
Trump handed Putin a economic victory by once again backing off his threats to punish Russia. Shortly before meeting with his counterpart, Trump said there would be “very severe” consequences if Putin didn’t move toward peace, but after the meeting, the Republican abandoned his own position.
Trump handed Putin a tactical victory by shifting the onus onto Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as if it were up to Russia’s victim to end Russia’s war.
“He got played again,” Ivo Daalder, the Obama-era ambassador to NATO, told The New York Times. “For all the promises of a cease-fire, of severe economic consequences, of being disappointed, it took two minutes on the red carpet and 10 minutes in the Beast for Putin to play Trump again. What a sad spectacle.”
Remember, Trump didn’t just fail by objective metrics, he failed by his own metrics: The American president invited Putin to U.S. soil with the express goal of negotiating a ceasefire. After failing to prepare, the Republican not only fell short of his stated objective, he ended up abandoning his goal at Putin’s behest.
In the wake of his failure, Trump tried to assure the public that it was a “great’ and “very successful” diplomatic gathering. When Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked the American president to rate the talks on a scale of 1 to 10, Trump replied, “I think the meeting was a 10, in the sense we got along great.”
And if the point of the talks were for Trump and Putin to “get along great,” then it was certainly a triumph, but in Grown-Up Land, there were other objectives on the to-do list.
“We’re not walking out of there with a deal,” a White House official told Politico ahead of the summit — hours before they walked out of there without a deal.
Is it any wonder why there was “pronounced gloating in Russia” in the wake of Trump’s failure?
As this week gets underway, Zelenskyy will meet with the American president in the White House, and he’s bringing some backup: The Ukrainian leader will be joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Watch this space.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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