Bulwark Takes - Live Reaction: Trump Bombs in Putin Summit

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Donald Trump’s much-hyped Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin was a dud. No peace deal was announced. No press conference was held. It was all flattery, no real progress, and a big win for the Kremlin. Even Fox News gave it bad reviews. Tim Miller breaks it down.

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But MGM operates pursuant to an officer. Operating Agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Hey, everybody. It is Tim Miller here with the bulwark. I just watched a surreal non-press conference. I guess we called a joint statement between Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, the dictator of Russia, and Donald Trump, our president. They'd met for many hours privately, allegedly, at least as reported,

You know, what was reported from the room in the three-on-three setting. Earlier, we set this up. If you'd miss that in a video with JVL and Bill Crystal, you can go back and check out. But it was Trump, Rubio, and Wittkoff on one side, and then Putin and Lavrov with another Russian advisor. And so the three met for several hours in private. There was a brief photo of Aval where Putin made some weird faces at the press while they shouted at him about one of he was going to stop killing civilians. They were expecting a press conference a little later in the evening. And then the private meeting abruptly came to a close.

They came out to issue a joint statement. I think it was pretty noteworthy that Fox News reported that the Russian side had before the joint statements had started had leaked out that they were very happy with the progress and so that is kind of interesting that the Russian side felt good about it then we get to the two joint statements what you get first from Vladimir Putin is a very sort of Putin-esque performance long throat clearing, a lot of background, a lot of flattery. Donald Trump, I should mention that Putin did flatter Trump several times, including saying that he agreed with Trump's statement that the war never would have started had Trump been president. That makes no sense since this was purely a war of aggression, a war of territorial aggression on behalf of Vladimir Putin. It had nothing to do with the U.S. president. But it's interesting that Putin felt the need to flatter. Trump. Putin then also, I think most revealingly, went on about the need to eliminate all of the root causes of the war. He actually said all the root causes that led to the war. Again, there are no

root causes that led to the war. Vladimir Putin wants to expand, wanted to expand the territory of Russia and believes that the Ukrainian people should not exist and that they should be part of Russian, he thought he would very easily conquer Ukraine and he was caught off guard by the bravery of the Ukrainian people is what really happened. But he wants to claim that it's all this, you know, Western encroachment, et cetera. So Putin, you know, gets on his hobby horses about the root cause of the war. Interestingly, Putin says that they have an agreement of some kind, possibly that this is sort of a lost in translation situation about what constitutes an agreement

because then you get to Trump's statement next and it was nothing short of pathetic I guess I would say and even to use one of his words I'd say it was a low energy performance by Donald Trump had a raspy voice he seemed down

you know he he kind of tried to do the Trump thing about all of the good you know things that they discussed and how they reached some agreements and you know they made some progress and they agree on a lot of things. Most things, actually, important things, actually. He does all that Trump stuff.

He acknowledges his counterparties. He praises them all. He talks about the tremendous Russian business representatives that are here. He praises Lavrov about how famous he is, almost as famous as Putin. So there's the flattery back on Trump side. And then he goes into how he had this fantastic relationship with President Putin. And he corrects himself to with Vladimir. And he said that that relationship was in.

interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which was obviously not a hoax, but the reality that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. He then goes off on the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax for a while, and then in the end says basically that they made a lot of progress, but there's no deal. And, you know, there's not a deal until there's a deal, Trump said. He said he's got to leave and call his NATO counterparts, call the European counterpart. arts, et cetera. So what you have then is really no details, no progress at all made.

I mean, like this thing literally could have been, you know, a true social DM between the true leaders. I mean, like they have nothing, they had nothing to report at all. In some cases, that's sort of a best case scenario for those of us who were concerned about this summit. that Trump did not sell out Ukraine, did not give away anything to Ukraine, did not give away anything to Putin. He did, again, lie about, you know, Russia's attack on our elections. So this is not perfect. This was really, and again, it was an embarrassing, frankly, display by the American

president. But within the context, construct of this was going to be Trump doing Trump things, you know, the sort of worst elements of things you might have been worried about did not come to pass so um no um so that uh is is you know where where things ended so i think that is the most telling part about all this that that they both give their statements they both flatter each other they both announce that prog some progress has been made um but um but after that no no announcement of any details no discussion of what the progress was made on whether that be ceasefire or other Otherwise, territory doesn't even come up. Trump barely mentions kind of Ukraine and wanting to talk about Ukraine and European allies.

So there's no discussion of that. And then there's no questions after. That is, you know, a very, I think is Max Seddon, who is a close follower of Moscow, is Moscow Bureau Chief of F.T. You know, said this sort of thing is very typical of Putin, right? I'll have a private meeting. I'll make a short statement where he lists all his grievances and offers, you know, some positive potential outcomes

but then doesn't take any questions. That's not at all Donald Trump's memo. I mean, compare and contrast this to the Zelensky meeting. It is a freewheeling affair in the Oval Office. Trump and J.D. are chastising

Zelensky, wagging their finger at him, saying, why don't you thank me? Being very nasty and condescending to him. They're taking lots of questions. At some point, they're enjoying. They seem to be enjoying the back and forth with the news media. They're enjoying the MAGA propaganda outlets.

They're asking favorable questions. They're enjoying yelling at, you know, the mainstream outlets are going fake news, right? So, like, that environment, a freewheeling environment where Trump perceives himself at the upper hand is what you have there. That's where Trump's comfortable. You know, you've seen this with many other world leaders. Today, we do it Putin style. No freewheeling, no open press, no questions.

no details really and what you assume here if you're going to do things Putin style is that what we'll get in the post you know post meeting post summit fallout will be leaks from the Russia side that will try to make things look as positive towards Russia as possible so the last thing that you had there at the end of the, um, of the joint meeting was, uh, Putin saying maybe next time we'll do this in Moscow. Trump laughing saying, oh, that will get me in trouble, but maybe, maybe. So again, Trump even leaving the door open to going to Moscow while this invasion is still ongoing. Um, long story short, nothing happened. They made no progress. We humiliated ourselves. The United

States humiliated our, our soldiers that rolled out the red carpet for Putin. in exchange for nothing. No progress was made in exchange for Donald Trump getting tired. Putin was flattered, treated much better than Zelensky. You assume they're doing like just even, I kind of steal me, the best argument for why Trump and Marco are acting like they're acting. What are they doing? Well, they're like, we have to flatter him.

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You'll see the difference right away with ecotechwindows.ca. Quality and comfort you can trust and afford, ecotechwindows.ca. They came home empty-handed. Trump and Marco went to Alaska, rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, and they came home empty-handed. They came home with some unspecified progress. And so what you have here when you put it all together, when you sum it all up, is you have a murderous dictator that's kidnapping children

that was actively bombing civilian targets in Ukraine last night. Active ongoing assault on Ukrainian civilians, our ally. That was happening last night. All right. He gets greeted in America. Red carpet rolled out for him. Our soldiers prostate before him on their knees. preparing him for his arrival, all for nothing.

All for nothing. Welcome this killer to America to get nothing. No progress, no stop, no slowing, no promising that there is nothing. There's no promise of a, you know, there's some discussion of air, ceasefire, et cetera, et cetera. It is like kind of just pulling up some of our, you know, experts that we rely on this kind of stuff, just making sure you're getting full perspective. I'm interested in this point of view from Michael Weiss, I'm right on the podcast yesterday,

saying you can tell Putin isn't entirely pleased because he talks about the allies throwing a wrench into whatever the Russians expect to happen from this confab. In other words, it's in Europe's play now. Moscow has nothing to fear, but stubs back nine with Trump. So, you know, I think what Michael's trying to say there is that from Putin's perspective, the best case scenario, which was, again, looking at what would have been the worst case scenario for us,

So Trump goes there, gives them something, you know, gives them land, concedes, you know, you can have some Ukrainian land and, you know, in exchange, there'll be a ceasefire, et cetera. That would have been a good scenario for Putin. That didn't happen. And the fact that, and I should have mentioned that during Putin's sort of remarks where he's talking about the root causes of this, he is admonishing, admonishing that as part of this progress, he doesn't want any funny business from Ukraine and Europe. if he doesn't want them throwing a wrench into it. Weiss reads that as like a good sign that Trump wasn't going to totally give in. I think that's possible. I think another way to look at it is I think Putin still thinks if he keeps kicking the can on this,

maybe something will happen in the future. We can blame the lack of ceasefire in Zelensky and get Trump to pull out of this altogether. Because that was the other thing that was hanging over the head of all this, this idea of maybe the U.S. just takes our ball and goes home, stops giving them weapons, etc. That's worst case scenario. You know, that's something Putin's hoping for. So if you're Putin, you're like, well, let's just keep kicking the can on this. I mean, this is a win.

Like, I flew there. I got treated like an equal. I got treated like a dignitary, really. I got complimented. I had flowers thrown at my feet. And an exchange, I bought myself some time. I bought myself some time. And maybe I can convince Trump to get pissed at Zelensky again in the future over some perceived slight,

over some misinformation, over some disinformation. And I think that is very, very possible, you know, given how it goes. I think it's, again, modestly encouraging that Trump did not do that this time, did not just turn on Zelensky, immediately, not just turn on Ukraine, did not do, and he kind of did what he did in Helsinki, which is, once again, he sided with Vladimir Putin when it came to intelligence over the American intelligence system. I know that, like, we're all at this point, that's kind of like a dog bites man's story. It's like obvious that Trump is going to side with Putin over the American intelligence, over the Senate Intelligence Committee report that Marco Rubio was the chairman of.

And it is kind of crazy, I'm 13 minutes into this, and this is when you mentioned that. Like, Trump is just up there standing next to Putin. Marco Rubio is Secretary of State who was there at the meeting, put out a report about how Putin attacked our elections, interfered in our elections, and Trump is up there calling that a hoax. And it's like, okay, well, that's just our president now that we've elected twice. It's really a pretty sad state of affairs. You know, I think those are the main takeaways. Obviously, we're going to have a much more on this. We are going to, let's see, we're going to have,

we'll bring in our folks from Shield. The Republican are other experts to talking this over the weekend and next week. I'll be with you with Bill Kristol on Monday. A couple of other things I'm scanning the news here on the fallout. Reporters have been told that Trump is planning on giving Zelensky a call. Lucky Zelensky. You know, the fate of his country is, negotiated behind his back, and maybe Trump will give him a call on the back end.

Zelensky, this is according to, again, the F.T. F.T. is just doing great reporting on this stuff. I really shout out our friends of the FTA. I mentioned Max said in earlier. Christopher Miller is another guy. I follow very closely, good reporter on this. Miller writes, unclear what exactly has transpired. A person close to Zelensky tells me that he is not yet heard for Trump. and calls the situation very weird. Another said it appears to be, and he writes in Ukrainian, something that roughly translates to a nothing burger in America.

I mean, that's pretty unbelievable. It's truly, truly remarkable that all of this, you know, all of this lead up, nine months, we were going to end this thing on day one, guys. Trump was going to end this thing on day one, because Putin likes him so much. And Putin has just worked him to such a point that Donald can have this big, huge summit in Alaska.

I think he's going to get his Nobel Peace Prize. I think he's going to solve the deal. He can meet with Putin. He can have Putin ride in the beast. He can humiliate our own soldiers. And on the back end of it, all he gets his little pat on the back from Putin and one more round of, well, we'll see how things, this goes in the future. We'll see.

Maybe we'll come up with something in a month or two. meanwhile Ukraine continues to get pillaged it's a truly it's pathetic it's pathetic I guess just to sort of sum up I am you know initially there is a sense of well nothing happened which is like better than anything happening frankly when it comes to this situation and so there's like a sense of relief that it wasn't even more embarrassing but but really when it comes down to it is truly pathetic that Donald Trump is allowing this to go on that like just because he has this black hole in his heart and because he wants Vladimir Putin to love him and he wants to get his Nobel Peace prize he's going to just demonstrate this massive display of weakness and this and just flatter this murderous dictator in exchange for jack squat in exchange for you know what the Zelensky ally tells the ft is a nothing burger so there you go. The folks at Fox are trying to spin

this with you know, this line about how Putin told Trump. Yeah, it's true that the war would never have started if Trump was president. I don't know. Morons will probably buy that, I guess but I don't see how anybody else

will. I should also, this is a good point here from my friend Jamie Weinstein. That's something I hadn't really considered, right? Because it set up the podiums to have a press conference electorates before, like hours ago. So, you know, they're planned to be a press conference. And then they have these joint statements, these very Russian style joint statements with no access to the media and to announce nothing just to let Putin air his grievances and praise Trump. And Jamie points out there should not have been a press conference. That was a reward to Putin for nothing.

I agree with that. That's another point. Like, if you have a press conference, you have a deal. Your press conference, you have something to announce. Your press conference, if you want to pressure Putin more, you did nothing. So why did you even do it? Because he, again, because he wants to keep Putin happy is the answer. He wants to flatter him.

Why, Trump sounds like a dog who just went through the car washing a convertible at the top down. Yeah. That's about right. That is about right. So I don't think I've got much more to stay here. I'm kind of glancing at your comments. Is there anything I missed here? Anything else you guys want me to get to?

We will just sort of looking at your comments here. I appreciate you guys sticking around with me here on Friday night here on in August. And I don't know. I was flashing back to that Zelensky meeting. And where was? Oh, I said, something was happening that day. Oh, it was Mardi Gras. And I was like, ready to go have a good day.

I was ready to go out, ready to party. And then that horrific Zelensky thing happened. Derailed my whole afternoon. And it was just so pathetic and so embarrassing. And I had this, I had this kind of sense of foreboding that today would be like that. And, I mean, it was really shameful, really pathetic. but at some ways it's kind of it's kind of funny to want Trump humiliate himself like this and again get nothing out of it so whatever we got to take your small wins where you can get them

around here everybody go enjoy your Friday night have a glass of rosé on me I appreciate you guys very much thank you Peter for reminding me hit the like hit the subscribe tell your friends and as we learn more as leaks inevitably come out about what was happening in the private session probably from the Russia side first. Usually you see these leaks coming from the Russia side first because they like to try to control the narrative.

So as we learn more, either me or one of our foreign policy experts or me with one of our foreign policy experts will be on over the weekend. So keep an eye on the page. Have a good Friday. We'll see you all soon. Bye.

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