Well, the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, not involving Zelenskyy, about trying to resolve the war was, to the surprise of absolutely no one, a waste of time and money with no deal reached.g I could've predicted that about a week ago but somehow the media were hyping this up as really significant...

Maybe a failed distraction tactic with the Epstein files, but given how quickly he thought he could end this war, he is really failing.

Distraction for sure. The media is in his pocket and will hype whatever this fsiled conman does.

It was an own goal, as Russia and Putin have bern prrsding claims on Alaska again lol. Trump id too weak to say anything, but reportedly has promised him resources off the Alaskan idlands...

Putin wins, don't know how Trump or the US can claim any different though. Trump loves a photo opportunity with a tinpot dictator, but he's got himself in knots on this one. He flip flops so much. And I suspect the whole summit was more about future Russia-US relations rather than ending the war.

Putin, being a smart political operator, saw this as a chance to talk about Russian territorial integrity (keeping the parts of Ukraine he's illegally seized) on a piece of land that used to be Russian territory and get some nice photo opportunities for back home. Trump probably tried to negotiate Putin down to peace but failed, possibly in part because the only peace Putin will agree to, Ukrainian land being given over to the Russians, would be immediately nixed by the coalition of the willing.

Can't be the 'peace president' when you try and fail to make peace.

And as ever, actually watch his news conferences. Man is sundowning hard.

It is approaching criminal negligence on the part of the media, who allegedly operate in a democracy, that they are not questioning Trump's LITERAL BASIC COMPETENCY to appear like a statesman representing the world's largest economy. Rambling on about the Russia hoax and of course playing nice with the world's premier dictator, you have never had an American president more unfit for office. Including Buchanan, A Johnson, Nixon etc. Deranged old fascist.

Have to admit I didn’t have a laugh when Sergei Lavrov turned up in his USSR top!

There is just no urgency from the Russians to come to any solution. Everything is so slow and drawn out. 6 months ago these two meeting would have been a huge deal but nobody really believed they’d come to an agreement now. It’s still very much a lose/lose/lose situation for everybody affected and for some reason the Russians don’t seem bothered by that.

21 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

There is just no urgency from the Russians to come to any solution. Everything is so slow and drawn out. 6 months ago these two meeting would have been a huge deal but nobody really believed they’d come to an agreement now. It’s still very much a lose/lose/lose situation for everybody affected and for some reason the Russians don’t seem bothered by that.

For Russia it's about soft power imo, that can surely be the only reason. I listened to a few commentators talking about some of the wording Putin was using and it backs up with what I've been feeling for a while, I think a lot of this is about Russia's longer term ambitions and putting a stop to Europe being able to stop them. I'm expecting Putin to still bring up the NATO membership with Ukraine as a red line for any ceasefire.

1 hour ago, Liam Sota said:

There is just no urgency from the Russians to come to any solution. Everything is so slow and drawn out. 6 months ago these two meeting would have been a huge deal but nobody really believed they’d come to an agreement now. It’s still very much a lose/lose/lose situation for everybody affected and for some reason the Russians don’t seem bothered by that.

The realpolitik (obviously) doesn't benefit the US at all but Trump-Putin is a values-based alignment.

You get the feeling that Trump thought he would get something from Putin at the meeting and he said no by the presser at the end. It was all a bit weird. And trump is too big headed to admit he was dupped (again)!

Russia know they can just keep the war going for as long as they need like Chechnya.

Hell some people on social media were saying it wasn’t even Putin there it was a double 🤣

On 16/08/2025 at 21:23, Steve201 said:

Hell some people on social media were saying it wasn’t even Putin there it was a double 🤣

I wouldn't be surprised at that as he's afraid of being assassinated abroad.

Trump's now proposing he meets Zelensky within the next fortnight in Switzerland.

Or Hungary, that would be political theatre all right!

Two rather alarming news items today:

1) Trump forgot the name of the Pacific ocean and struggled to even define what an ocean was

2) The White House is now selling 'Trump 2028' hats and merchandise

But sure, 'its just a joke' that he might try to run for a third term...

Other alarming news is he has "taken advice from Putin" on elections ans ia now trying to override states' rights and remove postal votes. This os what the right wing in this country was screaming about, too, hence having to renew postage votes every three years now. No surprise they were all following Putin's orders. He also went off it at voting machines. Again, the data from the last election and his and Elon's comments on the machines are VERY VERY, UNPRECEDENTLY SUS!! No surprise he wants those gone now too.

23 hours ago, J00prstar said:

Two rather alarming news items today:

1) Trump forgot the name of the Pacific ocean and struggled to even define what an ocean was

2) The White House is now selling 'Trump 2028' hats and merchandise

But sure, 'its just a joke' that he might try to run for a third term...

He has said he won’t on record not that that means anything!

Also, he regularly forgets the name of the Gulf of Mexico

The appeals court threw out the 500 billion fine for ‘over inflating’ the price of properties to get loans.

CNBC

Trump half-billion-dollar civil fraud penalty thrown out...

The fraud lawsuit against President Donald Trump and others, which led to the penalty, was filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

Was a ridiculous nonsense case and insane fine which probably helped trump seem like a victim of a witch hunt at the time. I completely forgot about it until today but unsurprisingly the appeal court threw it out completely.

On 19/08/2025 at 23:33, J00prstar said:

2) The White House is now selling 'Trump 2028' hats and merchandise

But sure, 'its just a joke' that he might try to run for a third term...

Maybe they're thinking of his son? 🤔

Edited August 21Aug 21 by CRAZY CHRIS

What’s going on with Trump then? We getting an announcement today on his health issues do you reckon?

The maneuvering around it certainly looks like health issue, this is a man who loves having the press reporting on everything he does suddenly gone media-shy for a week or more.

What the announcement will be, not getting my hopes up for it to be anything positive (for the world), but certainly interesting.