Most punditry avoid noticing that President Trump’s Emissary Steve Witkoff stands alone as he communicates directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those same pundits seemingly skip over the dynamic where the Russian government, led by Federation President Putin, permit television cameras to open these talks to the public for viewing.

These two points are remarkable by themselves when you take the history of the relationship between Russia and the United States into context. After all, trust has always been the missing element in both directions. However, the brutal and pragmatic honesty presented by President Donald Trump has created a new map within engagement.

Do not discount how angry the system within Washington DC is about President Trump using executive emissaries, that are outside their control. Never underestimate the professional level of hatred carried by DC politicians toward President Trump on this issue alone.  They despise his outmaneuvering.

When Mr. Witkoff is received by Russia, the statue of Witkoff as a person is framed around the respect that Russian leadership have for who Witkoff represents. He stands alone in the room but carries the weight of President Trump in all measures as reviewed by the Russian delegation. Quite remarkable.

Vladimir Putin held a meeting with US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Constantine Palace. On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov and Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev. Video and Transcript Below:

[Transcript] –President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Witkoff, we are delighted to see you – this time in St Petersburg.

We know that yesterday you had a meeting in Norway, and I would like to hear about its outcome.

I would like to thank you and President Trump for your attention to the resolution of the Ukraine crisis. I know that it is a special matter for President Trump, primarily for humanitarian reasons. In our conversations, including our most recent conversation over the phone, he emphasised the importance of ending this conflict to prevent further losses among the personnel on both sides.

Of course, it goes beyond military losses. The civilian population is suffering. In this regard, please pass my most sincere gratitude not only to the President but also to First Lady [Melania Trump] for her contribution to resolving humanitarian issues.

I believe both sides would be interested in discussing plans for restoring our bilateral relations, the Russia-US contacts, including economic cooperation.

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Following remarks outlining successful results from the Federal Fraud Taskforce initiative, President Trump took questions from the assembled press pool.  WATCH: 

President Trump noted the federal government savings from fraud prevention will help stop the spending deficit within the federal budget. The scale of fraud is substantial and efforts to prosecute those who take advantage of federal subsidy programs is having a great deal of success.

President Trump also answered questions about Ukraine, Russia, NATO, European mass migration from third-world countries, the riots in France and more.

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This is a very interesting public presser from Ukraine President Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and a subdued Finnish President Alexander Stubb.  This press event follows President Trump Emissary Steve Witkoff meeting with Zelenskyy, Stoere and Stubb.

Steve Witkoff leaves Norway and is going to St Petersburg to meet with Russian Federation Vladimir Putin tomorrow.

When asked why Witkoff was not present {10:00}, the host PM Jonas Stoere says, “this is a press conference among political leaders,” and then quickly moves on.  Both Stoere and Stubb are very subdued from their prior public statements that put themselves in opposition to the U.S. Trump administration and now suddenly reverse and say it is important for them to remain engaged with the USA effort and for all EU nations to support discussions with Russia.

Following Stubb {@13:00} Zelenskyy notes that Witkoff traveling to meet with Putin tomorrow is very important, and he is very happy that “early warning systems” are working and “it’s great.”  Zelenskyy repeated referenced the call with Secretary Marco Rubio in outlining a shift in tone that is suddenly very appreciative of the USA support.  A very curious shift.  WATCH:

As previously noted, there is an early plan for China (Xi), Russia (Putin) and the USA (Trump) to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit next month in China.  Little man Zelenskyy clarifies his prior comments about a trilateral meeting by saying that his comments were directed to a possible U.S, Russia, Ukraine trilateral meeting and not the APEC sideline.

At 16:00 Peter Baker (NYT) obviously notes the tone change visible in this presser and asks about what is going on?  Baker was taken aback when Zelenskyy, Stubb and Stoere affirm the positive and constructive meeting with Steve Witkoff, and “there is nothing to gain” by looking at things said yesterday, said Stoere.

Finland President Stubb joins with very complimentary statements of Steve Witkoff affirming his belief this meeting has clarified a lot of issues that now lead toward peace.   “Today was a big success” Stubb emphasized as the press conference concludes.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio answers questions from media while visiting India.  The major focus of the questions to Rubio surrounded Ukraine and the conflicting stories from Zelenskyy.

Secretary Rubio noted he had just completed a 45-minute phone call with Zelenskyy where Rubio talked to the Ukraine President about his continued promotion of false reports to media about U.S. support and assistance.  As noted, Rubio emphasized nothing substantive has changed in the U.S. support profile with Ukraine and President Trump has not modified any security arrangement at all.  Zelenskyy is just making stuff up.

Rubio noted that Ukraine is targeting U.S. commercial shipping in the Black Sea and that has to stop. That was part of the phone call.  Additionally, Rubio emphasized how Ukraine officials are just “making stuff up” for some reason, that can best be considered a Ukraine political operation against the Trump White House.  WATCH:

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Many Americans wonder why Ukraine is a central issue in the USA midterm election.  To those voices I would remind them that all aligned individuals and organizations who support the premise of Ukraine are core adversaries to the America-First doctrine.  At the end of every anti-Trump voice, is an alignment with Ukraine. At this point it’s impossible to ignore. Once you see it you can never unsee it.

There is a very specific way that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly describes contacts with the U.S. administration when he is unable to manipulate the narrative within the conversation. What follows below is an example of that.

Note the difference in Zelenskyy’s tone.

[SOURCE]

The reality of dealing with a person skilled in diplomatic clarity (Rubio) is unnerving to those who are skilled at diplomatic political theater (Zelenskyy); their tone retreats, because the conversation is no longer swirling around pretense.

Zelenskyy, feeling empowered due to the anti-Trump elements that support him, speaks in a passive-aggressive tone and a disrespectful manner when generally talking about the Trump administration.

Zelenskyy’s prism is very narrow, self-centered, combative and bitter when he anticipates not getting his demands met. The most common reference for this expressed mindset is a teenage daughter who wants something indulgent, but her Mom/Dad is not willing to give in to the demands and expectations.  The daughter’s sympathetic friends are codependent enablers.

In the latest development, Zelenskyy is traveling to Oslo, Norway, where he will be surrounded by his codependents as he meets yet again with President Trump’s Emissary Steve Witkoff.  Why Norway? Why does Zelenskyy need to be surrounded by EU enablers when discussing terms and conditions?  The media always pretends not to notice this pattern.

In Norway Zelenskyy will be supported by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb.  I would remind readers that it was Norwegian PM Stoere who previously claimed Russia had attacked Zelenskyy’s airplane in Moldova with a drone strike – that nonsense was entirely made up yet spread by EU media quickly.

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Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent appears on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the current status of the economy and ongoing geopolitical events.  Within the interview [Video and Transcript Below] Secretary Bessent notes that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is coordinating closely with both British King Charles and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, needs to be very careful about the malicious lies he is speaking to U.S. audiences. WATCH: 

[Transcript] – KRISTEN WELKER: Welcome back. Joining me now is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Secretary Bessent, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, good to be with you.

KRISTEN WELKER: It’s great to have you back. Let’s start on inflation, these new inflation numbers we got this week. Consumer prices rose in September at the fastest pace in five months, to 3.7%. Are the president’s policies driving up inflation?

SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, we have an energy shock. And if you look underneath the hood in the numbers, core inflation has been very flat before this month, and it’d been down for four months in a row. So core inflation is down. The food is below the Fed’s targets. The prescription drugs have had the biggest decrease in history. Rents are down. So this is an energy shock. We will get to the other side of the Iran conflict, and those prices will come down.

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The New York Times {SEE HERE} is leading a charge of multiple U.S. media outlets to rage-bait Americans on the issue of President Trump exempting Russia from a new sanctions regime.

Let me start with a positive.  Despite the massive amount of years-long gaslighting, lying and narrative engineering by the overwhelming majority of American media and political punditry, the majority of Americans don’t want U.S. sanctions against Russia [37% vs 54%].  Why?  Because most Americans have a keen sense of manipulation.

This is one of the reasons why I believe the current effort to create an impeachment narrative against President Trump, again using the Ukraine conflict as the source material, will fail.  Yes, the majority of elected politicians support Ukraine and oppose Russia, but the majority of the American people don’t align with the politicians.

More than a week ago we noted the Trump decision to enter a diesel sales agreement with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin was very predictable.  Even when President Trump signed HR5334 the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions bill, we noted how it was written to the benefit of President Trump by Lindsey Graham himself. {GO DEEP}

Indeed, with Europe purchasing Russian energy from Vladimir Putin, one of the great ironies within the latest Russian sanctions bill was the requirement and authorization to tariff Europe at a 500% rate for violating the sanctions bill.  Yes, that is correct, inside this bill congress authorized President Trump to massively raise tariffs on Europe or anyone else who was purchasing Russian energy products.

As a consequence, if President Trump doesn’t take an action to pause or exempt Russia from these latest sanctions regime, then he will end up hitting almost all the NATO allies with 500% tariffs.  However, the media don’t want to draw attention to that aspect as it doesn’t fit their narrative {NYT ARTICLE HERE}.

It did not come as a surprise to me to see President Trump sign an executive order to “waive the application of any sanctions provision” [Executive order here].  Lindsey Graham knew the bottom-line goal of President Trump was to stop the killing, stop the fighting between Ukraine and Russia, and Graham himself created the ability of waivers in the sanction regime specifically so that Trump would have maximum flexibility in providing economic carrots to Russia.

The waiver option is in HR5334 specifically so that President Trump can use it…. And so, he did, DUH!  And Lindsey Graham knew he would. And the media are going bananas.

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Perhaps this is the source of the problem.  Elon Musk has repeatedly said that Starlink systems are not permitted to be used for military operations; the Starlink system is a commercial communication system that carries terms of service that do not permit use as a weapon.

The Starshield system (not Starlink) is the government military system created by Musk and is utilized for military purposes as controlled by the U.S. government.  Starshield is not a commercial system and the authorization for use is through the government.

Zelenskyy is now claiming he uses Starlink for military attacks, a violation of the terms of service, but claims he only uses them inside Ukraine territory.

Zelenskyy – “We don’t use Starlink for our responses inside Russia. We use Starlink to intercept jet-powered “shaheds” that attack our civilians and kill families.

Starlink wasn’t turned off – its speed was reduced. And when the speed was reduced, we were unable to intercept a certain number of jet-powered “shaheds.” We couldn’t use a tool that helps protect people. That’s very painful and frustrating.

We also use Starlink for mid-range strikes against enemy military targets in our temporarily occupied territories. We couldn’t do that when the restrictions were in place. And third, what matters most is people. Our warriors, who spend weeks and months on the front line, receive food and water delivered by drones using Starlink.

Has the speed been fully restored to what it was before? No. Is it being restored now? Yes.” {SOURCE}

VIDEO BELOW:

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President Trump gave an extensive interview to Newsmax on the topic of Iran and Ukraine, expanding on how difficult it is to deal with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. WATCH:

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The AP is reporting that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has restarted drone attacks against Russian oil refineries despite the request by President Trump to halt targeting energy infrastructure.  There are a lot of aspects within this dynamic.

♦ First, keep in mind that any attacks against Russian infrastructure should always be evaluated against the capability of Russia to effectively mitigate such attacks.  Russia is an analog infrastructure in a digital world, and one of the benefits to their system is the rapid repair capability in the old-school systems.

This may seem like a small detail, however, as noted in the prior attacks against almost all Russian infrastructure, Russia continued energy operations and exports of diesel fuel despite Ukraine targeting. Russia is remarkably resilient and they build out their capabilities with redundancies no longer used in most of the western industrial systems.

Due to their analog systems Russia may be less efficient in maximizing productivity; but what they lose in industrial productivity becomes an actual asset when shifting between internal systems becomes a matter of physically opening and closing valves to shift from damaged to operational stations. Russia’s slow adaption of technological innovation factually becomes a strategic advantage in this type of kinetic war.

♦ Second, it is worth remembering that oil refining capacity has been curtailed by the “climate change advocates” who now assemble to support Zelenskyy.  The nations now aligned against the interests of Russia are yet dependent on the dirty industrial carbon energy resources provided by Russia and other oil exporting countries.

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