President Donald Trump holds a press availability en route to Alaska for a hopeful peace summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Trump notes the Putin delegation contains a lot of business leaders, and “that’s a good thing.” But first we need to stop the war.
President Trump notes that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes violence is strength; a position that President Trump fundamentally disagrees with. “He thinks it makes him strong, it doesn’t,” Trump said. WATCH:
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the upcoming summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Bessent notes the backseat demands from EU leaders with their position on the Trump negotiation strategy has worn thin amid their hypocrisy. “It’s time to put up or shut up,” Bessent says, when talking about how the EU is still facilitating the economic purchases of Russian energy products, while simultaneously demanding Trump do this and that. WATCH:
I am cautiously optimistic for a positive outcome from this summit.
DETAILS ON THE SUMMIT BELOW
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appears on Fox News morning show to preview one of the most important geopolitical meetings in the last decade.
President Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold a private session together, then later in the day tomorrow appear for a joint press conference. WATCH:
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We will host a designated open thread for live discussion of the Trump-Russia summit in Alaska tomorrow.
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper was always a doofus, sticking his foot in his mouth about all kinds of Intelligence Community stuff. It was his doofusness that led to President Obama keeping him as DNI, while the rest of the IC worked around him (a little funny at the time).
Today, current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified and released the content of an email exchange between then NSA Director Mike Rogers and DNI Clapper about the bogus nature of the rushed December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment, that Obama wanted to help frame the Trump-Russia story.
Adm Mike Rogers is telling James Clapper his NSA team was not comfy with manufacturing and spinning intelligence for a political hit job on the incoming administration. Clapper responds to Rogers telling him to get on board, because this level of IC fabrication requires all key elements to be on the same page. Clapper saying the Russian stuff, “is our story, and we’re sticking to it.”
As noted by Tulsi Gabbard: “Newly declassified Top Secret emails sent on December 22, 2016 complying with President Obama’s order to create the manufactured January 2017 ICA about Russia expose how DNI James Clapper demanded the IC fall in line behind the Russia Hoax. Clapper admits that it was a “team sport” that required “compromise on our ‘normal modalities'”.
I’m trying to present both sides of what I believe to be a political game being run by Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.
In this interview with Chris Cuomo, journalist Matt Taibbi says current FBI/DOJ officials are telling him they are trying to get big indictments against key Russiagate conspirators. It sounds like Taibbi and Solomon have the same “top level” sources within the DOJ and FBI. WATCH:
My suspicion, based on listening to Taibbi’s knowledge of Russiagate, is that he’s being intentionally misled (ie. played) by his sources. John Solomon is almost certainly a direct participant the FBI/DOJ narrative engineering for institutional self-interest; however, I do not think Taibbi is.
Mr. Matt Taibbi seems to be a true believer in what he is being told.
I think many of us really like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He’s not generally a man who pretends things amid the EU coalition. Orban says things clearly, just like Trump.
When Orban notes he will not sign a joint EU statement on the Trump/Putin summit because it “sets conditions for a meeting to which leaders of the EU were not invited,” he certainly hits the proverbial nail.
The hubris amid the EU collective is quite remarkable.
The intellectually honest political watcher knows that overall Ukraine represents the largest international money laundering operation to shift wealth from taxpayers to the politically connected institutions, since COVID-19. The money is the motive to continue the conflict.
With President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin scheduled to meet in Alaska for a summit to negotiate a ceasefire, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz quickly organizes a meeting between EU leaders and the U.K to figure out how the keep the war going.
As the industrial capital of the EU, Germany has a lot at stake given the nature of their contracting economy. The EU military industrial complex is centered around the nation Merz represents. There are trillions at stake.
BERLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump will join European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for an emergency virtual summit on Wednesday.
The call, organized by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, comes ahead of Friday’s summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine.
The ever-dramatic Margaret Brennan is in full pearl-clutching mode as she questions NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, about the upcoming meeting between horrible President Trump and even more horrible President Putin. It is simply unfathomable to allow a U.S. President to create a strategic reset with a Russian President.
As Brennan acts out the role, she highlights how it is unimaginable, terrible, and just a no good bad thing. Horrid.
NATO Secretary Rutte is quite happy with the new funds flowing into the NATO alliance as organized by President Trump. Rutte sits atop a new cache of taxpayer funded treasure for the alliance to organize; from his perspective Trump is gold, and Brennan gnashes her teeth throughout.
Funnily, Brennan attempts to spin a Trump-Putin agreement for a ceasefire with Trump triggering World War III by getting the beginning of a peace deal over the finish line. If Trump creates peace, the world will explode or something. WATCH:
Rutte missed the opportunity to ask Mrs Brennan if she can hear herself. lol
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, who joins us from The Hague in the Netherlands. Welcome back to Face The Nation.
NATO SECRETARY GENERAL MARK RUTTE: Margaret, it’s good to be back on the show. Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning. Well, Mr. Secretary General, big picture here; is Russia’s Vladimir Putin still a direct threat to the Western alliance, or is he showing some signs of dropping his aggression?
According to CBS, President Trump is freezing out the CIA in advance of the meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday. The general auspices are that President Trump has instructed his intelligence team not to discuss the details of the meeting with the 5-eyes countries (U.K, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. CIA); however, the coded message is smartly for the administration to be careful with the CIA.
From this proactive move, we can infer that at least a few people around Trump (Witkoff, Rubio) understand how the USIC will work to throw a wrench in any geopolitical reset. As the former Chair of the SSCI, Rubio holds a great deal of value in negotiating this issue.
The friction point becomes clear when you listen to Ukrainian MP Yehor Cherniev criticize a proposal to exchange Ukrainian territory that is currently occupied by Russian forces. WATCH:
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A very interesting venue choice given the prior Biden administration support for an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. The venue signal from President Trump would be that things are remarkably different.
President Trump announces via Truth Social:
“The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”