REVOLUTION: It didn't seem good, Fox viewers were told!

MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 

Then, Kellyanne Conway stepped in: First impressions are frequently imperfect, incomplete or just basically wrong.

That said, first impressions last Friday weren't especially good, not even at the Fox News Channel.

Putin had spoken for almost nine minutes. After that, President Trump had then stumbled through a formless three minutes. In fairness, he did manage to cite the "Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" for perhaps the ten millionth time.  

That said:

To our own (imperfect) eye and ear, President Trump's brief remarks were characterized by the way he clung to an illusion—to the illusion of what we'd call his "desperation friendship" with the man he kept calling "Vladimir." He first-named Putin three separate times in the course of his three-minute statement. We were struck by the extent to which he seems to want to believe. 

(As a point of comparison, see the YouTube entry, "Dr. Strangelove: Hello, Dimitri" from the 1964 film. For a longer excerpt, complete with a bit of a MAHA vibe, you can just click this.)

So it had gone, up in Alaska, after The Subarctic Summit. On Fox, Brian Kilmeade was guest hosting for Laura Ingrahm, and when he threw to Jacqui Heinrich, a plainly dispirited Heinrich started with this:

KILMEADE (8/15/25): Jacqui, I was surprised no questions. I was surprised no details on what progress was made.

HEINRICH: I think you and me both, Brian. And everyone else in this room was also surprised.

You know, we were told that we were going to have an opportunity to put questions to both leaders after a joint press conference in the event that the meeting went well enough that they could set the stage for a second meeting. And President Trump said, if that didn’t happen, he was likely to call off the joint presser and just address the media solo and then send Putin home. 

Neither of those things happened. And what was really stunning to me, as someone who has been in a lot of these press conferences, was a few things that were very unusual. 

For videotape of this full exchange, you can just click here.

To her credit, Heinrich is part of the Fox News Channel's news division. As a general matter, she isn't one of the stooges the channel drags out, at all hours of the day and night, to rattle its messaging points in robotic succession.

At this point, Heinrich's response to Kilmeade was just getting started. Just for the record, President Trump was never going to "call off the joint presser and just address the media solo and then send Putin home." 

That was never going to happen. That was simply the bluster in which this challenged man tends to engage until he has "Vladimir" standing right there before him.

As Heinrich started, she wasn't making the day's events sound especially good. But as her response to Kilmeade continued, her portrait of the presser rapidly rolled downhill.

Remember—this is the way his event was being portrayed on the Fox News Channel. This was the very first picture of the event that channel's viewers received:

HEINRICH (continuing directly): You had Putin come out and address the press first, and we are on U.S. soil here. And that left the media scrambling to get their headsets in. Usually, it is the leader of the country—the host country of a summit—that speaks first and addresses the room in their language. 

But Putin started right off, in Russian, and we all had to get our headsets on and listen to him rattle off this diatribe about the history of the U.S.-Russia relationship...

But also, without knowing the full background of it, there was something he said that was a little alarming, I thought, that seems like some of the things that he has said in the past—setting up false flags and that kind of thing, saying that we hope that Ukraine doesn't do anything to sabotage the progress that we have made today, knowing full well that Ukraine has agreed to a ceasefire, unconditionally, for the last several months, and it has been Russia that has not agreed to a ceasefire. 

That was President Trump's main objective today, and when we did hear from the president, he said we didn't get there, but we think that we can.

President Trump didn't achieve his main objective, Fox News Channel viewers were told. That, of course, was simply one person's instant assessment, but Heinrich was painting a gloomy picture in which Putin had seized control of the press event and had perhaps shoved Trump to the side.

That was one correspondent's instant assessment. But as she continued, her portrait of the event just kept getting worse:

HEINRICH (continuing directly): So a lot of questions remaining for the president, Trump—not just about what was discussed in that room and what might be happening now, but also how that all happened back there [gesturing toward the stage].

It was just very unusual, atypical, and I think we're all awaiting the read-out, because the way it felt in the room was not good. It did not seem like things went well, and it seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled—got right into what he wanted to say and got his photo next to the president and then left. 

Of course, that is only the piece of the picture that we have right now, and certainly President Trump, who is the host and who is the president, would not want to, I think, enable something that would make him look weak. But we are eagerly awaiting to hear the background on that.

"It did not seem like things went well," Heinrich said. "It seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled." she said. Most horribly, she even said this:

In her estimation, President Trump "would not want to enable something that would make him look weak!"

As Heinrich finished, she strained for a slightly hopeful sign—she said she hadn't seen "any scowls on the faces of the likes of Steve Witkoff or Secretary Rubio or any of the other members of the U.S. delegation." 

She hadn't seen any scowls. But she painted a very gloomy portrait of what seemed to have happened in the presser:

"The way it felt in the room was not good," she said. She even suggested that "Vladimir" may have made President Trump seem weak.

That was one correspondent's instant assessment. First impressions of this type will often turn out to be incomplete, inaccurate, wrong.

That said, that was the assessment offered to viewers of the Fox News Channel! It fell to Kilmeade to make his way out of the hole into which he had now been thrown.

This being the Fox News Channel, help was on the way. After a less scathing but unenthusiastic assessment by Mike Pompeo, out came a trio of messaging agents who seemed to know what Fox News Channel pundits are expected to say.

Heinrich concluded her assessment at 7:13 p.m. Eastern. Nine minutes later, out came this trio of messengers:

Kilmeade's trio of guests:
Kellyanne Conway: Fox News contributor
Jason Chaffetz: Fox News contributor
Charlie Hurt: co-host, Fox & Friends Weekend

Out the messaging agents came—and they quickly set things right. You can watch the tape of their segment by clicking here. You'll find that the videotape appears at the Fox website under this dual headline:

Kellyanne Conway: 'Everything came up Trump and the US today'
A panel featuring Kellyanne Conway, Jason Chaffetz, and Charlie Hurt reacts to the Trump-Putin summit as well as the press conference.

Everything had come up Trump! Inevitably, that's what the trio said.

Kilmeade threw to Conway first. In addition to the statement quoted above, the event had been "a huge win for our president," she said.

With that, it came time for Chaffetz to speak. According to Chaffetz, the event had been "a huge win for President Trump, for the United States."

Hurt was possibly not quite so sure, but he proceeded with valor. He said he was impressed by the way President Trump had delivered his three minutes of remarks "off the cuff. He had no notes."

"Trump was talking almost like the wheels were still churning," Hurt said—and Kilmeade jumped in to agree. So it went, on the Fox News Channel, in the immediate aftermath of Friday's semi-summit.

Last week, we focused on the idea that an undeclared revolution is underway here within the American nation. This week, we'll focus on some of the different cadres found within that revolutionary brigade.

Plainly, the revolution is driven from the top. Rightly or wrongly, wisely or otherwise, the Fox News Channel maintains a large brigade which helps maintain the revolution's self-assurance.

Today, Zelensky may appear in the Oval Office again. Once again, a snarling beast may sit by the side of the American president.

Will he attack Zelensky again? Just as it ever was, so too here in this flailing nation:

For better or worse, times of revolution have always called for revolutionary zeal.

Tomorrow:  Several different brigades