REVOLUTION: There was a peaceful happy feeling...

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2025

...when Vladimir stepped off his plane: Is it possible that something good will emerge from the Trump-Witkoff diplomacy?

In theory, everything's possible! That said, it's as we noted in yesterday afternoon's report:

In his new column for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman quotes lengthy statements by Witkoff—lengthy statements about Vladimir Putin—which seem to have come from the twilight zone. Then too, there's what the sitting American president said when he spoke about this matter for twenty-five minutes this past Tuesday morning.

The venue may have been a bit of a problem. The president spoke for twenty-five minutes on the D-minus morning program, Fox & Friends.

He spoke to a trio of C-minus students. Later that same day, Tom Nichols tried to describe what had happened, writing for The Atlantic:

Trump Keeps Defending Russia

This morning, the commander in chief made clear that he does not understand the largest war in Europe, what started it, or why it continues. Worse, insofar as he does understand anything about Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine, he seems to have internalized old pro-Moscow talking points that even the Kremlin doesn’t bother with anymore.

The setting, as it so often is when Trump piles into a car with his thoughts and then goes full Thelma & Louise off a rhetorical cliff, was Fox & Friends. The Fox hosts, although predictably fawning, did their best to keep the president from the ledge, but when Trump pushes the accelerator, everyone goes along for the ride.

The subject, ostensibly, was Trump’s supposed diplomatic triumph at [Monday's] White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders...Trump ran through the usual items: The war was Joe Biden’s fault; the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax”; the war never would have happened if Trump had been president. Unto ages of ages, amen.

But when the hosts asked specifically about making peace, the president of America sounded a lot like the president of Russia.

That's the way Nichols started. He didn't make it sound good. 

On this campus, we had happened to see the last few minutes of the Fox & Friends interview in real time. We read the Nichols piece before we reviewed the full session.

Regarding that 25-minute session, let us say this about that:

You can watch the whole darn thing simply by clicking this. We're forced to say that, when we did, the president's adoption of the Russkie viewpoint sounded even more extreme than what Nichols had said.

Also, the president spoke, once again, of his recent encounters with his current best friend.

In fairness, we aren't Russia policy experts here—but we may know how to step outside the narrowest lanes of understanding when we listen to President Trump. Along the way in his Fox & Friends session, he spoke of his personal interaction with his darling Vladimir in Alaska on Friday last.

He thought back on that personal meeting way up north. When he did, here's what he said:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (8/19/25): [The Russians] had no communication with the White House for years as people died—years, with Biden and his people. No communication! Putin told me—years! It was years when he didn't speak to anyone from the White House. And it was a long time that he didn't speak to anybody from Europe.

No, it's a fractured relationship. And when I came in, I always had, despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which truly was a very dangerous thing for our country, but despite that I maintained a very good relationship. 

I mean, you saw that when he got off his plane, I got off my plane, there’s a warmth there that you can’t—you know, there’s a decent feeling, and it’s a good thing, not a bad thing. 

People will say, "Oh, it's such a terrible thing." It's not a terrible thing.

Borrowing from the Eagles, it was a peaceful happy feeling as the two friends stepped off their planes. Indeed, "There's a warmth there that you can't"—at that point, what did the president leave unsaid?

There's a warmth there that you can't fake or misconstrue? Is that what the president meant?

So said the American president. He said it's not a terrible thing that he and Putin share this peaceful easy feeling—this warmth. Regarding that, we must quickly add this:

The president said it's not a terrible thing. For better or worse, correctly or otherwise, many Russia experts don't believe that it's a "thing" at all!

Rightly or wrongly, many observers believe that Trump is getting played by this former KGB man. There's no way to prove some such assessment—but as he spoke with the trio of friends, Trump also described his phone call with his friend on Monday afternoon Eastern time—the call he made in the course of his meeting with President Zelensky and a phalanx of Euro officials.

At one point, President Trump rang Moscow up. Here's how the phone call went, he now told the three friends at Fox:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think [the European leaders] sort of knew at the end of the meeting I was going to call President Putin. And President Putin expected it and he was there.

Now by the time I called him, it was one o'clock in the morning in Russia. Russia is a big place. You know, they have eleven time zones, I believe. Nine or eleven, but I think it's eleven. 

Think of it—eleven time zones! That's a lot of time zones. So it was late—it was like one o'clock in the morning, but he picked it up very happily. Sure, he works very hard, like we all do. 

And we had a very good call. And I told him that, "We’re going to set up a meeting with President Zelensky, and you and he will meet. And then after that meeting, if everything works out OK, I’ll meet and we’ll wrap it up."

Despite the profusion of time zones (eleven!), Vladimir took the prearranged call. He picked UP the phone very happily, and the two men had a good call.

Speaking with the trio of friends, the president left the impression that he had then told Vladimir what would come next, and that Valdimir had happily acceded to the president's plan. 

Sadly, this is the rest of the story:

Despite the very happy call, the Russkies have now splashed cold water on the plan that President Trump described. They've said that any such meeting with President Zelensky is, at best, a long way off. There is, of course, no way to know if the president's account of the good, happy call was accurate to begin with.

There had been a peaceful happy feeling as Putin stepped off his plane. There was a warmth between these two titans—a warmth you simply can't [fake]. And it was, of course, at Monday's meeting where President Trump took poor Macron aside.

He took him aside and made him listen to this remarkable suggestion:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (8/18/25): I think he wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me. 

Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.

[Addressing the entire room]

Sit down. Sit down, everybody. I think we’ll let the press come in for a minute.

"As crazy as it sounds," the president said, he has the impression that Vladimir Putin wants to make a deal for peace. More specifically, he thinks Putin wants to make a peace deal for him—for President Donald J. Trump!

We can't help thinking that we're hearing a type of delusion floating around inside these strange remarks. We know that we thought we heard the voice of Gretta Conroy when Trump made that last strange comment—when he said he thinks that President Putin wants to make a deal for him.

We thought we heard her speaking about the gentle boy who, she said, had "died for me"—the gentle boy who had died for her when he was just seventeen.

("I can see him so plainly," she said. "Such eyes as he had: big, dark eyes! And such an expression in them.")

At any rate, Putin wants to make a peace deal—and he wants to do it for President Trump! The president was willing to say that it sounds crazy—but we'll guess he really believed what he said when he said those words to Macron.

We've yet to show you what the president said last Friday in the very brief press event at the end of the Anchorage summit. We've yet to revisit what Mary Trump said about her famous uncle's profusion of "psychopathologies" in her best-selling book, Too Much and Never Enough. 

We've yet to revisit what she said about the way her famous uncle came to be the way he is. Even as late as 2020, she was still able to pity the child, even as she voiced her great fears about the adult.

We have only one day left this week. (Saturday has already been slotted to belong to Joy Reid.)

That said, were we right in what we thought we heard when President Trump spoke to Macron? Were we hearing some sort of delusion being given voice by the world's most powerful man? 

Also this:

In these deeply challenging times, will the withered voices of Blue America ever agree to consider such points? A withered discourse helped bring us here. Will we ever improve our game?

Tomorrow: As spoken way up north