The Dictatorship
Team Trump lowered expectations before the Putin summit. Now we may know why.
Last week, the White House blew past its own deadline of imposing sanctions on Russia for continuing its three-year invasion of Ukraine, and then, in a misguided effort to clean up that mistake, President Donald Trump gifted Russian President Vladimir Putin a one-on-one meeting in Alaska. It was impossible to make sense of what Trump expected to gain by doing so. It’s not even clear what Trump wants, other than a Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump said he and Putin had decided not to try for a ceasefire at all, “which often times do not hold up.”
It’s even less apparent now what Trump wanted and expected. But after Trump and Putin met for more than two hours Friday, and then praised each other to the media for about 12 minutes, it was clear that Trump, in his rush to meet with Putin, not only risked whatever was left of his image as a dealmaker-in-chief, but he also may have damaged the United States’ image as a global champion for democracy.
Did the meeting bring us any closer to a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine? Trump said the two countries “haven’t quite gotten there” but “made some headway” and then landed on the tried-and-true holding statement that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
He said, “I will call up NATO in a little while. I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate. And I’ll, of course, call up President Zelenskyy and tell him about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them.”
Then, early on Saturday, a few more details were released. Trump said he and Putin had decided not to try for a ceasefire at all, “which often times do not hold up,” but instead work directly on a peace agreement. Zelenskyy confirmed he would visit Trump in Washington to discuss that possibility on Monday. But the end result of Friday’s meeting remains unchanged.
Notably, before the summit, Trump had upset Zelenskyy and Europe when he said, with no input from Ukraine, that in a ceasefire deal “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.” Russia elaborated that it anticipated getting control of all of eastern Ukraine. At the same time, the Trump team planned to move ahead with revoking the legal statuses of more than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees living in the United States.
While even anodyne meetings between friendly heads of state are typically highly choreographed, with goals and discussion boundaries outlined well in advance by other officials, Trump’s freewheeling style and misplaced confidence that he has a personal relationship with Putin, a former KGB officer, created an unnecessary level of unpredictability to the proceedings in the days leading up to the so-called “Pursuing Peace” event.
“If you roll into the meeting not prepped, you can get jammed by Putin,” Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration, said last week. “Summits are to achieve an objective that advances American national interests. They’re the means to end, and I sometimes feel that Trump feels the meeting is an end in itself.”
Trump’s misplaced confidence that he has a personal relationship with Putin, a former KGB officer, created an unnecessary level of unpredictability to the proceedings.
When it appeared that Trump was going to walk into that meeting with Putin and offer him part of Ukraine on a platter, other countries took up the pro-democracy mantle the U.S. had dropped. The European Union objected to the concept of appeasing invaders who ignore national boundaries, an experience Europeans are keen to avoid after the infamous 1938 meeting that preceded World War II. Also, after a virtual meeting with Trump and other leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron affirmed that “the territorial issue relating to Ukraine cannot and will not be negotiated by anyone but the Ukrainian president.” But Macron maintained that something needed to come out of this meeting, such as a ceasefire and a return of kidnapped Ukrainian children.
The pressure on Trump to actually consider the details and impacts of his statements worked — at least to a degree. The White House dramatically lowered the expectations that any ceasefire or peace settlement would be reached by referring to the summit as “a listening session,” during which Trump would simply tell Putin, “You’ve got to end this war.” Shortly before the meeting began, Trump also stated he is “open to the possibility of security guarantees” for Ukraine, though how that can be managed without membership in NATO — the multinational entity holding the line against Russian aggression — remains to be seen.
At the beginning of the meeting, there was a palpable sigh of relief from European allies as the real-time decision was made for Trump and Putin to meet alongside their senior diplomats. This at least guaranteed that there’d be some level of note-taking, that American officials would have basic insight into the discussions and that the world would not be left to rely solely on the Russian spin of the events. The idea of Trump meeting Putin without those parameters in place wouldn’t have been a worry if Trump hadn’t had secret meetings with Putin in the past where no one else knows what really happened.
But Russia clearly felt like it could flex its muscle even heading into this meeting. The Russian foreign minister arrived in the U.S. wearing a CCCP sweatshirt, something he has not done before. Russian officials began telling media outlets they anticipated getting mineral rights in Alaska.
While the Russian energy sector and economy is suffering, the truth is Putin didn’t need anything more than a photo of him on the same military base the U.S. once used to counter the Soviets. Trump legitimized Putin as the leader of a superpower that must be dealt with directly and not a rogue state kicked out of the G8. Trump completely ignored U.S. sanctions and the international arrest warrant for Putin, essentially siding with Putin against the democratic world order. He again illustrated how potentially easy it is for him to be manipulated into playing second fiddle to Putin’s imperial ambitions, gaining nothing for himself or the U.S. in return.
The Russian foreign minister arrived in the U.S. wearing a CCCP sweatshirt.
After 20 minutes of speaking in Russian to the mostly American media, Putin, who speaks English well enough, closed out his time in Alaska by saying: “Next time, in Moscow.”
Trump said Putin’s remark would get him “a little heat,” but that he “could see it possibly happening.”
Putin naming Moscow as the site of a follow-up meeting is another way way of proclaiming that Russia is back in the great power game.
Thanks to the president who wants us to believe he’s the world’s best negotiator and maker of deals.
Nayyera Haq is an assistant dean at Syracuse Maxwell School of Public Affairs. She previously served as a senior director focusing on national security and economic policy at the White House, a senior adviser at the State Department and spokesperson at the U.S. Treasury, where she advised the country’s top leaders. She hosts conversations on SiriusXM talk radio and was an evening news anchor and chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Black News Channel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is placing economic sanctions on a major China-based oil refinery and roughly 40 shipping companies and tankers involved in transporting Iranian oil.
The move, announced Friday and first reported by The Associated Press, makes good on Trump’s threat to impose secondary sanctions on companies and countries that do business with Iran. It’s also part of his Republican administration’s overall ramped-up campaign to cut off Iran’s key source of revenue — its oil exports.
Concurrently, the U.S. this month imposed a physical blockade on the Strait of Hormuzthe Persian Gulf waterway that is crucial to global energy supplies.
The sanctions, which cut off the companies from the U.S. financial system and penalize anyone who does business with them, come just a few weeks before President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping are due to meet in China.
Included in Friday’s sanctions is Hengli Petrochemical’s facility in the port city of Dalian, which has a processing capacity of roughly 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it one of the biggest independent refineries in China.
The Treasury Department says Hengli has received Iranian crude oil shipments since 2023 and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Iranian military.
The advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran said in February 2025 that Hengli is one of dozens of Chinese purchasers of Iranian oil.
China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, importing 80% to 90% of Iranian oil before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran broke out, though the crude — transported by a shadow fleet of vessels — often has its origin obscured but arrives in China as oil from countries such as Malaysia. Smaller refineries, known as teapot refineries, typically are the buyers of Iranian oil.
Iran has previously said that its demands for ending the war include the lifting of sanctions.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that his agency “will continue to constrict the network of vessels, intermediaries and buyers Iran relies on to move its oil to global markets.”
Earlier this month, Bessent’s department sent a letter to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman threatening to levy secondary sanctions for doing business with Iran and accusing those countries of allowing Iranian illicit activities to flow through their financial institutions.
Bessent said during a White House press briefing on April 15 that the administration has told countries “that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure.”
The sanctions come as the global energy trade is in turmoil as war around the Persian Gulf chokes off oil and natural gas shipments, causing prices to soar.
Treasury has tried to quell the impact of rising oil prices issuing temporary sanctions waivers on Russia oil and a one-time waiver on Iranian oil already at sea.
The AP was making efforts to contact Chinese officials for comment on the sanctions.
China has disagreed with previous U.S. sanctions, but its major companies and banks still comply with U.S. sanctions because they are more exposed to the U.S.-dominated financial system.
After the U.S. earlier this month sanctioned a Chinese refinery accused of buying Iranian oil, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, said the use of the sanctions “undermines international trade order and rules, disrupts normal economic and trade exchanges, and infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and individuals.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin on Saturday defended his decision not to release a full autopsy of the party’s 2024 election losssaying it would “allow people to point fingers, place blame” instead of focusing on this year’s midterm elections.
Speaking to MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” Martin argued that “re-litigating” the 2024 presidential election would distract Democrats from their goal of winning the midterms in November and the 2028 presidential race.
He said Democrats are planning for what they expect to be an “unprecedented assault on our elections” from President Donald Trump, who has already signaled his intention to have federal officials “take over” the elections.
The party’s focus, Martin said, should be on protecting free and fair elections and defeating Republicans and Trump, rather than “engaging in a back and forth” over where it went wrong in 2024.
After then-Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump, the DNC ordered a review of where the party fell short. But 10 months later, Martin said the committee would not release the full 2024 autopsya decision that has prompted still-grieving Democrats — including potential 2028 candidates — to prescribe their own solutions to winning over voters.
Martin has repeatedly said that releasing the full report would distract Democrats from taking on Trump. But a growing number of DNC members, Democratic leaders and elected officials are urging him make those findings public, NBC News reported last week.
Martin said Saturday that he wants to keep the party’s focus on “the top lines” and that a 200-page report “allows people to sort of engage in navel-gazing.” He said it would not be helpful for people to harp on “what ifs” over the last election when “none of us have a time machine.”
“I’m not here to protect anyone, right? What I’m here to do is win elections,” he said, adding, “What we’re focusing on right now is the future, not the past.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
The Dictatorship
Trump is preparing White House Correspondents’ Dinner jokes — while the real comedians stay home
Breaking with decades of tradition, the White House Correspondents’ Association will not feature a comedian at its annual gala this Saturday night. Instead, “the world’s most celebrated mentalist,” Oz Pearlmanwill entertain the throngs of journos, politicos, corporate overlords and Beltway influencers at the Washington, D.C. Hilton.
Among those luminaries will be President Donald J. Trump who, in his capacity as president, has previously boycotted the event. This time around he’ll deliver an address. The president seems to be feeling confident about his performance, as evidenced by this social media post:
In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!
According to his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, he’s even been working with joke writers to prepare for the occasion.
Last year the WHCA disinvited Amber Ruffin. Many felt the association was caving to pressure from MAGA world.
All of which raises three interrelated questions. First, as the New York Times wonderedwhat could possibly go wrong? Second, will Trump dump on the countless media figures in attendance whom he has already disparaged, threatened, and even sued? And third, why is it that Trump can crack jokes about everything from the pope to unloading sludge on No Kings protestors, but won’t stand for a little comedic ribbing himself?
As for the mentalist, maybe he’ll ask the WHCA’s members to think of a number — like the number of cowardly decisions they’ve made in Trump’s second term. The non-profit, which describes its mission as helping “to facilitate robust coverage of the presidency,” has already sacked a comedian; last year the WHCA disinvited Amber Ruffin. Many felt the association was caving to pressure from MAGA world.
Ruffin certainly thought so. In 2025, she claimed that her dismissal was due to “talking s—” about Trump. “I think it’s a good thing that I lost the gig,” she added, “because I was going to show up there and act all the way out.”
The same strategy of appeasement appears to be in play this year, which would account for the unusual choice of a mentalist as host. The press organization, presumably under pressure from the same White House it’s supposed to cover, has thus gone beyond merely cancelling a comedian — no, this feels like a move to cancel comedy itself at its signature event.
There are a number of important things that happen during the event, including bestowing awards and scholarships to members of the media. And I don’t mean to blow my nose in the First-Amendment-inscribed pocket handkerchiefs that some attendees plan to wear to protest the administration’s anti-free speech policies, but I will say this: If you remove comedy from the WHCA Dinner, that leaves the high-profile entertainment up to a lot of HR-non-compliant afterparties and a mushroom cloud of Trump’s Victory 45-47 cologne.
My point is that the country needs Ruffin’s “acting all the way out.” America needs comedians to poke the powerful right in their grimacing faces. A liberal democracy that permits that sort of subversion makes itself stronger.
Since 1983, the WHCA dinner has deputized assorted clowns to preside over this quirky but vital ritual (only in 1999, 2003 and 2019 did an entertainer other than a comedian perform at the event).
Most WHCA comic headliners have executed their patriotic duties with verve and venom. Liberal or left-leaning stand-ups have lit up Republicans. Stephen Colbert in 2006 reminded America that George W. Bush “stands for things,” but also, “on things like aircraft carriers and rubble, and recently flooded city squares.” In 2017, Hasan Minhaj joked he did “not see” (which he pronounced as “Nazi”) Steve Bannon. A year later, Michelle Wolf referred to an absent Trump as “the one p—- you’re not allowed to grab.”
Since 1983, the WHCA dinner has deputized assorted clowns to preside over this quirky but vital ritual.
But liberal or left-leaning comedians are comedians first. As such, they’ve rarely missed an opportunity to dunk on Democrats as well. In 2013, Conan O’Brien taunted Barack Obama that he only won the presidency because Mitt Romney was his opponent. In 2016, Larry Wilmore made everyone in the room extremely uncomfortable by directing a racial slur at the nation’s first Black commander in chief. Roy Wood Jr. in 2023 reflected upon how odd it was that 80-year-old Joe Biden was begging for four more years of work.
I can think of one way to rebut the charge that WHCA is canceling comedy: Invite a humorist with RedState street cred to entertain at next year’s “nerd prom.” The right-wing comedy sector is booming. Many conservatives are devoted fans of stand-up and they have no shortage of skilled humorists to follow. Instead of a manosphere-adjacent mentalist like Pearlman, the WHCA should have platformed a manosphere-adjacent stand-up like Shane Gillis, Tony HinchcliffeAdam Carolla or countless other seasoned acts that could have easily played the gig.
All of these more conservative comedians, I surmise, are also comedians first. Had the WHCA invited them, Trump and his crew would have invariably been rinsed and roasted, patriotically. No one would have claimed that “liberal bias” motivated the barbs — have you ever listened to Hinchcliffe? Had WHCA simply done that, a weird and sloppy democratic tradition would have persevered. Life would go on, as it always does.
So would Trump’s wars, deportations, voter suppression schemes, corruption, lies and so forth. But the jokes would linger like funny prayers to ironic gods, permitting us to at least collectively recognize how absurd our predicament has become.
Jacques Berlinerblau is a professor of Jewish civilization at Georgetown University.
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