The historic peace summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin took place this weekend in Alaska, with the two nations coming somewhat closer to achieving a lasting peace in Ukraine.  

Those who had hoped this meeting would result in an immediate end to the conflict were left disappointed; however, top U.S. diplomat and negotiator Steve Witkoff said that Putin had agreed Ukraine would receive a NATO-esque protection guarantee, which would protect Ukraine from further Russian aggression after the war. That’s a key component of any peace agreement — Ukraine can’t simply agree to lose some territory now if it remains the case that Russia will simply resume its attack later. 

On the Ukrainian front, it is unfortunately the case that President Volodymyr Zelensky will likely have to agree to territorial concessions in order to bring this conflict to an end. There’s a dawning realization among even the most staunchly pro-Ukraine commentators that the war simply will not end unless Ukraine agrees to let Russia keep the conquered territories. The alternative is a drawn-out conflict that kills thousands more Ukrainians and results in the entire country coming under Russian control. The skillful diplomacy of Trump, of Witkoff, and of Secretary of State Marco Rubio is designed to avoid that outcome. 

Indeed, Rubio has done a terrific job this weekend of schooling the reflexively hawkish voices in the mainstream media who think any public display of respect toward Putin is somehow emboldening him and the Russian takeover of Ukraine.  

Media pundits complained endlessly about Putin receiving the red-carpet treatment, riding in a fancy car with Trump, and being treated with decency as befits his station as an important world leader. In fact, popular liberal X personality Brian Krassenstein basically called on the U.S. government to assassinate Putin as soon as he set foot in Alaska, which is quite obviously an insane idea. By comparison, the mainstream media was a bit more restrained, but they were still quite furious that Trump was being nice to Putin. 

Look, if being mean to Putin was going to work, then Joe Biden would have already succeeded at ending the war: He didn’t, because diplomacy is a bit more complicated and subtle than just screaming “Putin bad” at the top of your lungs over and over again. 

Rubio made this point expertly during his conversation with ABC’s Martha Raddatz:  

“Critics of President Trump are always going to find something to criticize, I don’t even pay attention to it anymore, but I will tell you this: Putin is already on the world stage,” the secretary of State said.  

“The guy’s conducting a full-scale war in Ukraine, he’s already on the world stage. He has the world’s largest tactical nuclear arsenal, and the second largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world. He’s already on the world stage. When I hear people say it elevates him, well all we do is talk about Putin all the time. All the media has done is talk about Putin all the time for the last four, five years. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the war, that doesn’t mean he’s justified about the war, put all that aside. It means you’re not gonna have a peace agreement, you’re not gonna end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin. That’s just common sense.” 

Rubio has it exactly right: We can’t end this war by refusing to give Putin attention, or the spotlight, or whatever it was that Raddatz was complaining about there. Frankly, the argument she’s making there sounds like she’s eventually calling for deplatforming Putin, like she’s saying he should be kicked off Twitter or something.  

We shouldn’t be surprised to hear a mainstream media personality returning to this very familiar well, of course. Liberal and progressive media personalities love the idea of deplatforming people, because they have an almost religious faith in censorship and silencing. These are the preferred tactics of the mainstream media folks, who imagine that if they can’t hear or see people and opinions they don’t like, it must mean those sinister forces have been defeated. You would think they might have learned by now that this tactic usually backfires. 

And in any case, Putin is not an account that can be suspended, or an idea that can be banned, or a phenomenon that can be ignored: He’s a political figure who must be engaged. 

And lest anyone think the meeting was nothing but pleasantries, President Trump gave Putin a letter from first lady Melania Trump asking him to end the war for the sake of the children who are suffering because of it.  

“Mr. Putin,” she wrote, “you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.” 

Let us all hope and pray that this meeting is followed by further diplomacy that ends this horrific conflict. 

Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary. 

President Trump on Monday is scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a host of European leaders at the White House.

The Ukrainian leader said he expects to discuss “key issues” at the meeting, which comes days after a historic summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Since that summit, Trump has ditched his demand for Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine and appears ready to pressure Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow as part of a peace deal that also includes U.S. security guarantees.

European leaders are expected to arrive on Monday at the White House at noon. Trump is expected to greet Zelensky at 1 p.m. EDT and participate in a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian leader shortly thereafter.

Trump is then expected to participate in a photo op with European leaders at 2:30 p.m. and join in a multilateral meeting with them at 3 p.m.

Watch the events live above.

I was a mayor for 10 years. All mayors deal with crime, and we have learned a lot about what works to make cities safer for everyone.  

That’s why so many cities, including Washington, D.C., are safer today than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. And that’s why we know President Trump’s send-in-the-troops stunt in Washington, D.C., is not really about public safety.  

People sometimes argue about whether Trump’s actions are actually dangerous or merely efforts to distract people from news he wants to minimize. The truth is that all too frequently they are both.  

I believe Trump taking control of D.C.’s police department and calling out the National Guard, based on false claims about crime, is both an attempt to distract voters from bad news about the extraordinary harm he is unleashing on the American people and an effort to further test the limits of his own power.  

Let’s not forget how much of Trump’s second-term agenda — including the idea of undermining home rule for the citizens of Washington, D.C. and the deployment of troops against Americans — was envisioned and laid out in advance by the right-wing architects of Project 2025. 

Trump’s ambitions to rule like the dictatorial strongmen he admires in other countries made him the perfect vehicle for a movement that wants to reverse a century of progress and legal protections regardless of how many workers, consumers, families and communities are harmed.   

And they’re willing to use the military to quash inevitable protests. 

“It’s pretty clear that the president wants his own domestic police force, and step by step he’s trying to create it,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) observed. Smith called Trump’s maneuver “a huge step toward an autocratic government.”  

Washington’s unique status as a federal district — not a state or part of any state — makes it especially vulnerable to the abuse of presidential power. But no city is safe.  

Trump made it clear in Los Angeles that he will deploy National Guard troops over the objections of state and local officials. He has explicitly threatened to expand his tactics in D.C. to other cities where he has far less constitutional legitimacy to intervene.  

And just to clarify how much contempt the MAGA movement has for urban voters, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and primary sponsor of Project 2025, recently called on right-wing state legislators to gut democracy in their own capitals and turn them into “state municipal districts.”  

Trump and the movement behind him, the MAGA activists and the institutional muscle represented by the Heritage Foundation and the more than 100 organizations endorsing Project 2025, seem eager to dismantle the checks and balances that are meant to keep a corrupt and abusive  president in line. And that is proving to be extremely dangerous. 

The deployment of American troops against American citizens is illegal except in extraordinary emergencies. It can’t be done to intimidate dissenters. It can’t be done to make Trump feel good. It can’t be done to shift public attention from news that is unflattering to the president.  

To be sure, Trump would like to distract us from scrutiny of his relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — and the sweetheart treatment his regime is now giving Epstein’s accomplice and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.  

The president would like to distract us from bad economic news on jobs and the price of groceries.

And, certainly, the president would rather that we not pay much attention to the astonishing levels of shady dealing that have made Trump and his family billions of dollars richer. 

Trump abusing his power to shift the narrative is an aspect of his authoritarian rule. It’s not going to make the residents of D.C. or any other city safer. 

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, whose city has been another Trump target, noted in a CNN interview that his city has had the fewest homicides in 50 years this year. 

That kind of progress takes a thoughtful, collective effort — not just “get tough” rhetoric and more militarized cops. It takes smart strategic investments in communities and stronger relationships between communities and police.  

“Mayors across the country have brought together law enforcement, the legal community, the actual community through community violence intervention work, to reduce violence across this country in cities to lows that we have not seen in decades,” Scott told viewers. 

“The president could learn a lot from us instead of throwing things at us,” he added. 

Listening and learning is not exactly the president’s strong suit. Throwing things — smears, tantrums, distractions — is much more his style.  

That’s bad for America and all Americans, not just those of us who live in the cities Trump likes to vilify.  

Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.