Trump Snaps Back At Media After They Diss The Alaska Summit

The media was very hot and bothered after the Alaska Summit. And President Trump, who is no big fan of the mainstream media to begin with, is over it.

As we covered on the blog, President Trump was more reserved than usual after the summit. Neither he nor Vladimir Putin took any questions at the press conference, though Trump was a little more forthcoming with Sean Hannity afterward. But between that and his interview with Bret Baier on Air Force One on the way to Alaska, Fox News got the exclusive interviews, and the rest of the media was picking up the scraps.

For example, NPR got a hold of a packet of papers that were left behind in “the business center of an Alaskan hotel,” which detailed the order of events for the summit, confirmed that there was a cancelled luncheon, but also contained names and phone numbers of three “U.S. staff members.” Sloppy, yes, but apparently nothing earth-shattering or top secret. But this is what other media outlets were apparently left to do – comb through the rooms where the summit was held, or beg or possibly pay hotel staff to turn over anything interesting they found. But even this “discovery” was, at best, the smallest of potatoes.

This left the Sunday shows very anxious to get whatever they could out of the big guest of the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio, who has become wildly effective as Secretary of State, did 3/5ths of “the full Ginsburg” while Special Envoy Steve Witkoff took the other two shows, but gets extra credit for also appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News. But Rubio took on Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” and Martha Raddatz on “ABC News This Week.” All three anchors were doing two things. First, they were desperate to wheedle any kind of information they could out of Secretary Rubio about the summit. Second, they were not-so-subtly getting their digs in at President Trump for not walking away with a ceasefire, and for treating Putin nicely. Rubio, to his credit, absolutely shut all of them down.

Let’s start with NBC. Welker wanted to know if a ceasefire was going to happen or not. Rubio redirected the point, saying that a full peace deal, with securities, is the better way to end the conflict. But Welker had a really hard time with the concept of being cordial with Putin at all, which led Rubio to point out that the WHOLE GOAL is to get Russia to the table, and that you catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar.

.@SecRubio: “As much as people may not like it, as distasteful as people may find it, the ONLY way to end this war is to get the Russians to agree — as well as the Ukrainians — but the Russians to agree to a peace deal.” pic.twitter.com/djdF2SpEQh

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025

And Kristen Welker was probably the least obnoxious of the three dinosaur media outlet anchors. Margaret Brennan on CBS, who has a habit of getting schooled on her own show, really was trying to white knight for Zelensky ahead of tomorrow’s White House meeting by suggesting that the European Union leaders were coming to make sure Zelensky wasn’t going to be “bullied” in the Oval Office again. Rubio was having none of it.

Brennan pressed Rubio over the contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump, Zelensky and Vice President J.D. Vance, where the Ukrainian leader was “dressed down” after he openly mocked the idea of negotiation with Putin.

Rubio, continuing to talk over Brennan, rejected the idea that Zelensky needed protection from being bullied and insisted that the White House and their Ukrainian counterparts have had dozens of meetings since the infamous meeting.

“We had one meeting with Putin and like a dozen meetings with Zelensky… They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied. They are coming here because we’ve been working with the Europeans. We talked to them last week… The President talked to these leaders as early as Thursday… This is such a stupid media narrative,” Rubio said.

Rubio also made the entirely true observation that neither side is going to get what they want in a peace deal, but the point is to get them to agree.

“In order for there to be a peace deal — this is just a fact, we may not like it, it may not be pleasant, it may be distasteful — but in order for there to be an end to the war, there are things that Russia wants that it cannot get and there are things that Ukraine wants that it’s not going to get. Both sides are going to have to give up something in order to get to the table.”

This is just a simple fact. Russia wants more (or all) of Ukraine, and they should not be able to get that. Ukraine wants all the Donbas (and probably Crimea) back, and that’s an unrealistic goal. Putin is not going to hand anything back that he currently possesses, and Ukraine does not have unlimited manpower or munitions to keep going. That this war is over three years old is testament to the determination of the Ukrainian people, and the efforts by the United States and Europe to keep them supplied with weapons. Putin is hoping to outlast the West and simply take it all. Volodymyr Zelensky, despite his statements about not giving up any more territory, may indeed have to give up “land for peace,” albeit with some massive security guarantees. Without unconditional surrender from either side, compromise is going to be the construction scaffold around which a peace deal is built.

Martha Raddatz of ABC may be the winner of the most obnoxious question of the day. She was complaining quite loudly that the press has not gotten any juicy tibits about what a peace deal would or wouldn’t include. Rubio was quite clear that there was a REASON for that.

“Of course, concessions were asked — but what utility would there be of me going on a program and telling you we wagged our finger at Putin and told him you must do this and you must do that? It’s only going to make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things. As much as everyone would love it to be a live pay-per-view event, these discussions only work best when they are conducted privately in serious negotiations.”

And when Raddatz whined some more, Rubio dropped the mic on her.

The way this clip closes out

Raddatz: “Secretary Rubio, we don’t know what any of that progress is”

Rubio: “Yeah, you’re not going to” https://t.co/gFUkTDQbT2

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) August 17, 2025

The sheer entitlement coming off the press and their frustration about being left in the dark was obvious in spades. Secretary Rubio handled them all extremely well, but naturally, President Trump had the last word on Truth Social on Sunday evening. His target: the “fake news.”

President Trump also posted on Truth Social on Sunday night that it was going to be a “big day at the White House tomorrow” and that it was “a great honor for America” and for himself to be hosting the European leaders. Those European leaders may think they are coming to stage some kind of intervention to prevent Zelensky from being kicked out of the White House again, but honestly, they are probably there to make sure Zelensky keeps his proverbial crap together. Whatever Trump has to say, Zelensky has to sit and hear it out. It’s all but guaranteed that he won’t like it, but this is the beginning of the process, not the end of it. Neither the United States nor Europe personally wants to keep funding the Ukrainians indefinitely (everyone always thinks someone else should pay the bills), and neither can Ukraine hold out indefinitely. Short of NATO going to war with Russia to regain Ukrainian territory – which no one wants to do – there will have to be concessions made.

I predict that today’s meeting at the White House will be cordial in front of the cameras, intense behind the scenes, and the media will continue complaining that they aren’t getting the inside scoop to chew over.

Featured image: The White House/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Public Domain

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