Top World News

Aug 17, 2025 - World

European world leaders united to announce they would attend a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leading MAGA supporters to complain online.Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, is one of many European leaders who announced they would be accompanying Zelenskyy on a trip to meet Trump. A former Trump insider recently warned that the meeting was a "trap" by Putin and Trump against Zelenskyy."Tomorrow I will travel with President Zelenskyy and other European heads of state and government to Washington. We will exchange views with US President Trump on the status of peace efforts, security guarantees, territorial issues, and further support for Ukraine," Merz wrote.This outraged many MAGA supporters, such as author Hans Mahncke."After little Volodymir’s meltdown at the last meeting he is back but this time must be chaperoned by Europe’s regional manager caste. The whole spectacle is so pathetic and humiliating," he wrote.A conservative Christian account, @LIz77306, complained about the participation of Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission."Ursula, Do you think he will be respectful of our @Potus's efforts & extensive hours, planning to make this happen?" the user asked. "Or will he present in his normal T-Shirt attire & flipped, intitled attitude to our country & Chief? To be clear... We are the main catalyst in regards to monetary help & weapons. THIS IS NOT OUR WAR! YET WE/OUR CHIEF IS DIVERTING PRECIOUS TIME TO THIS THAT COULD BE SPENT ON AMERICANS. MAKE THIS HAPPEN & THE KILLING ON BOTH SIDES STOP!"MAGA commentator Gunther Eagleman said on Sunday, "Zelensky is going to f--- this up, isn’t he?"An account called Maga Puppy said of the Ukrainian leader's red line on giving land, "I don't think Zelensky had the clout he imagined. Even with US sanctions Russia can really ramp it up and push in even further."Economics professor Roman Sheremeta had another take, saying, "This is the right move.""Zelensky won’t be flying to Trump alone — he’ll be joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other top European leaders. His plane has already departed with a stop in Brussels. Media report that NATO Secretary General Rutte, French President Macron, UK Prime Minister Starmer, German Chancellor Merz, Italian Prime Minister Meloni, and Finnish President Stubb may also fly to Washington," he wrote Sunday. "More names could be added. A united front. Europe stands with Ukraine."Akash Maniam chimed in, "Forget cards, Zelenskyy's bringing the whole deck to Washington."

Aug 17, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump expressed frustration over media coverage after he failed to strike a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine.In a Sunday post on Truth Social, Trump attacked the media over reports that he could not get Putin to agree to a ceasefire."It's incredible how the Fake News violently distorts the TRUTH when it comes to me," the president wrote. "There is NOTHING I can say or do that would lead them to write or report honestly about me. I had a great meeting in Alaska on Biden's stupid War, a war that should have never happened!!!""If I got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal, the Fake News, and their PARTNER, the Radical Left Democrats, would say I made a terrible mistake and a very bad deal," he added. "That's why they are the FAKE NEWS! Also, they should talk about the 6 WARS, etc., I JUST STOPPED!!! MAGA"

Aug 17, 2025 - World

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is under fire by his own MAGA allies over an immigration issue.On Saturday, the Department of State announced that, "All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days."That led author Lee Smith to proclaim, "Gazan families, which held Americans and Israelis hostage after October 7, are being ushered into US under color of humanitarian assistance. Deport now. Fire and/or charge the Americans responsible."General Mike Flynn responded to Smith by appealing directly to Donald Trump:"Do us all a big favor and place a person in charge at every department, activity, agency, commission and board and start firing people," Flynn wrote Saturday. "The secretaries[sic] schedules are packed with other priorities (as you know). If you don’t do this, you will NEVER eliminate the 'DEEP STATE', trust me."He added, "It has to be done systematically and with purpose and great urgency," before alleging Trump advisor Sergio Gor "needs help.""These type mistakes cannot be made and cannot be tolerated," he wrote on X.Controversial Trump ally Laura Loomer had a lot to say about the subject, even claiming to be the one who originally exposed the Gazan visas."We still don’t have the names of the State Department employees who approved the visas. [Rubio] Every member of Congress needs to press for the release of those employees names and they need to be fired," Loomer wrote. "Every Gazan who was welcomed into the US needs to be deported. THERE ARE DOCTORS IN OTHER COUNTRIES! This is INEXCUSABLE!"In a separate post, Loomer said, "I am calling on every single Member of Congress to inquire with the US State Department which State Department employees endangered the safety of US citizens by signing off on visas for GAZANS.""We need to know who is responsible. There needs to be consequences," she added.Fox News personality Laura Ingraham said of the news, "Until we deport the millions of visa overstayers already here, we should be very careful about visitor visas."

Aug 16, 2025 - World

Instead of coming away with progress being made toward a ceasefire in Ukraine, Donald Trump flew home from Alaska looking every bit his age after getting “played” by Vladimir Putin.In his column for the Daily Beast, commentator David Rothkopf suggested that not only did the president fail to make any progress, based upon what was discussed at a press conference that was scheduled to last for an hour, but ended after only 12 minutes, but the president exposed himself as not being the force of nature he seems to believe he is.According to Rothkopf, the president attended the summit with the “long-term goal” of getting ”Russian president Vladimir Putin to publicly support a series of lies that are now crucial to both Trump’s own deluded sense of himself and to his fake public narrative about who he is.”That was achieved by Trump, along with a creating a distraction to get the Jeffrey Epstein files firestorm off the front pages, but little else that could be considered a positive.Instead, Rothkopf wrote, “Trump framed himself as the host of the summit. But Putin was the center of attention, the person who spoke first at the post-event press conference, the one who was clearly setting the rules going forward.”“There was a pathos to the whole event because if you watched closely, particularly during the closing press conference, it appeared Trump understood this as well,” he wrote. “He was low-energy. He seemed defeated. He was going through the motions. In fact, in a predictable irony, the 79-year-old Trump appeared to be just the president he asserted Joe Biden would’ve become had he been reelected, too old for the job, not up to the challenge, more elderly than he has ever appeared to be while on the world stage.”He suggested the president may have finally realized his limitations. “If you looked into the resignation and bewilderment in his eyes as he scuttled off the stage at Elmendorf, you couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t starting to think it will be easier to returning to the kind of low-level grift that is his main line of work when he is in the one place in the world he least likes to be…the one place he knows awaits all shallow, all-sizzle-no-substance TV personalities like him … and that is off camera,” he suggested.You can read more here.

Aug 16, 2025 - World

Donald Trump wanted to go bold -- a high-pomp, high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin to test whether the Russian leader would compromise on the Ukraine war.In the end, it looks like it was Trump, not Putin, who budged.Putin, visibly delighted as he stepped foot in the West for the first time since ordering the 2022 invasion, made no apparent concession at the talks at an Alaska air base.In a brief joint media appearance with Trump, who unusually took no questions, Putin again spoke of addressing the "root causes" of the Ukraine war and warned Kyiv and Europeans against disrupting "emerging progress" with the United States, the top defender of Ukraine under Trump's predecessor Joe Biden.Trump, who bills himself as a master negotiator, acknowledged there was "no deal" but said there were "very few" areas of disagreement, although he was vague on what they were.But posting hours later on his Truth Social account, Trump said he wanted Russia and Ukraine to "go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war" and not a ceasefire.Trump's own administration had been pushing a ceasefire for months, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signing on after intense pressure from Trump. Putin had repeatedly rejected truce offers and kept up attacks on Ukraine, seeking to maximize battlefield advantage.- Putin again woos Trump -Trump had vowed to be firm with Putin after wide criticism of the US president's cowed appearance before him at a 2018 summit in Helsinki.But Putin again found ways to flatter and trigger Trump, who in his second term constantly speaks unprompted about his many grievances.Putin told Trump before the cameras that there would have been no war -- which Putin himself launched -- if Trump were president in 2022 rather than Biden, a frequent Trump talking point.Trump bemoaned the effect on ties with Putin of what he again called the "hoax" of the findings by US intelligence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help him.In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity after the summit, Trump said that "one of the most interesting things" Putin told him was about... the US voting system.Trump said approvingly that Putin -- who has held power in Russia since 2000 and was declared the winner of elections last year with 88 percent of the vote -- told him of the risks of mail-in ballots and said of Trump's 2020 loss to Biden, "You won that election by so much."US election authorities and experts have found no evidence of wide-scale fraud from mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, which Trump, uniquely in US history, refused to concede.- 'Shameful' or wait and see? -Trump's Democratic rivals voiced outrage that the summit secured no breakthrough and said it only served to normalize Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court."By quite literally rolling out the red carpet, Trump has legitimized Russia's aggression and whitewashed Putin's war crimes. It's shameful," said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.Experts said it was too early to write off the summit completely, as much is not known about what was discussed behind closed doors. Trump will meet Zelensky on Monday at the White House.Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which backs US restraint, said that Trump's critics have been proven wrong in saying he would "give Ukraine to Putin or force Kyiv to accept surrender.""His focus has been and remains getting Putin to the negotiating table. Mr. Trump deserves credit rather than condemnation for his efforts so far," she said.But Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said an initial read was that "Putin scored a victory by showing up, and Trump's limited words and tense demeanor left Putin to control the narrative." "For a man so attached to showmanship, Trump unusually allowed Putin to be the star of what should have been the Trump show," she said.