David Cay Johnston didn’t mince words about Trump’s latest meeting with Putin, calling it “an embarrassment for the whole country.” Watching Trump clap “like a seal” while U.S. troops rolled out a red carpet for the Russian leader, Johnston says it showed just how easily Trump can be manipulated — proof, as Rick Wilson put it, that the player has been played.
There’s been even more chaos around Trump in recent weeks, with Stuart Stevens describing him as entering a “manic stage” and Johnston pointing to the Epstein files as the threat Trump fears most. Wilson argues that flooding D.C. with National Guard troops is less about security and more about spectacle, designed to give MAGA the image it craves. Stevens adds that Mississippi’s governor is deploying troops to Washington while ignoring violent crime in his own backyard.
