U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he holds a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin following their meeting to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon REFILE - QUALITY REPEAT REFILE - CORRECTING "PUTING" TO "PUTIN"

Daily Beast reporter David Rothkopf said President Donald Trump exposed his eagerness to dump politics and get back into reality TV at his Friday summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“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 return to the kind of low-level grift that is his main line of work,” said Rothkopf, adding that Putin surely knows Trump is just a reality TV star.

“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,” said Rothkopf. “Shifting away from a ceasefire to seeking a full peace accord was Putin’s idea, not Trump’s.”

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Trump’s primary short-term goal for hosting the meeting was to distract America from his increasing entanglement with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the nation’s economy “circling the drain” because of Trump’s “reckless trade policies and fiscal irresponsibility,” said Rothkopf. And Putin was eager to play his part.

“Watching Trump during the event, you could see his palpable satisfaction as Putin, understanding Trump’s psychological and political needs completely, fulfilled the role he was asked to play,” Rothkopf said. “Trump smiled and clapped like a little boy about to get to sit in Santa’s lap at the mall as Putin approached him on the red carpet at the beginning of the day’s events. … Message sent to the innermost parts of Trump’s brain: Daddy finally approves of little Donny.”

Sources affiliated with Trump’s national security team were unsettled by how little Putin had to say on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, but Rothkopf said what mattered to Trump was that Putin “dutifully mouthed” platitudes and agreed with the lie that the 2020 election was rigged and “stolen from Trump.”

“That is because Putin has realized all along that Trump was just a reality TV star playing at being president,” said Rothkopf. “The Russian thereby understands how to give Trump what he wants and therefore how to get what he seeks from Trump. He granted Trump just enough of a victory for the cameras while also sending an unmistakable message to those who really understand the game that is being played that Trump is weak, a stooge, a transitory character Putin will use and ultimately move on from.”

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What’s worse, Rothkopf describes “a pathos to the whole event” because if you watched closely during the closing press conference, “it appeared Trump understood this as well.”

“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.”

“Maybe in Alaska on Friday, [Trump] started to come to realize that just as he wasn’t the business mastermind he played on TV, that he also was not capable of being the kind of world leader he has been portraying in his current role,” Rothkopf said.

Read the full Daily Best report at this link.