‘A bigger disaster than they’re letting on’: Trump’s meeting with Putin left officials ‘frightened’ after what they witnessed

For anyone with eyes it’s blatantly obvious that Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin did not go well. The negotiations over the fate of Ukraine took place behind closed doors meaning we won’t ever know exactly what went down, but the reactions of officials who were there paint a very concerning picture.

Following on from the meeting between Trump and Putin, MSNBC host, Antonia Hylton spoke with the U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. She suggested that the president’s aides, focusing mainly on Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, were “frightened” by what they had witnessed in the meeting with Leavitt supposedly looking “ashen” according to the press who saw her afterwards.

“A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors.”

The Trump and Putin meeting went worse than we thought

Trump has been particularly cagey about how his negotiations with Putin went, but what we do know is that they weren’t able to achieve a ceasefire or make any significant headway in ending the conflict in Ukraine. It seems even the U.S. president’s attempts to stroke Putin’s ego with a red carpet and fanfare upon his arrival ended up being futile and the president’s own aides can’t even figure out how to put a positive spin on the situation either.

McFaul went on to claim that the lack of effort into putting a spin on the meeting “suggests to me that this was a bigger disaster than they’re letting on.” He explained that when a meeting was held between the president and another leader, the senior administration official would usually call up journalists to give them the low down on what was discussed and how it should be pushed. They’re not doing that this time “because they know they don’t have anything to work with.”

What’s got them so spooked?

But that just begs the question: what exactly was discussed between Trump and Putin that resulted in the president’s top aides being so visibly shaken? Trump’s next engagement will be with Zelenskyy and an entourage of European leaders, but what’s got them so riled up that they felt the need to mobilise so quickly?

On X people speculated as they often do with people offering some wild theories suggesting that Putin may have some kind of leverage over Donald Trump ranging from sex crimes to proof the election was hacked.

Whatever the case, Donald Trump failed to deliver what he promised and it has left him with egg on his face. All the while people are continuing to die in Ukraine while negotiations drag painfully along.