The Alaska Summit: Praise Over Peace

Putin flatters, Trump listens, Ukraine suffers. A summit meant for peace devolved into ego stroking; where 2020 grievances drowned out war, death, and any chance of progress.

Guest article by Michael Cohen

The world witnessed something deeply unsettling yesterday in Alaska, where President Trump sat down with Vladimir Putin. What unfolded wasn’t diplomacy, it wasn’t negotiation; it was something far more dangerous. It was psychological manipulation, wrapped neatly in flattery.

Here’s the truth: with Trump, flattery is a lever. It always has been. His need for validation — something I know all too well from my years working beside him — is an open door for anyone willing to walk through it. And yesterday, Putin did just that, brilliantly.

Trump came out of the meeting telling anyone who would listen that Putin assured him the 2020 election was stolen. According to Trump, Putin insisted he was the rightful winner, and he criticized America’s use of mail-in ballots, claiming that no other country allows them. But let’s ask the obvious question: what does the 2020 election have to do with this summit? What does it have to do with the ongoing war in Ukraine — with the deaths Trump so frequently mentions when describing the toll of the conflict? The answer is simple: nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And yet, it became the centerpiece of their exchange. Instead of a hard, necessary discussion about war and peace, the meeting veered into grievance politics and self-validation. It was a summit hijacked by ego, not guided by substance.

This is the danger. Trump doesn’t hear Putin’s words as manipulation. He hears them as affirmation. He internalizes them as proof that he’s been right all along. And in that moment, the real issue — ending a war that has already claimed countless lives — gets pushed aside for the comfort of revisiting his old wounds.

But Putin didn’t stop there. Trump recounted that Putin told him he never would have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president. That isn’t history; it’s performance. For Trump, it sounded like respect. For Putin, it was strategy. He offered Trump the illusion of being indispensable on the world stage while sidestepping responsibility for his own aggression.

Now, let’s be clear. This wasn’t a peace summit. There were no breakthroughs, no ceasefire, no serious concessions. What there was, instead, was validation for Trump and legitimacy for Putin. Both walked away with what they wanted. Ukraine — and the families who have lost loved ones — got nothing.

And here’s the deeper concern: Putin understands Trump better than Trump understands himself. He knows which words will land, which compliments will stick, and how to turn Trump’s hunger for recognition into leverage. When flattery becomes the dominant tool in a conversation about war, policy turns into theater — and adversaries like Putin become the directors.

I’ve seen this pattern before. I’ve watched Trump in countless rooms, with CEOs, politicians, even celebrities. I’ve seen how quickly skepticism melts the moment admiration enters the conversation. It’s not unusual to enjoy praise, but with Trump it becomes the deciding factor. And yesterday in Alaska, the stakes of that tendency were global.

The 2020 election has no place in a conversation about Ukraine. It has no bearing on the invasion, no relevance to the lives lost, and no impact on the negotiations that should have been happening. Its presence in the summit wasn’t diplomacy; it was diversion. And it distracted from the one thing that truly mattered…the urgent need to end a devastating war.

So what happened in Alaska wasn’t a breakthrough. It was a reminder of how fragile our national security can become when a leader’s ego takes precedence over reality. Flattery was all it took for Putin to shape the narrative, shift the focus, and walk away with a propaganda victory.

What we all wanted to see, we didn’t. We wanted to see a tough President Trump — a strong Trump — tell a weaker Putin that it’s time to stop the bullshit. Today. And here’s why you are going to. First, we will impose sanctions on you and those doing business with you starting tomorrow. Your economy is already in the toilet. I’ll just flush it. Second, we will arm and assist Ukraine with the latest American technology that will target Moscow. What you have done to Ukraine, you will see the same in your own backyard. And, if that’s not enough, by Monday, if the war isn’t over, we will send in our military as support.

But that certainly didn’t happen.

And this is why yesterday’s meeting matters. Not because of what was accomplished — nothing was — but because of what was revealed. When foreign adversaries can use empty praise to redirect a conversation away from war and death, the consequences ripple far beyond one summit.

Flattery costs nothing to give. But as Alaska proved, in the wrong hands, it can cost everything to a nation.

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