Ukraine

Shortly after I began live-tweeting the ABC exclusive interview between correspondent Terry Moran and President Donald Trump, a commenter questioned why the president would put himself up to the scrutiny of the “legacy media”. The response should be clear as day to anyone who sat through the interview, as we did so you wouldn’t have to. Trump simply likes to, and enjoys the sparring. In most…

For only the second time since the week of January 26, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held a second briefing of a week. Along with our friend Katie Pavlich of Townhall having the chance to sit in the “new media seat,” she and other conservative reporters showed the liberal reporters it’s not that hard to ask real questions of your own “side” on issues ranging from crime to the…

Democrat strategist James Carville advises his party to simply wait for President Donald Trump to fail: “I’m telling the Democrats, just sit there, play possum. Let them go, let them go, let them go. Poll numbers have declined, and the collapse is already underway. ... Just let the ball come to you. We don’t need to be aggressive now.”

On Wednesday morning, it remained evident ABC, CBS, and NBC were still largely uninterested in and almost seemed burdened by having to cover Tuesday night’s address by President Trump to a joint session of Congress. It predictably lacked the ebullience from their takes on Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union, but also the outright hostility from the four speeches in Trump’s first term. …

The Associated Press released a video aiming to demonstrate Ukrainian support for President Zelensky over Trump after their contentious White House meeting. However, the video, featuring only two Ukrainian interviewees, was criticized and mocked for its inadequate representation. Viewers expressed skepticism, noting the limited sample size and questioning AP's attempt to portray…

Scott Jennings, former special assistant to George W. Bush, provided his usual, much-needed touch of sanity to CNN Sunday morning, on State of the Union. As a panel hosted by Dana Bash railed against the Trump administration in a by now pretty true-to-form way, Jennings forced them to listen as he confronted them with actual facts about the current state of affairs, and the proper…

The media were predictably horrified by the explosive Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. But notably, the language journalists have been using to describe the meeting is virtually identical to that of Democratic politicians: namely, that the whole thing was a “premeditated,” “deliberate ambush,” meant to provide justification for the USA’s…

On her first day as host of CNN This Morning, Audie Cornish assembles a panel consisting of Never Trumper Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch, and two New York Times journalists.  The panel pushes a pool on how long Marco Rubio will last as Secretary of State, based on the notion that the views he is obliged to promote in the position are antithetical to his historical views.

After Michael Steele, co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, accuses President Trump of a planned "ambushing" of Zelensky, MSNBC contributor and Never Trumper Charlie Sykes claims that under Trump, the United States is no longer the leader of the free world, and to the contrary, in many cases "might be an adversary."

On Morning Joe, historian, and former occasional Biden speechwriter Jon Meacham, who called the prospective US-Ukraine deal, and by extension Trump, "imperialist."  Joe Scarborough analogized the deal to the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed heavy reparations obligations on Germany for having instigated WWI.

On CNN This Morning, substitute host Jim Sciutto suggested that if Americans don't pay attention to Trump's handling of Ukraine, it could lead to another 9/11. For the second time during his current run as a fill-in host on the show, Sciutto chose Joe Walsh as his "Republican" on the panel, a rabid Trump antagonist who, while attending the 2024 DNC to show his total support for Kamala Harris,…

On CNN This Morning, Dispatch co-founder Jonah Goldberg says Trump has a "goldfish's memory" of history, but that he subscribes to a 19th-century notion of spheres of influence. He thus sees the US's sphere of influence as the Americas and Europe, while Putin and Xi have their spheres of influence, in which Putin gets Ukraine, Xi gets Taiwan, and the US gets Panama. Per Goldberg, Trump…

Morning Joe devoted a segment today to fretting over Trump arranging peace talks with Russia on Ukraine without, at this stage, the participation of Ukrainian officials.  But the show ignored Zelensky's stunning statement: that Putin is "afraid" of Trump and that while Putin is a "liar," Trump can push him into peace negotiations because he is "scared" of Trump, who is "strong."

Our colleague Curtis Houck’s earlier writeup of the new but not improved CBS Evening News suggests that the ongoing turmoil is driven by the newscast’s new format, editorial choices, and anchor delivery. Tonight’s report on efforts to end the war in Ukraine confirms that thesis.