Politics donald trump john oliver vladimir putin
No-one did better than John Oliver to nail exactly how badly the Trump-Putin summit went for America (and democracy)
It wasn’t hard to guess how the meeting between Dictator Putin and Dictator Trump would go. One is a war criminal, the other is just a regular ol’ criminal. (For now.) Either way, this wasn’t going to be the victorious photo op Trump so desperately wanted it to be.
And based on everything we’ve heard, it wasn’t. The reports from all sides told the story of a defeated and concerned team of aides looking shaken in the wake of the meeting. It wasn’t a long meeting, but John Oliver’s summary of the whole thing was even more succinct.
Trump flew to Alaska, got steamrolled by Putin in under 3 hours, then tried to “look tough” in a staged photo. The real shot? Putin smirking while Trump looked like bad shrimp was making a comeback.
John Oliver: “Even this Fox News reporter couldn’t put a positive spin on it.” pic.twitter.com/Pr31CgcSBg
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) August 18, 2025
In less than a minute, Oliver sums it all up. Trump got hosed on a national stage and we could be feeling the ramifications for quite some time. Trump’s government controlled propaganda machine, Fox News, couldn’t even figure out the mental gymnastics required to hand him a win. Oliver continued with a quick visual analysis of the photos coming out of the summit and that didn’t go any better for the big Cheeto.
The internet had a host of responses. All of them of the “laugh to keep from crying” variety.
Some people agreed:
Trump is and has been an absolute joke and a fraud.
— Jimm W (@JWhahht) August 18, 2025
Even they couldn’t spin it.
— John Jackson (@hissgoescobra) August 18, 2025
Well it’s obvious who the boss is, was and will be, especially between these two. One is a killer and a wanted war criminal. The other is a weak pathetic little felon masquerading as a president. That much is very clear.
— Dj Omega Mvp (@DjOmegaMVP) August 18, 2025
Some people made funny Photoshops:
— Sandy Taylor (@Disney4Eternity) August 18, 2025
— Timothy Kilroy (@Kilroy5443) August 18, 2025
Some people made more jokes:
Trump was probably pointing to a speckle of Grey Poupon mustard on Putin’s tie … he definitely wasn’t trying to be a tough guy in the photo… -DW
— DeSota Wilson (@desota) August 18, 2025
Trump look more like a rotten shrimp
— bella4001 (@moo2n) August 18, 2025
While still other people simply called it for what it is:
Alaska showed the whole world that Putin has some sort of hold over Trump. We don’t know exactly what (though there’s no shortage of speculation), but Europe needs finally to accept the reality that Trump, and much of his MAGA base, prefers dictators to leaders of democracies.
— Charlie Kennaugh #FBPE (@c_kennaugh) August 18, 2025
More like Trump has been praising, worshiping and adoring Putin for years. Then, gets schoolgirl giddy excited ,while having our soldiers on their hands and knees -roll out the Red Carpet for a War Criminal.
— RexKeonix (@RexKeonix) August 18, 2025
The lesson, as always, is that work meetings that could’ve just been an email are always a waste of time.
Source: Twitter @BlueATLGeorgia