Donald Trump was hoping his meeting with Vladimir Putin would secure him a Nobel Peace Prize, instead it secured his position as a national embarrassment when he made the choice to have U.S. soldiers get down on their knees to roll out the red carpet for the suspected war criminal.
The moment was seen by many as Trump rolling over like a dog for Putin, a man who the president is supposed to be negotiating Ukraine’s future with. While public opinion is firmly against the Russian leader, Trump seems to be giving in to Putin’s every demand, it’s clear who is in charge when it comes to the negotiations and it certainly isn’t Trump. Despite this, the negotiations still fell through.
Obviously the move left the people of Ukraine and those who support the country feeling betrayed. Despite this, MAGA has been trying to push the narrative that rolling out a literal red carpet and having soldiers kneel for another world leader is completely normal and just something which is done at military bases.
Unfortunately for Trump, nobody’s buying it
Already some of the president’s biggest critics like Adam Kinzinger have called bull on the idea that it’s normal for the red carpet to be rolled out on military bases. The Republican politician claimed the MAGA story was “completely false” and asked if the Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy would receive the same treatment upon his arrival to the U.S. next week.
Seems like the new MAGA brain implant chip is to say the whole red carpet soldiers in their knees thing is because it was a military base. This is completely false. It’s a choice.
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini)
Also Zelensky will be landing at Andrews. A military base. Let’s see if they do this for him.(@AdamKinzinger) August 17, 2025
It’s hard to imagine he will give Zelenskyy the same treatment. For whatever reason Trump seems to bend over backwards for Putin at any given opportunity, he even ignored an arrest warrant for the Russian leader issued by the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile he’s completely cut the Ukrainian leader out of negotiations discussing the fate of his own country and has talked down to Zelenskyy on numerous occasions, most infamously back in February when Trump and Vance got into a shouting match with him over a perceived lack of gratitude.
It’s all to appease Putin
There’s no easy way for the Trump administration to spin the treatment of Putin as anything other than an attempt to stroke the Russian leader’s ego. He’s been receiving preferential treatment from the U.S. president from the very start and this most recent display is another obvious example of that.
Elsewhere on X, individuals called Trump’s decision a “disgrace,” claiming he humiliated American soldiers to please a war criminal. Compared to the treatment of Zelenskyy earlier this year, where he was the one who was humiliated, it seems clear that there is a bias coming from Donald Trump and as long as he holds onto his prejudice the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will likely continue to stall.
