Joe Biden spent three years pretending Russia could be isolated into surrender.
Trump flew a nuclear stealth bomber over Putin's head and got him talking.
Now Democrats are furious Trump might actually finish what Alaska started – and end the war they couldn't.
Nobody Said You Have to Trust Him
Look, nobody here is naive about Vladimir Putin.
He invaded Ukraine.
He's responsible for thousands of dead soldiers and leveled cities.
If you think he's a good guy, you're not paying attention.
But here's what a decade of treating him like a pariah produced: a bigger war, not a smaller one.
Obama kicked Russia out of the G8 in 2014, the foreign policy establishment applauded, Russia's economy didn't collapse, Ukraine didn't get Crimea back, and the low-grade conflict Obama thought he could contain exploded into a full-scale invasion in 2022.
Isolation failed completely.
Trump's position has been consistent since his first term: you don't have to like someone to talk to them.
Last August, he proved what that looks like in practice.
The Most American Thing Trump Has Ever Done
Putin landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska on August 15th and walked down a red carpet onto American soil.
A B-2 stealth bomber – one of fewer than 20 still in service, the same aircraft that delivered bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities just two months earlier – thundered overhead flanked by F-35 jets.
Social media users called it "an insane flex."
That is how you host an adversary.
Not groveling.
Not sanctions that don't work.
Not strongly-worded statements from State Department spokespeople nobody reads.
You show him your B-2, you put him in The Beast, you drive him past a row of American fighter jets, and you make him talk.
Trump told Sean Hannity afterward he rated the summit a 10 out of 10.
The media called it a win for Putin because no ceasefire was signed that afternoon.
But no ceasefire had been signed in three years of Biden's approach either – and Biden never once got Putin in a room.
Obama Started This Problem in 2014
Trump said it plainly at a White House press conference Thursday.
"I'd venture to say you probably wouldn't be having these problems if you didn't throw him out."
He's right.
When Obama ejected Russia from the G8 after Crimea, Putin didn't beg to come back.
He stopped showing up to any table where hard questions might get asked.
The war that followed didn't happen despite Western isolation of Russia.
It happened alongside it.
The ICC Warrant Democrats Keep Waving Around
The media has spent this week breathlessly warning that Putin faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant and therefore cannot set foot in Miami.
Here's what they're not telling you.
The United States signed the Rome Statute and then withdrew from it in 2002 – specifically to ensure American officials couldn't be hauled before international tribunals by politically motivated prosecutors.
Washington has zero legal obligation to arrest Putin on American soil.
https://twitter.com/_Qstormrider/status/2048025107499495504?s=20
That's not a loophole.
That's American sovereignty working exactly as intended.
The precedent was already set in Alaska – Putin flew in, met with the President of the United States, and flew home without incident.
What Miami Actually Means
Trump confirmed Thursday that Russia will be invited to the G20 at Doral in December.
The State Department made it official, saying Trump "has been clear that Russia is welcome to attend all G-20 meetings."
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was predictably evasive on Russian state television Friday – "President Putin may go to Miami as a member of the G20, or he may not go, or another Russian representative may go" – which tells you exactly what's happening.
Russia is calculating whether showing up helps them more than staying home.
Meanwhile Trump is the only Western leader with the credibility to make that calculation matter.
European leaders spent three years calling Putin a war criminal while writing checks to Ukraine and watching the war grind on.
https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/2047434905869803659?s=20
None of them ever got him in a room.
Trump got him in The Beast.
If Putin walks into Doral in December and sits across from world leaders for the first time since 2019, it won't be because Trump surrendered anything.
It'll be because Trump did what the foreign policy establishment spent years insisting was impossible – and made talking to America worth Putin's while again.
A B-2 bomber and a red carpet.
That's how you negotiate from strength.
Sources:
- John Hayward, "Trump Says Vladimir Putin's Presence at G20 Summit 'Would Be Very Helpful'," Breitbart, April 24, 2026.
- "B-2 Bomber Flyover Greets Putin Meeting Trump at Alaska Military Base," Fox News, August 15, 2025.
- "Trump Calls Summit with Putin 'Very Productive,'" Fox News Digital, August 15, 2025.
- "White House to Invite Putin to G20 Summit in Miami," The Moscow Times, April 24, 2026.
