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US President Donald Trump appeared to forget that he is meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, saying twice that he is going outside of America.
Trump made the gaffe while announcing on Monday morning that he deployed the National Guard to Washington, DC, to crack down on crime and homelessness.
‘This is an emergency. This is a tragic emergency, and it’s embarrassing for me to be up here. You know, I’m going to see Putin,’ Trump told reporters.
‘I’m going to Russia on Friday.’
Trump last Friday wrote on his Truth Social platform that ‘the highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska’.
Despite the blockbuster announcement, Trump seemed to forget Alaska is in the US a second time during his press conference just four days before the summit.
‘Look let’s just do this, let’s do this. It’s going to be a big thing, we’re going to Russia,’ he said.
‘It’s going to be a big deal. What happens, happens. I’ll let you know what happens. You’ll be the first to know.’
Trump was flanked by US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and both had no visible reaction to his blunders.
The US president intends to meet his Russian counterpart to talk about ending the war with Ukraine. It will be the first meeting between Putin and a US president since former President Joe Biden met with him in Switzerland in 2021.
Russia’s special economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, lauded the decision to hold the meeting in Alaska.
‘Born as Russian America – Orthodox roots, forts, fur trade – Alaska echoes those ties and makes the U.S. an Arctic nation,’ wrote Dmitriev on X.
Meanwhile, critics have expressed concerns that Russia claimed Alaska and forced natives to hunt fur for them before the US bought the land in 1867.
Alaska’s senior Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who supports Ukraine, last week stated that the summit is ‘another opportunity for the Arctic to serve as a venue that brings together world leaders to forge meaningful agreements’.
‘While I remain deeply wary of Putin and his regime, I hope these discussions lead to genuine progress and help end the war on equitable terms,’ she said.
Trump on Monday said he will try to help Ukraine recover some of its land from Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion on the sovereign country in 2022.
‘Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory,’ he said.
‘We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.’
Away from the looming negotiations this Friday, the president’s focus has shifted towards the US capitol, which he claimed had been taken over by ‘drugged out maniacs and homeless people’.
Trump took control of the District of Columbia’s law enforcement and ordered National Guard troops to deploy onto the streets of the nation’s capital.
He argued that the extraordinary moves are in response to an urgent public safety crisis.
Even as district officials questioned the claims underlying his emergency declaration, the president promised a ‘historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.’
His rhetoric echoed that used by conservative politicians going back decades who have denounced American cities, especially those with majority non-white populations or led by progressive politicians, as lawless or crime-ridden and in need of outside intervention.
He vowed on Monday: ‘This is liberation day in DC, and we are going to take our capital back.’
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