Anchorage Idol: Trump’s Reality Show Summit

The man who once pretended to be a mogul on TV now pretends to be a peacemaker, grading himself a perfect 10 while the world gives him a 1.

Donald Trump has never been one to let reality intrude on the story he tells about himself. Once upon a time he played a titan of industry on The Apprentice, barking “You’re fired!” to a parade of mid-tier actors and interns while producers frantically taped the business card holder shut to make sure he didn’t bankrupt NBC’s craft services budget. Now, as president redux, he has upgraded the stage: instead of a Manhattan boardroom set, he borrowed an Alaskan Air Force base; instead of actors, he summoned Vladimir Putin; and instead of firing contestants, he pretended to negotiate the end of a war. It was reality television with nuclear stakes, except without the reality.

From the opening moments, the choreography gave the game away. Putin, not Trump, acted as host, thanking Trump for proposing the summit, describing the talks as “constructive,” and offering lofty phrases about “mutual respect.” Trump, ever eager to be seen as an equal, lapped it up. If Putin had rolled out a bearskin rug and poured vodka shots, Trump would have dropped to all fours and wagged his tail. By the time the Russian leader framed Ukraine’s devastation as a “tragedy” between “people of the same roots,” it was clear who was dictating the terms and who was just happy to be invited.

Trump, of course, needed no persuading. His contribution to this historic “summit” was to mumble through a few vague lines about how he “want[s] the killing to stop,” as though a war could be settled by ordering takeout. From there, he returned to his favorite bedtime story: “We’re not putting up any money. We’re making money. They’re buying our weapons and we’re sending them to NATO, and NATO’s sending us big, beautiful checks.” In Trump’s world, a blood-soaked battlefield becomes just another episode of Cash Cab, with America raking in the winnings while someone else picks up the fare. The man who once promised an “immediate ceasefire” as soon as he was back in office walked away with nothing more than Putin’s pat on the head and the vague assurance that Russia was “prepared to work.” Translation: prepared to work Trump like a pawn while he bragged about imaginary profits.

Perhaps the most revealing moment came after the summit itself, when Trump scuttled to his natural habitat, Fox News. Sitting across from Sean Hannity, he gushed that he and Putin had “agreed on a lot of points,” except for “one or two pretty significant items.” That’s the sort of answer you expect from a kid who shows up to class with a shoebox labeled “Volcano” and insists the missing baking soda is all part of the plan. “It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” Trump added, pawning off responsibility while simultaneously reminding Europe that “they have to get involved a little bit.”

And then came the pièce de résistance: asked how he thought he’d performed, Trump cheerfully awarded himself a “10 out of 10.” Nothing says statesmanship like grading your own homework with a Sharpie while the rest of the world watches you copy off Putin’s paper. Hannity, of course, nodded along as if he were witnessing Churchill at Yalta, when in fact he was just babysitting Trump’s ego in a padded playpen. For Trump, this was the ideal debrief: no pesky follow-ups, no Europeans rolling their eyes, just a friendly whisper of reassurance that yes, Mr. President, you really are the best boy in class.

Contrast that cocoon with the rest of the planet. In Kyiv, Zelenskyy scrambled to stay relevant, announcing he would fly to Washington to meet Trump in person, less because he believes Trump has a plan, and more because if he doesn’t, the photo-op will write him out of history. European leaders convened an emergency debrief in Brussels, bracing for the fallout of a summit that ended early, produced nothing, and elevated Putin from international pariah to Trump’s dance partner. Russian media, predictably, trumpeted the encounter as proof of Putin’s enduring stature. European media, less charitable, described Trump as having essentially genuflected in Anchorage.

Times Radio relief analyst Ben Wallace wasn’t even drafting a gentle curve; he flat-out gave Trump a “one out of ten,” counterbalancing Trump’s self-score with a sputter of British exasperation: Putin scored a perfect ten, and Trump barely earns participation points.

And so the summit ended exactly as it began: Trump cosplaying statesman, Putin dictating the script, Zelenskyy begging to be included, and Sean Hannity clutching Trump’s ego like a security blanket. Nothing changed on the battlefield. No truce was signed. No peace plan emerged. The only casualty was whatever shred of credibility the United States still had left under Trump’s stewardship.

Which leaves us with the real lesson of the Alaska summit: Donald Trump isn’t negotiating peace. He’s negotiating relevance. Just as The Apprentice gave him the illusion of business acumen, Alaska gave him the illusion of statesmanship. The tragedy is that while Trump play-acts the role of peacemaker, real lives are lost in Ukraine. And the comedy, if we can stomach calling it that, is that the world is expected to treat this performance as diplomacy rather than the farce it plainly is.

For Putin, the whole production was pure theater. He even broke out his English for the cameras, “Thank you, Donald. See you in Moscow”, delivered with the satisfaction of a Bond villain who knows the hero is in on the scam. Trump wagged his tail and replied, “I could see it possibly happening,” as though the next logical plot twist in this bad series was Zelenskyy being marched across Red Square.

The Anchorage summit was reality TV without the editing suite. Trump got his airtime, Putin got legitimacy, Zelenskyy got humiliated, and Europe got indigestion. The war grinds on, nothing changes, and the only true accomplishment was that Trump didn’t literally give Alaska back to Russia.