In “The Beast,” Putin Turns Trump

By Jaffa

MOSCOW — The moment came not at the negotiating table, nor in the glare of cameras, but in the back seat of an armored limousine. Donald Trump, en route to a summit in Alaska, had warned Fox News he would be “very disappointed” if Russia rejected his ceasefire terms — promising consequences if Vladimir Putin refused to bend. Yet after a short ride with the Russian president in the Beast, Trump emerged a different man. The ultimatum was gone. The rhetoric of confrontation gave way to talk of understanding.

What changed? According to accounts relayed by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, it was Putin’s methodical dismantling of the American narrative. With the same didactic precision he once deployed in a 45-minute televised lecture to Tucker Carlson — complete with archival documents — Putin laid out Russia’s view of the war, casualty ratios, and the historical grievances that shaped Moscow’s choices. Ritter says Trump, hearing these arguments unfiltered for the first time, abandoned the ceasefire threat and acknowledged he had been misled by his own advisers. Witnesses described members of Trump’s entourage, including Senator Marco Rubio, as visibly shaken.

The episode illustrates a larger point: the sharply divergent ways Russians view America and Europe. Ritter notes that Russian officials and citizens alike make a distinction between the U.S. government — seen as untrustworthy, dominated by a “deep state” and a militarized establishment — and the American people, whom they respect. In their eyes, Americans fight for themselves, for their country, and for an identity they believe in.

Europe, by contrast, has lost standing. Russians cite opinion polls showing that only 16 percent of Germans would fight if their country were invaded. That statistic, repeated with disdain, symbolizes a continent seen as weak, irresolute, and no longer commanding respect. “They like winners,” Ritter explained. “They view the United States as the only country in the West that is winning.”

It is a paradox: Russia distrusts Washington more than ever, but professes sympathy for an American president it sees as standing alone against his own establishment. In Ritter’s telling, Russian officials were emphatic. Their message for Trump was simple: we are with you; if you need to lean on us, lean on us.

For now, one thing is clear. In the battle of narratives, Putin found his most receptive audience not in European capitals or on American television screens, but in the upholstered silence of the Beast.