Morning Brief: Key Insights From Trump's Meeting With Putin

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Friday, August 15, 2025

Good morning, and welcome to RedState’s “Morning Minute” — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.

TOP O’ THE MORNIN’

Red-Hot at RedState

Hilarious Moment Gavin Newsom Suffers TDS Attack, Appears to Fall for Epic Troll About Trump

Newsom is not a serious person, much less someone who should ever be given the highest job in the land, if he takes receiving a hat seriously. And now he’s likely to be sent a lot of Trump 2028 hats.

Karen Bass Leveled by US Attorney After Meltdown Over Border Patrol Arrests Near Newsom Rally

You know what’s “disrespectful,” Mayor Bass? Not enforcing the law for the American people, and demonizing the work of those who are enforcing that law.

More Lies: D.C. Quietly Settles With Police Sergeant Who Sued Over Falsified Crime Stats

The people are catching on, and no amount of falsified data is going to change that reality.

Trending Across Townhall Media

One Massacre Illustrates Why Second Amendment Exists

The government is a lot like fire. It’s got its purpose, but it’s dangerous if you don’t maintain strict control over it.

Liberals Don’t Just Hate America–They Especially Hate the Constitution

Millions of Times readers will nod their heads along with these traitors and lament that there has yet to be a military coup in the United States.

And then call us Nazis.

Pink-Shirted Guy Who Threw a Sandwich at a D.C. Fed Has a Day Job, and, Oh Boy

That’s how you stop the big trouble from occurring. You stop the little stuff before it gets out of control. It’s brilliant.

And it’s working.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe Had the Best Line for Dems Defending the Indefensible Over Trump’s D.C. Takeover

The party has yet to learn, incredibly, from their 2024 mistakes, which is telling people what they see isn’t actually happening. How about you guys stop peddling crap agenda items?

David Axelrod’s Louisville, Kentucky Crime ‘Gotcha’ Against Scott Jennings Hilariously Backfires on CNN

We know it’s an entirely different beast copying what Trump is doing in D.C. and applying it to other cities across the nation, but these blue cities could make inroads against crime by being open to Trump’s assistance.

WHAT’S ON TAP?

Today on Capitol Hill…

The critters being on a break doesn’t stop Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) from regularly sharing his pearls of wisdom. As our Sister Toldjah wrote, in a recent Fox News interview, Kennedy offered some sound advice for his Democrat colleagues:

I don’t know Mr. Jeffries that well. I know Sen. Schumer very well, so I say this with respect: Chuck and Hakeem need to go to Amazon, buy some testicles, and stand up to the loon wing of their party.

One suspects they’re unlikely to heed it.

Punchbowl shares that House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX), who helped play a critical role in advancing the OBBB, is potentially eyeing a jump to academia, as he’s “being floated as a potential next chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.”

White House What’s Up

Today’s the day: President Trump is on his way to Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The two are set to “participate in a bilateral program” at 3:00 PM Eastern. We’ll be watching closely, of course.

Vice President JD Vance got a good chuckle out of Senator Eric Schmitt’s Vance “sighting” at the Missouri State Fair.

😂 https://t.co/6PdwSEtu9I

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 14, 2025

Full Court Press…

Thursday’s court rulings weren’t all that favorable for the Trump administration:

Judge Loren AliKhan (D.C.) granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment in Aviel v. Gor (regarding the removal of independent agency leaders).
Judge Paul Friedman (D.C.) granted plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in Federal Education Association v. Trump (regarding the termination of collective bargaining agreements).
Judge Stephanie Gallagher (Maryland) granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs on five of the six counts of their complaint — BUT…she did also grant the administration’s motion to dismiss one of those counts — in American Federation of Teachers v. Dept. of Education (regarding the banning of DEI-related programming).

The Supreme Court also issued an order on Thursday in NetChoice v. Fitch, declining, for now, to block a Mississippi social media age-check law.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Confession: I have no idea what next week (or even this weekend) may bring. I will share with our readers this fun fact, however: Yours truly will be on actual, bona fide vacation starting Tuesday (through next Sunday), so the Morning Minutes will be on temporary (three-day) hiatus after Tuesday’s installment. Hopefully, the world doesn’t go to hell in a handbasket while I’m trying to enjoy some R&R.

MORNING MUSING

As noted above, all eyes will be on Alaska today as the highly anticipated Trump-Putin summit takes place this afternoon. I was thinking the last time the two had met was in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018, but there were a couple of G20 summits (Argentina in November 2018 and Japan in June 2019) following that. Still, it’s been over six years since the pair met face-to-face. And there’s been a lot of water under the bridge in that time. A. Lot.

I can’t pretend to have any foresight as to what — if anything — will come of today’s meeting. I’m not even going to speculate. What I do know (aside from being certain the left and legacy media will spin it as a negative regardless) is that Trump 2025 is older and wiser than Trump 2018-19. Sure…Putin is, too, but I’m not sure his character has ever allowed for much, uh, “growth.”

What I hope that translates into is Trump being able to fully assess the steps necessary to protect America’s interests — and, God willing, to help bring about an end to the killing, as he’s so often advocated.