On Saturday night’s episode of MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime, Hylton spoke to former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—an Obama appointee—about Trump’s summit with Putin in Anchorage on Friday.

“A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors. What did that indicate to you?” Hylton asked McFaul.

McFaul responded, “We should all be glad that we did not go to Alaska, because I was in Helsinki with you. And I was in Geneva when President Biden met. They traveled a long way for nothing in return, those journalists.”

He continued, ”But that suggests to me that this was a bigger disaster than they’re letting on. To your point, they’re trying to spin it, although they’re not even trying to spin it. That’s a really interesting thing.”

”When I worked at the White House and we would have meetings like this, I was the SAO—the senior administration official—that would call up journalists, that would call The New York Times to say, ‘This is what was discussed,’ to push it this way. They’re not even attempting to do that because they know they don’t have anything to work with.”

  • AlexLost@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    The sad part in all this is I would bet good money a lot of people got involved with this shit show thinking it would actually live up to the promises they were making and are slowly being crushed by the weight of reality sinking in. Not apologizing for them, just realizing they are humans too, and how soul crushing that must be to see your hopes and dreams for a better world slip away like sand in an hourglass.

    • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 hours ago

      You’re more forgiving than I; I doubt any of them believe they’re doing anything but carving up the common wealth for themselves in one way or another.

  • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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    13 hours ago

    Sorry but I don’t think she’s smart enough to be worried about anything she might have heard about the meeting.

    Maybe they misread her face and it was actually hung over.

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      13 hours ago

      According to Republicans, women are just property.

      On that basis, I don’t understand why Karoline Leavitt is upset; she gets to live her dream. Women are property and get to go live in Russia, the Worlds Most Non-Woke County.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        12 hours ago

        Well, she didn’t want to be sold to that particular oligarch. He’s the potato oligarch, and lives in a smoke filled house and is abusive. She thought she would be sold off to the oil oligarch.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    We’re owned by Russia and Putin came in there just making demands while Trump groveled. Thats what happened. The US President groveled to the Kremlin. Enjoy your meals.

    • KnitWit@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yep. Everyone in that room was owned, but didn’t think much of what that meant until then. That one report by the fox news lady right afterwards was blunt as hell when describing the whole situation. ‘It was not good.’

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          16 hours ago

          link to an MSN article that has the video, since the only other embeds I can find are twitter links right now.

          Basically, some WH press pool lady from foxnews gave the rundown of the event right after it happened. Her blunt summation of the event was ‘it was not good, it did not feel like things went well, it seems Putin came in and Steamrolled, got his photo and left.’ She then immediately rips into the fact that the US is the host nation and yet Putin came up to the podium and spoke first, in russian, which is just not how it happens. Basically laid out that even Trump’s friendly network realized just how fucked this situation was.

          For the other part of my comment about them getting chewed out, she wasn’t involved in that, but at least one reporter mentioned the admin folks (leavitt et al) as leaving the behind closed doors meeting with ashen faces; meaning whatever we didn’t see was worse than having a foreign dictator come in and publicly flaunt all diplomatic norms while our president paced the red carpet like a dog.

          • Lady Butterfly she/her@reddthat.com
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            13 hours ago

            Jesus fucking Christ that’s so bad. She’s clearly downplaying it (“we need all the pieces”) and it’s on Fox but it’s so bad even she can’t spin it. She’s clearly shocked and it sounds like it’s one of those moments that you had to be there to see just how awful it was. Ashen faced is scary, god only knows what happened. It’s Trump and Putin so literally nearly anything is possible.

    • doben@lemmy.wtf
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      1 day ago

      Maaan, I thought the US was owned by Israel? This is so confusing. Did Israel sell the US to Russia now? Is Congress owned by Israel and the President by Russia? Please, informed users of the fediverse, put forth an honest, coherent analysis.

      And no „Deranged Orange Pedo“ and „Pootin“ don‘t count, sorry.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 day ago

    They watched him dementedly barf out a bunch of national security secrets because Putin’s his new Epstein buddy and he wanted to impress him with how much he knew.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Let’s see the possibilities are 1. Trump completely caved 2. Trump and Putin divided up Ukraine like Poland 3. Trump showed dementia.

    Now 2 they might actually be excited, so maybe take that one off the list.

    • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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      17 hours ago

      Well, Trump also sold off a bunch of Alaska too, to Russia, as a part of the “Deal”.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This time around the administration is doing a better job keeping it’s people believing, but it makes sense that some of them will start to crack

  • tisktisk@piefed.social
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    What did I just read? What does it mean to look ‘ashen’? I’m assuming it’s not a compliment

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Pale, grey, dull. Low blood flow to the skin. It’s not at all a compliment, quite the opposite. Pallor is the medical term.

    • J92@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      To add to what the other person said, another phrase could be, “looked like they’d seen a ghost.”

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    1 day ago

    Honestly this screams of “[politician] SLAMMED by comment” when the comment was effectively “I don’t agree with [politician]”.

    Are there pictures of these “ashen” staff?

    • lectricleopard@lemmy.world
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      The guy is saying he used to be in her shoes and that she was acting odd after this meeting. Her body language immediately following the meeting was cause enough for concern. Then, they didn’t try to push the narrative around the topic of conversation during this meeting, showing to him that the conversation was about topics that they wouldn’t want discussed at all in the media.

      He’s an expert, giving his expert opinion. That doesn’t mean he’s right, but he’s not talking out of his ass for no reason.

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        “Ashen” implies a visual indication. It’s not too much to assume there’d be photos.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          17 hours ago

          I’m not sure the concept of someone “looking like they just saw a ghost” always translates well in photograph form. And it’s more than just the pallid color, there’s all sorts of subtle micro movements and stuff that we might not even consciously register to indicate something is off, that doesn’t translate to photograph.

          • meco03211@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            Right. I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s just if you put a visual descriptor in it will beg the question of what that actually looked like. They’d probably get just as much mileage out of phrasing it as “they looked shaken” followed by more details in the article. But to put “ashen” in the headline attempts to imply it was really noticeable. Similar to my original comment if an article says someone “slammed” a politician I pretty much ignore it. Clickbait headlines like that don’t help the cause. Regardless of who it’s about it pretty much just reinforces what someone already believes. Pro-trump people reading this article would probably question the same thing and ignore any conclusions while anti-trump people will just nod along knowing whatever happened behind closed doors was utter shit.

        • lectricleopard@lemmy.world
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          I guess you’re right. I dont see why it matters if the ashen description is accurate. I take all the news and editorials with a large grain of salt.