President rolls out the red carpet for Putin in Anchorage; the meeting ends with no deal.

The President of the United States stood at the foot of an L-shaped red carpet at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage on Friday. Four F-22 Raptors were lined up next to the runway. A platform behind him read ALASKA 2025. The President of the Russian Federation got off his plane and walked across the carpet. The two men shook hands. The American President briefly applauded.

Hon. The man on the other end of that handshake has an outstanding warrant from the International Criminal Court for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. The fighter jets are ours. The carpet is ours. The applause is ours.

Putin has not been on American soil for years. We do not give him a red carpet because we like him. We do not give him a fighter jet honor guard because he is a friend. We give somebody a red carpet and a fighter jet honor guard because we are signaling that we have something to say to them and we are taking the day to say it. The American end of the signaling normally has a thing it wants from the meeting. That thing is normally a ceasefire.

The meeting lasted about three hours. The leaders came out to the cameras. They alluded to progress. They announced no ceasefire, no deal, no agreement on territory, no agreement on prisoner exchanges, no agreement on anything that would be visible from a satellite tomorrow morning over Kyiv. Putin got back on his plane. The President got back on his plane.

You ever notice how the deal-makers always seem to come out of the deal with nothing but the photo of the deal.

The photo was very good. The photo was, in fact, the deal.

Funny how that works.