Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tore into President Trump early Saturday after his high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska ended without a deal, accusing the president of “selling out” Ukraine.
“Looks like once again Trump is selling out Ukraine and bowing down to dictator Putin,” he wrote on social media platform X. “No Nobel Peace Prize for that.”
His critique comes days after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped that she would nominate Trump for the coveted prize if he successfully squeezed a ceasefire agreement out of the Russian leader.
Trump and Putin met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday for a roughly three-hour discussion. While details of the conversation have not been released, the president touted the meeting as “productive” and signaled that while progress was made, a deal was not yet on the table.
“We didn’t get there, but we have a good chance,” he told reporters following the summit, but did not take questions. The president later briefed NATO and European leaders — who responded by doubling down on their support for Ukraine — on the meeting.
Schumer, in separate comments late Friday, accused Trump of rolling out the red carpet for Putin, who he called an “authoritarian thug.”
“Instead of standing with Ukraine and our allies, Trump stood shoulder to shoulder with an autocrat that has terrorized the Ukrainian people and the globe for years,” he wrote on X. “While we wait for critical details of what was discussed — on first take it appears Trump handed Putin legitimacy, a global stage, zero accountability, and got nothing in return.”
“Our fear is that this wasn’t diplomacy — it was just theater,” the New York Democrat added.
Trump defended the outcome of the summit in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity late Friday, saying it is up to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to come to an agreement. Trump and Zelensky are expected to meet on Monday at the Oval Office.
Clinton earlier this week said she would support Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace Prize if he is able to negotiate an end to the more than three-year war that repudiates the Kremlin’s claims to Ukrainian territory. The president later expressed gratitude for his former opponent’s remarks.
Zelensky has pushed back on Trump’s suggestion that any truce would likely require a land swap of territories Russia has taken over since it’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“We will never leave the Donbas,” the Ukrainian leader told reporters on Tuesday.
