What does a president do when cracks begin to show in his political base? One option is to stage a spectacle. Enter Donald Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin — ostensibly convened to address the war in Ukraine, but in practice, a showpiece distraction.
Trump rolled out the red carpet, but the much-hyped encounter fizzled. His grand conclusion? “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.” Fox News dutifully reported that Trump rated the summit a “10 out of 10,” while applauding Putin’s claim that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine had Trump won in 2020. Neither leader bothered to explain why.
Behind the scenes, though, Trump’s problems run deeper than foreign policy. The “no-deal” Alaska spectacle conveniently diverted attention from intra-MAGA tensions, not least of which stem from the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly informed Trump in May that his name appears in the Justice Department’s review of the late financier’s documents. Despite campaign promises to declassify the files, Trump has since denounced the investigation as a “hoax,” lashing out at Republican supporters demanding transparency as “stupid” and “foolish.” In July, he thundered on social media: “We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
But Epstein is hardly the only fault line. Many within Trump’s MAGA base are now openly condemning Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza — a genocide approaching its two-year mark with an official toll of nearly 62,000 Palestinians killed. Once tolerable to much of Washington’s political class, Israel’s campaign of bombings, blockades, and forced displacement has tipped into mass starvation. The UN World Food Programme calls the food shortage “catastrophic.” Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports 251 deaths from malnutrition, including 108 children, while skeletal images of Palestinians have flooded the internet.
Even loyal allies are speaking out. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a steadfast Trump defender, has publicly decried “the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.” Far-right influencer Laura Loomer quickly fired back: “There is no genocide in Gaza.”
Trump, meanwhile, has offered Netanyahu the occasional half-hearted rebuke on “optics” but has continued to lend support. The alignment with Israel is increasingly toxic — fueling rifts within MAGA just as Netanyahu himself exploits genocide as a shield against domestic scandals and corruption charges.
And so, the Alaska red-carpet moment arrives: a carefully choreographed stunt, flashy enough to shift the narrative, empty enough to dissolve the moment it ends. Like so many distractions before it, the summit was less about diplomacy than about buying time.
When the dust settles, Americans are left to ask: what was the Alaska summit really about?
source Aljazeera
