President Donald Trump is lashing out at the media and his own former national security advisor just days before a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a furious post Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump tore into coverage of the upcoming summit in Alaska, blaming what he called the “very unfair media” for trying to sabotage the meeting.
“Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin,” Trump wrote. “Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won.’ What’s that all about? We are winning on everything.”
Bolton, who served under Trump before being fired, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s foreign policy and continues to push for aggressive U.S. support for Ukraine.
Trump wasn’t having it. He slammed Bolton as a “fired loser” and dismissed media outlets that air opposing views as “fake news.”
“They are sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our country,” Trump wrote. “But it doesn’t matter because we are winning on everything!”
Trump’s meeting with Putin is scheduled for Friday in Alaska, where he’s expected to push for a deal to end the war in Ukraine. But Putin’s demands—control of large parts of eastern Ukraine—are already clashing with what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’ll accept.
The meeting is shaping up to be one of Trump’s most controversial diplomatic moves, and his own words suggest he knows the pressure is on.
