President Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska this week in a high-stakes effort to broker a peace deal for Ukraine. A seismic shift in the media landscape sees leftist talk show hosts falter while conservative voices gain prominence. The Department of Justice is investigating prominent Democrats Letitia James and Adam Schiff for alleged civil rights abuses and mortgage fraud.
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Trump to Meet With Putin in High-Stakes Summit
Topline: President Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday for their first face-to-face summit since Trump returned to office, in a high-stakes push to end the war in Ukraine.
The meeting comes after a month of escalating U.S. pressure on Moscow, including increased weapons sales to NATO, sanctions, and secondary tariffs on countries that do business with Russia. While the White House is tempering expectations, President Trump is confident he can persuade Putin to agree to a deal. Discussions will likely involve security guarantees for Ukraine and territorial concessions. Trump has implied a deal would require “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not scheduled to attend the initial meeting and has bristled at the idea of ceding any land.
The summit announcement came just before Trump brokered another historic peace deal, this time between Armenia and Azerbaijan. After signing the treaty at the White House on Friday, the leaders of both countries announced they would formally nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. The deal is the latest in a string of ceasefires and peace agreements secured by the president in the last few months.
Media Landscape Shifts as Left-Wing Hosts Falter
Topline: A seismic shift appears to be underway in the media landscape, with longtime left-wing talk show hosts like Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern facing cancellation or declining viewership while conservative voices gain mainstream acceptance.
Following the recent cancellation of “The Late Show,” host Stephen Colbert has encouraged viewers to protest his firing, implying the decision was made to appease President Trump. However, his show was reportedly losing around $40 million a year, and his viewership has plummeted from a peak of 3.1 million in 2018 to just 1.9 million today.
Rumors are also swirling that Sirius XM is preparing to oust Howard Stern, whose contract is up this fall. The New York Post has reported his audience has dropped from 20 million a day to just 125,000, a decline many analysts attribute to his embrace of a “woke” persona.
In contrast, Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, the current ratings king of late-night, was a guest on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” last week. New York magazine described the move as host Jimmy Fallon “kissing the ring” of conservatives. The developments suggest the long era of late-night shows serving as a reliable stronghold for amplifying liberal talking points may be coming to an end.
DOJ Investigating Trump Antagonists Schiff and James
Topline: The Department of Justice is investigating two of President Trump’s most prominent political antagonists, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Senator Adam Schiff, for alleged civil rights abuses and mortgage fraud.
The U.S. attorney in Albany has issued subpoenas to James over potential civil rights violations related to her 2023 civil case against Trump and a separate corruption case against the National Rifle Association. Both James and Schiff are also being investigated for alleged mortgage fraud, stemming from criminal referrals by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. James allegedly claimed a Virginia home as her primary residence to secure better loan terms, while Schiff is accused of doing the same with a home in Maryland while serving as a U.S. representative for California.
The probes come as a federal grand jury is reportedly investigating the recent revelations from DNI Tulsi Gabbard regarding the origins of the Russia collusion hoax. Vice President JD Vance said over the weekend that he expects indictments to follow. “What they basically did is they defrauded the American people in order… to take Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign talking points and turn them into intelligence,” Vance said. “That’s a violation of the people’s trust… We’ve got to have consequences for it or we’re just going to see the same play repeated again and after again”.
