Two presidents of rival countries emerged from their airplanes into a damp Alaskan afternoon on Friday, walking toward a red carpet that cut its way through the steel-colored expanse of a military base.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, setting foot in the United States for the first time in a decade, had just been escorted into the country by a quartet of American fighter jets. He strode toward Mr. Trump, who was waiting at the edge of the carpet. Mr. Trump, a born producer, seemed to relish the spectacle of the moment, all of the attention it was drawing.
And so he clapped for his guest — once, twice, a third time — before Mr. Putin reached him.
This friendly greeting on the red carpet answered no questions about whether the two of them could reach a peace deal to end the Russian war with Ukraine — not that a deal could be reached without Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, who was not invited and whose country was being attacked by Russian forces even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin prepared to speak.
But it revealed just how much stake Mr. Trump had placed in a greeting he felt worthy of Mr. Putin, a leader whom most of the West has shunned for an invasion that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
On their walk down the red carpet, Mr. Trump looked ahead, reaching his arms out and spreading his hands apart, as if to brag of the size of the stage nearby and the throng of reporters waiting. Mr. Trump seemed intent on showing off the most visible (and most threatening) trappings of American power within just a few seconds. A military show-and-tell.
As they walked toward a waiting stage, both men stopped to look up at a B-2 fighter jet flying above them. Mr. Putin looked overhead, repeatedly. The stealth bombers can carry bombs capable of striking an underground nuclear facility, as they did in June when American forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites. The plane screeched overhead, its presence a message of American might that offered a dose of cold reality to the glossier proceedings below.
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The post Trump Welcomes Putin With a Jet Fighter Escort and Red Carpet appeared first on New York Times.
