‘Astonishing!’ Maggie Haberman Stunned By Trump ‘Pageantry And Grandiosity’ For Accused War Criminal Putin

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told anchor Kaitlan Collins she was “astonished” by the “pageantry” President Donald Trump rolled out for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin , whom she noted is an accused war criminal.

Haberman and Collins were part of CNN’s team coverage of President Donald Trump’s high-stakes summit meeting in Anchorage, Alaska with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin with an arrival that drew notice and raised eyebrows.

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COLLINS: Yeah, he sounded quite open to that, clarifying not NATO, which no one is surprised by, but that answer was very telling. I thought, I do that moment on the tarmac was really striking. I don’t think we spent enough time on it where the B-2 bombers were flying over head as the two leaders were walking up to that, that sign that said Alaska 2025.

I mean, Trump is a producer’s producer. He cares a lot about visuals —

HABERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: And the visual effects of what that looks like. I wonder what that did signal to you.

HABERMAN: Look, I mean, he’s both a TV producer, but also was an actor on his own show. And so, he does think about what these things look like. This is the type of display of pageantry and grandiosity that he really likes. They put this together very quickly.

We should not lose sight of the fact that Putin has been accused of war crimes, and there are many, many people dead, and there is mass devastation in Ukraine. And so, you know, the president is meeting with Putin while he has had, by contrast, this really, really aggressive meeting with President Zelenskyy at the in the Oval Office. They have since had a better meeting at the Vatican, Vatican and the President Trump has kind of softened his at least approach to Ukraine, recognizing that it seems that arming Ukraine is among the only leverage he has against Putin right now.

But this was a really astonishing spectacle to watch, to your point. And it’s on a — on a military base in the U.S.

Watch above via CNN.