G7 summit

Monday

Neal Pollack

Under Trump, there is no G7 – only a G1

President Trump moved through the G7 Summit in Alberta like a blowsy uncle swinging by the house for a drink on Thanksgiving on his way to Vegas. He didn’t accomplish much, but, as always, he was the perpetual pot-stirrer in his real-life As The World Turns. He began yesterday by criticizing the G7 for tossing Russia out of the group, “even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it.” Fact check: true. This expulsion was a “mistake,” Trump said, adding, “Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anyone else.” What was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni rolling her eyes at in a moment soon to become a GIF? Probably that statement. Almost definitely that statement. But that was just the canapé, with the actual meal yet to come.

Trump
biden cheap fakes
The Spectator

Team Biden rejects ‘cheap fake’ videos

Who can you put next to President Joe Biden that will make him look good? We know it’s not the G7, as Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni had to wrangle the US commander-in-chief when he threatened to drift away from the group of world leaders during a parachuting demonstration. And Saturday confirmed that former president Barack Obama isn’t the answer either, after grabbing his former VP by the wrist and guiding him by his shoulders off the stage at a Los Angeles event as Biden appeared to freeze for about five seconds. Biden’s handlers have already equipped him with special shoes and a gaggle of aides now surround him during boarding of Marine One to disguise his shuffling gait.

Monday

Cockburn

WATCH: Trump hints Russia should rejoin G7

As the annual G7 Summit kicks off in Canada, President Trump told reporters that removing President Vladimir Putin from the group was a mistake, and had they not done so, the Kremlin's over two-year war against Ukraine would not have happened. "They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it," Trump said. He reasoned, "You spend so much time talking about Russia, and he’s no longer at the table. So it makes it more complicated – but you wouldn’t have had the war." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared somewhat disengaged next to Trump and gazed off into the distance when Trump said the war would have never happened.

Trump and Carney G7 (Getty)

Thursday

Harry Cole

Why you shouldn’t bet on elections

The skies above Europe On a human level, I probably should have felt some sadness watching Sleepy Joe chew his way through the first debate like he had been on Hunter’s pipe. But professionally I was full of burning rage. Two weeks previously I broke a story about the precarious president horrifying allied powers with a somewhat avant-garde performance at the G7 summit in Italy. In fifteen years as a hack, I’ve never dealt with a ruder or more dishonest press operation than the Biden White House; they went public with their criticism of the story and privately ranted at me like Joe on a particularly bad evening. Yet now their lies were coming home to roost on the podium.

elections

Friday

Martin Vander Weyer

Seized Russian assets should be used against Putin

The seizure of enemy treasure, formerly known as plunder and pillage, is an ancient tool of war. Though still practiced in the world’s nastiest conflict zones, it’s a tricky business within a rules-based international order. The G7’s agreement to lend $50 billion to Ukraine — using income from $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to cover interest and repayments on the loan — is a vivid case in point. And some would say, a lily-livered half-measure. The key feature of the deal is that it does not actually claim ownership of Russian loot — which however ill-gotten is mostly held in EU banks in the form of western government bonds. It merely diverts interest payments due on the bonds from the issuing governments.

Russian

Friday

The Spectator

Trump courts Gen Z on the pods

Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill on Thursday, his first visit since some of his supporters stormed the Capitol building on January 6 three years ago.A packed room full of House Republicans sang “Happy Birthday” to the former president, who turns seventy-eight today.Trump pleaded with members for a change in tone on abortion, calling on the issue to be left to the states. This comes after a record number of voters, 32 percent, said in a Gallup poll that they would only vote for candidates in major races who share their views on abortion.