Trump-Putin Expectations & Smithsonian Bias Review | 8.15.25

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Trump and Putin trade optimistic assessments ahead of their high-stakes one-on-one summit in Alaska.

We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelensky, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders on, maybe not.

I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe.

It's Friday, August 15th, and this is Morning Wire.

President Trump orders a sweeping review of the Smithsonian museums, focusing more on American exceptionalism and less on DEI.

Why are some people upset?

Our museums have an obligation to represent what happened in our country over the years, good and bad.

And after repeated denials, a 16-year-old wins a court battle for her medical vaccine exemption in New York.

What these school districts are doing is flat-out discriminatory and dangerous to their health.

Thanks for waking up with Morningwire.

Stay tuned.

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President Trump will sit down with Vladimir Putin today in Alaska for a high-stakes showdown that could impact millions across Ukraine and Russia.

Daily Wire's senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break down what's at stake and what we expect to see from Putin.

A.

Cabot, so this is arguably Trump's most important meeting he's had of his second term.

Where do things stand now?

Yeah, just hours from now, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will sit down face to face at 11.30 Alaska time in an Air Force base outside Anchorage.

The two men will meet one-on-one to start before being joined by their respective delegations.

And then from there, we expect a joint press conference, which will be watched closely by the entire world.

Ahead of the sit-down, President Trump sought to temper expectations, calling it a quote, feel-out meeting, and then acknowledging that he could decide within the first two minutes that no progress would be made.

Here he is yesterday to that point.

This meeting sets up the second meeting.

The second meeting is going to be very, very important because that's going to be a meeting where they

make a deal.

But there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting.

Now, it's important to note, absent from this meeting will be Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

He was clearly angry at being left out and warned the Trump administration that Putin is, quote, definitely not preparing for a ceasefire.

Putin is only determined to present the meeting with America as his personal victory and then continue to act as before to put pressure on Ukraine.

But for his part, Trump offered assurances that if this first meeting goes well, he will bring Zelensky in for a trilateral meeting in the near future.

I'm more interested in immediate peace deal, getting peace fast.

And depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelensky, and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet him.

All right, so that's what Trump is saying ahead of this meeting.

What about Moscow?

What have we heard from them going into this?

It's interesting.

In the days beforehand, Putin struck a much more conciliatory approach, saying that he believed President Trump was showing, quote, energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting, stop the crisis, and reach reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict.

But look, Trump has made clear that he is tired of nice words from Putin.

We've heard him say things like that before, and that he wants to see tangible steps towards peace now.

As far as what Moscow is looking for, they want to formally retain much of the land they've seized, most notably in the Donbass region.

Putin is also sure to demand that NATO block Ukraine from future membership.

He could also push for limits on the size and offensive firepower of the Ukrainian military.

And according to the Kremlin, they also want to discuss normalizing economic ties with the U.S.

in exchange for peace.

That would mean sanctions being lifted and then bilateral investment deals put in place.

But zooming out here, it's important to note, Putin comes into these meetings with a lot more leverage than he would have had if these conversations had taken place earlier in the war.

Right.

Walk us through that, the reality on the ground in Ukraine at this point.

Well, if these meetings were going on in 2023, Moscow might have a lot more incentive to make a deal.

At that point, Russia was losing troops at an alarming rate and had to rely on a mandatory draft that led to unprecedented discontent towards Putin within Russia.

But there's no question they've slowly turned the tides of the war in the last year, slowly but surely gaining ground across the 750-mile front.

Russia now controls about 18% of all Ukrainian territory.

Their economy has been surprisingly resilient thanks to the export of oil and gas.

And Putin is no longer as reliant on mandatory conscription.

Moscow has begun offering salaries three times the national average to new volunteers.

They're giving cash bonuses for battlefield heroism.

and that has resulted in about a thousand new recruits streaming in every single day.

That surge has allowed Putin to continue his war of attrition.

And basically he's telling Ukraine, our progress might be slow, but we can do this a lot longer than you guys can.

For example, last month he warned Ukraine that, quote, keep at it, keep at it.

It will only get worse wherever a Russian steps foot is ours.

So all that to say, President Trump certainly has his work cut out for him, and this could be a very long peace process.

Indeed, lots of reasons for tempered expectations, you said at the beginning.

Kevin, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

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The Trump administration has ordered a sweeping review of the Smithsonian Museums ahead of America's 250th anniversary.

The White House says its aim is to restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions, but critics say it's whitewashing history.

Here with more is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.

So Megan, can you start by explaining what exactly the Trump administration is proposing?

Yeah, so back in March, the White House issued a new executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, and it criticized the Smithsonian for divisive race-centered ideology.

So in a new letter released just a couple of days ago, the administration said it's going to conduct a comprehensive review of eight Smithsonian museums, and the purpose is to remove divisive or partisan narratives.

Now, this letter stressed that the administration does not intend to interfere with the day-to-day operations of the museums.

But given that this is a taxpayer-funded institution, they say that they do want to ensure the exhibits are historically accurate and feature inclusive portrayals of American heritage.

Now, unsurprisingly, there's been a lot of criticism of this move.

What's the gist of those complaints?

Yeah, we're hearing from some historical and free speech groups.

They're saying that this could lead to a rewriting of history to fit a political agenda.

The executive director of the American Historical Association, for example, told the New York Times that this review represents a major overstep by the Trump administration.

And on ABC, museum educator Marjorie Schwartzer compared the White House to the Taliban.

Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the U.S.

It has happened in other authoritarian countries.

I think about the Maoist cultural revolution in China.

I think about the Taliban.

I think about Khomeini in Iran and so on.

But for this to happen in the United States is truly extraordinary.

But there are also plenty of pundits out there defending Trump on this.

They say that the rewriting of history came in the last few years when statues were torn down and exhibits were restructured to add DEI language and woke narratives.

Fox columnist David Marcus pointed out that back in 2022, the Smithsonian magazine ran a positive profile of an activist who pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus.

And then the president is defending the move, too.

Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan asked him about some of this criticism, and here's what he said.

We want the museums to treat our country fairly.

We want the museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or in a racist manner, which is what many of them, not all of them, but many of them are doing.

Our museums have an obligation to represent what happened in our country over the years, good and bad, but what happened over the years in an accurate way.

And how's the Smithsonian responding?

Yeah, I'd say they have been fairly diplomatic so far.

The Board of Regents, which incidentally includes J.D.

Vance, has agreed to conduct a review.

They issued a statement saying that their work is, quote, grounded in a deep commitment to the accurate, factual presentation of history.

And they say that they're going to collaborate constructively with the White House.

Now, the next steps are the Smithsonian must deliver documentation on exhibits, partnerships, and internal communications within 30 days.

Also, related this week, on Wednesday, the president announced that he has agreed to host the Kennedy Center honors.

And he said that he vetoed some of the proposed honorees because of their woke backgrounds.

I turned down plenty.

They were too woke.

I had a couple of wokesters.

These are great people and

not, they're not, I don't have any idea the Republican.

So instead, the honors will go to Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, and the rock band Kiss, among others.

Well, congrats to those artists.

Megan, thanks for reporting.

My pleasure.

A 16-year-old girl wins in court after the public school system denied her medical vaccine exemption.

Here are the details as Daily Wire reporter Amanda Pressa-Giacomo hey.

Amanda.

So this case hits on a really hot topic these days, considering all the recent discussions surrounding vaccinations.

First, what exactly was this young girl facing and what did the court say?

Yeah, so the court sided with this teen, a 16-year-old who went by the pseudonym Sarah Doe, after the public school system in New York repeatedly denied her medical exemptions, which she received from six different doctors and a nurse practitioner.

A federal court on Tuesday granted that medical exemption and said that Sarah must be allowed to attend school starting in September.

Here's Sarah celebrating that victory victory with loved ones and a lot of supporters outside of the courthouse.

Now, this swing is significant for a lot of reasons, but with New York specifically, it's one of four states in the U.S.

that does not allow religious exemptions for its vaccine mandates.

The other states are California, Connecticut, and Maine.

And since we've had this crackdown on those exemptions, there have been more and more reports of families who are saying that they've been denied medical exemptions.

And in this case, the court said, no, the school is wrong and this medical exemption is valid.

Now, you were able to speak to Sarah Doe, her mother and the girl's attorney before the victory in court.

What exactly was Sarah seeking an exemption for and why?

So Sarah was advised by a number of medical professionals to skip her final dose of the hepatitis B B vaccination.

This was after she developed severe autoimmune conditions, kidney issues, debilitating migraines, continuous rashes, particularly on her back, and a diagnosis of a bleeding disorder where the blood doesn't clot properly.

All of those conditions started back in 2019 when New York stopped allowing religious exemptions, and Sarah got 18 vaccine doses over the span of two months so she could attend school.

Here's Sarah's mother, Jane Doe, describing Sarah's medical troubles.

Her back started hurting her, her whole spine.

We went for MRI.

She did CAT scans.

And at one point, she did become septic.

They had to put a stent in her, in her, to her kidney, her urethra.

And she was in the hospital.

We had to pack her on ice one night because her temps just wouldn't come down.

It's just her body responding to all those vaccines at once that just...

shut her down almost.

The family's attorney, Sujata Gibson, said that this case is, of course, about Sarah and her safety, but it's also about other children in states like New York where religious exemptions are not allowed.

And while New York is supposed to allow medical exemptions, Gibson says that's not what's happening.

The problem really is these Department of Health, New York State Department of Health regulations that were issued in 2019.

That led to hundreds of children who had long-standing medical exemptions suddenly getting them revoked, meaning many, many families have had to move out of town, get vaccinated against medical advice.

Some children have been severely harmed by that.

Gibson flagged some legislation pending in New York that could fix this issue.

It's called the Education for All Act.

The attorney also floated the idea of the federal government taking action here to solve the problem.

There are a lot of things the federal government could do.

This is a square violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Children with disabilities are required to be accommodated and allowed to attend school.

Now, speaking of federal influence on this matter, we obviously now have Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., who's heading HHS.

Kennedy personally supports exemptions and he actually filed a lawsuit in 2019 to challenge New York's decision to rid those religious exemptions.

These exemptions for vaccine mandates are decided by states, but we're certainly watching to see if HHS will put out any official guidance on vaccine exemptions.

There have been a lot of changes and shake-ups so far, so, you know, it could happen.

Yeah, with RFK at the helm, there's a lot shifting quickly when it comes to vaccines.

Amanda, thanks so much for reporting.

You're welcome.

Thanks for waking up with us.

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