MSNBC’s Wallace on Alaska Summit: ‘Trump Was Not in Control of Anything,’ a Middle Schooler Waiting for Their First Date

EXCERPT:

WALLACE: “Well, I think the press conference underscored something that Ambassador McFaul and Ali Velshi and I’ve been talking about since 4 P.M. Eastern. I mean, this was, for Trump, a television production that may have been rooted in different motives, but one of them was likely to change the topic of news coverage. It succeeded in that. We’ve all been covering this all day, for better or for worse. But clearly, Trump was not in control of anything. I mean, Putin was the alpha all day long, from Trump holding on his plane and waiting for him like a, you know, middle schooler waiting for their first date, the red carpet that rolled out and the choreography. I mean, I went to dozens of foreign trips with the president. It is very rare to have a red carpet and then an ascent to a platform, and then a walk down the stairs into a limo together. I won’t say it’s never happened, but it’s exceedingly rare to the point that I can’t think of it ever happening before. And then Donald Trump, you know, don’t stand between Donald Trump and a scrum of reporters asking questions if you don’t want to be stampeded. There’s no way it was Donald Trump’s decision or request to take no questions. He’d be talking until 9 P.M. Eastern if he’d been in control of anything that happened today.”