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This Nonprofit Is Fighting to Improve the Justice System by Focusing on Prosecutors

November 30, 2017
Staff

WRITER

We think punishing criminals automatically keeps us safer and helps our communities, but the long-term effects can be detrimental to society. Prosecutor Impact is a nonprofit working in communities to find better outcomes for people convicted of crimes while repairing harm done to the victims.

Glenn talked about the need for reforming the system with Prosecutor Impact founder Adam Foss, a former Assistant District Attorney in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston and a criminal justice reform advocate.

“How did you balance justice and mercy?” Glenn asked.

Listen to the full clip (above) to hear how Foss works to find those solutions.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Adam Foss is the founder and executive director of Prosecutor Impact, a guy who never thought he was going to be a prosecutor. You -- I love this. You're so honest.

You got into law. You went to law school, for?

ADAM: Money.

GLENN: Money. I love it. Love that. And then you started seeing how the system really works, and then you thought, this is broken. This is really bad. You want to explain?

ADAM: Yeah. First, thank you for getting into this conversation. It's an important one that we need to be having. Should be something that we're talking about more often than we already do.

When I walked into a courthouse for the first time in a city and saw a literal and figurative divide between the people who are constantly impacted by the criminal justice system and those people who were enforcing it, who were prosecuting, who were defending, who were judging, who were probating, the divide and the sort of tone-deafness and the patriarchy of those folks, you could see the impact -- the negative impact happening in the moment.

And yet, we would tell ourselves that this is a great system, this is working. It's punishing people. It's teaching them lessons. It's creating safer communities. Was a falsity.

And so that's what drove me into the criminal justice system and the work that I continue to do today.

GLENN: So you're a prosecutor now. And you had a guy -- I think Christopher was his name, right?

ADAM: Yeah.

GLENN: That came in front of you as a prosecutor, and you had a choice. Tell me about this.

ADAM: Christopher was a young person who made a series of really bad judgments and stole a bunch of laptops from his part-time job. And sold them for a lot of money. And he was going to use that money to apply for college.

And it's something that we don't talk enough about, is how people many times commit crimes out of necessity or perceived necessity. He came in, a young black man, who was charged with 30 counts of felony larceny.

And just the appearance of those things on his criminal record, which had doomed him for life. A young black man from my neighborhood being charged with 30 counts of theft, you're not getting employed anywhere.

So at that point in time, where I had to decide what to do with the case --

GLENN: Yeah. Because that's what the DA does. The DA decides what the charges are. How you're going to handle it. I mean, you're one guy.

So one bad guy can make a whole bunch of bad decisions. One good guy can make a lot of good decisions.

ADAM: Yeah.

GLENN: So you're in the -- you're looking at him, and you're like, what are we going to do? And how did you balance justice and mercy?

ADAM: Yeah.

Justice, to me -- and for -- for people who are in our justice system, needs to be accounting for everything about that person, and not just what does the law say and what happened?

And what will happen to them if we go down this road? Is it just that this young man because he made this decision based on his own calculation should never get a job again? And what is that going to do to us? Is that going to make us a safer society if this kid is now 25 and unemployed?

GLENN: Right.

ADAM: So you have -- when considering what justice is, you need to be thinking about all these things in context. And for me, the context was, we still have the ability to teach the kid a lesson, which was ultimately what the justice system is built for.

But we don't need to do so in a way that is purely punitive. And hopefully we'll have a better outcome than sending him to jail.

GLENN: So this particular case did have a better outcome. Explain the outcome.

ADAM: So we worked together. And he worked with community-based organizations, to get himself into school. He did community service.

He repaid what he had stolen from the story. He got back laptops that he had stolen because he had tracked down the people on the internet that he sold them to.

And then I lost track of him. Which is actually a good thing in the criminal justice. It's a good thing to never see people again.

Until, you know, six or seven years later, I'm at a professional men's event, men of color in the city of Boston, and this kid approaches me. And it's the young man from Cordin (phonetic). I didn't recognize him. He was a grown man at this point. And he had a very well-paying job in Boston. He owned a home. He had a child that is going to not live in poverty. And so all of these things were the result of decisions that I, as one prosecutor and with the help of other colleagues, made. And we have the ability to do that every single day. People could be doing it right now.

GLENN: So here's -- here -- I don't think anybody would disagree with the intent.

ADAM: Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, that's what the justice system is for, to correct behavior. And if behavior can't be corrected, then just take them off the streets.

ADAM: Right.

GLENN: However, we're living at a time now where I've really lost faith in the justice system. I mean, I can't -- I've always believed that justice was -- you know, that it pretty much worked out. I don't believe that anymore. And I think it has been kind of a lie that I lived any whole life.

It may be the best system in the world, but it still sucks.

ADAM: Yeah.

GLENN: But I don't -- but we're also living at a time where people, they're not held accountable for anything.

ADAM: Yeah.

GLENN: So how do you balance that?

ADAM: So accountability is a funny word that we use in the criminal justice system. As prosecutors, we use it all the time. I'm holding this person accountable.

And the suggestion that if I do something on December 1st, 2016, and then we litigate my responsibility for that thing, for the course of a year or 18 months, then at the end of that thing, we either try the case, or you plead out to that, which actually mitigates your responsibility in the action. We call that -- we call that accountability.

And we only call that accountability because hundreds of hundreds of years ago, some white guys sitting around the table, were like, this is how we're going to do it. We didn't measure it and validate it and say, yes, this actually brings about accountability. We just said punishment equals accountability, and we've just done that forever.

And so we're the criminal justice system fails is by exchanging punishment for actual accountability.

And with Christopher -- Christopher is one example of thousands and thousands of people that I was privileged to work with as a prosecutor, for Christopher, accountability wasn't about getting criminal record and going to jail and being deprived of his future. Accountability was about every day, him doing something that reminded him of the harm that he caused.

Christopher, you're going to write essays about what you did. And I know that sounds sort of ethereal and trite, but --

GLENN: No, with some people, it would work. With some people, it would work.

ADAM: You would be amazed at how many people it works with, to actually talk about harm and how -- let that person talk about why they created that harm. And understand the gravity and depth of that harm. And then work to repair that harm. That's accountability.

STU: Doesn't it seem though -- because I think the argument would be, isn't everybody who steals a bunch of laptops now going to come up in front of you and say, hey, I needed them for college. And I'm going to turn things around. And eventually, if you let me go, I'll be a high-paid person in Boston, and it's all going to work out well.

How can you balance that? Do you have to judge each specific case and just try to figure it out? Does everyone get the same amount of chances? The law is obviously supposed to treat everyone the same way. How do you navigate that?

MIKE: Well, first, like the fundamental principle that the law is supposed to treat everyone the same way we know is -- is a falsity.

STU: But we want to work towards that, right?

ADAM: We do. But in the time that we do, the people who suffer the most from that fallacy are most marginalized people.

GLENN: And you would put marginalized people to anyone who can't afford it.

ADAM: Can't afford it.

GLENN: It doesn't matter your skin color. It's all -- it really is about money.

ADAM: It is. It's about money, it's about socioeconomic status. It's about your capital and how much you are worth to the 1 percent, basically.

Stu, to your question, sure, lots of people might say, hey, you know, I should get a break too.

And as a society, we need to start asking ourselves, like, if young, poor black kids are coming up to me and saying I stole laptops because I was poor, then maybe each case should get an individual look and say, I hear you. And we have some responsibility for creating that situation. So as a society we need to be prepared to say, yeah, we're going to give you a bunch of chances, because guess what, everyone sitting at this table, got a million. Everybody that is in Washington or in the media right now, that suddenly are losing their jobs, that was after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of infractions that we just looked aside.

The place where there's the most amount of sexual violence, the most amount of physical violence, the most amount of drug use, the most amount of cheating and stealing, is not in the impoverished neighborhoods of Detroit and Chicago and Boston. It's on college campuses. And as a society, we are okay with that, because we know at some point, this young person will grow out of this behavior. They will be successful. And most of that, hopefully will stop.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: So you are -- you have -- you got into it for the money. You left and you became a DA. And now you are trying to educate DA's all around the country to -- to, what, exactly?

ADAM: One -- it's not even -- I guess it is to educate them. Not in the sense that I know more than them. It is -- it is a tragedy what we deprive lawyers of, when they want to go and do public service in law school.

I didn't come out of law school prepared to be a prosecutor, making really, really important decisions about people's lives. Because I didn't understand a thing about those people's lives.

GLENN: Yeah.

ADAM: I didn't know anything about the consequences of convictions or even arraigning a person. I didn't know that if you were arraigned for selling drugs in the city of Boston, just arraigned, not convicted, that you could lose your public housing. And not just you, but everybody on the lease.

So if you were accused of selling drugs because you are poor to make money, the response of the justice system is to remove you from your public housing and make it -- to teach you a lesson. How is that making us safer?

STU: It might make you more likely to go back to that behavior.

GLENN: Because it's the -- it's the classic story of John Bell John.

ADAM: Yes.

GLENN: That you have your yellow ticket of leave, and if you don't have your yellow ticket of leave, then I got to present it. But if I present it, I ain't getting a job.

ADAM: Right. And so for -- for -- unfortunately, law schools aren't trying to reinvent sort of the way they teach people, especially people who want to do this kind of work. We shouldn't be learning about wills and trusts in a state. I learned that for a state. I took the test. And I had forgotten it all now. But my first day of work, outside of law school, I went into a courtroom and was being asked to decide whether or not someone should go to jail because they might not return to court. I knew nothing about crime or behavior or poverty or what happens when you go to jail. In fact, lots of people I had worked around had never been to a jail or prison on their first day of work.

GLENN: Do you watch the show -- this is on Netflix.

It's about --

STU: BoJack Horseman.

GLENN: No. It's about the FBI, when they first started looking into serial killers, and everybody said to these guys --

STU: Oh, mind hunter.

GLENN: Yeah, mind hunter. You should watch it.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: They were called, you know, crazy and you're just trying to babysit people like Charlie Manson. And they're like, no, no. We need to listen to them and understand them because maybe we can catch them. Maybe we can change this behavior before it happens. And it wasn't popular in the 1970s. Do you kind of feel like that?

ADAM: Yeah. To me, it's crazy that formerly incarcerated people aren't employed by DA's offices.

Here we are, these very privileged people that have never been -- you know, maybe once in a while we've been the victim of a crime, and that makes us feel like we're in a better position to do these things.

But the most I've learned about the criminal justice system came from, like, kids that I prosecuted. This one kid who I asked him what he was thinking when he committed a serious armed robbery told me, do you actually think that I left my house, contemplating whether or not I would go to prison because I was going to rob these guys for money to give to my mother?

And he said to me one of the most profound things I've ever heard. He's like, you are in the land of the living. The criminal law is for the land of the living. We are surviving. Seventeen years old. Fifth grade reading level.

The most important education I ever got in the criminal justice system, and it wasn't from my 150,000-dollar education.

GLENN: Hmm.

ADAM: And for those of us, again, who think we're better than because we go to college, we go to law school, we get these degrees, that we should be meting out justice and deciding what is safe for our communities, and not including people from those communities in those conversations is asinine.

GLENN: How do people find you, Adam?

How do people join you and find out more about -- I mean, you're on -- you know, your TED talk is popular and very, very good.

ADAM: Thank you.

GLENN: But if people wanted to reach out.

ADAM: Yeah. Prosecutorimpact.com is the website about my nonprofit. Now it's going around and doing trainings around the country of prosecutors. Adam John Foss my social media everything, and I want to hear from people. I want people to engage in this conversation. Because we need to have an even broader conversation -- you know, I enjoy the people bring up Christopher all the time. I use the Christopher story because I knew it wouldn't turn people off right away. But if we're being honest with each other about what we're going to do about mass incarceration, about the criminal justice system, we need to start talking about violent crime. We need to parse out serial killers and serial rapists from young black and brown men and women who are shooting and killing each other because of intergenerational poverty and trauma. If we really, really mean it as a country that we are embarrassed about this thing, then we have real conversations about that.

GLENN: And you're not looking just for a bunch of yes people, that just agree with you and butt kiss you. You want to be challenged.

ADAM: Yeah. I don't want to go -- I don't enjoy going to preach the choir and everybody -- standing ovation. That's great. That's not doing anything for the system.

GLENN: Yeah.

ADAM: In fact, a lot of the rooms that I go to, a lot of people are cheering and rah-rah. As soon as the suggestion is, well, to solve this problem, you're going to have to give up a little bit of yours, conversation is over. So you talk about all the people who are like, yeah, close records. Close records. Close records.

As soon as the idea was put out on the air, that if we close records down, we'll put five jails in each of the burrows. And because of zoning, those jails will have to go where you live.

GLENN: Where you live.

ADAM: People are like --

STU: Expand Rikers. Expand Rikers.

GLENN: Adam, thank you very much. Adam Foss.

ADAM: Thank you very much.

Trump's 3 BIGGEST border victories

SAUL LOEB / Contributor | Getty Images

The Southern Border is healing!

Just hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. A little over a month later, the tide of migrants pouring into the United States has been significantly stemmed. Trump is delivering on his major campaign promises: stopping illegal crossings, rolling back Biden-era border policies, and using every available resource to fortify the border against future challenges.

In his recent congressional speech, Trump highlighted these border security successes—achievements often overshadowed by the flood of other news stories this past month. To spotlight this monumental progress, we’ve compiled a list of Trump’s three most significant border victories.

1. Significantly reduced border encounters

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

When Trump took office, it was clear—the sheriff was back in town. According to the Department of Homeland Security, daily border encounters have plummeted by 93 percent since his inauguration. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ramped up its efforts: in the past month alone, ICE doubled arrests of criminal aliens and tripled apprehensions of fugitives at large. This dramatic shift stems from reinstating strict border policies, restoring common-sense enforcement, and unleashing the full capabilities of ICE and Border Patrol.

2. Major policy changes

John Moore / Staff | Getty Images

President Trump has also made sweeping strides in border policy. He reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring immigrants to wait in Mexico during their immigration proceedings instead of being released into the U.S. He also terminated the controversial “catch and release” practice, which had allowed millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country pending court dates. Additionally, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, mandating detention for all illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes.

Another key victory was designating cartels like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as terrorist organizations. This classification empowers law enforcement and border agencies to tackle these ruthless gangs with the seriousness and resources they demand.

3. Deployed major muscle

John Moore / Staff | Getty Images

Trump is doubling down on border security—and he’s not holding back. He deployed 1,500 U.S. troops to secure the southern border and restarted construction of the border wall. Among the forces sent is a Stryker Brigade, a rapid-response, high-tech mechanized infantry unit equipped with armored ground and air vehicles. This brigade’s mobility and long-range capabilities make it ideal for patrolling the rugged, remote stretches of the border.

Fort Knox exposed: Is America's gold MISSING?

Christopher Furlong / Staff | Getty Images

President Trump promised that we would get a peek inside Fort Knox, but are we ready for what we might find?

In this new era of radical transparency, the possibility that the Deep State's darkest secrets could be exposed has many desperate for answers to old questions. Recently, Glenn has zeroed in on gold, specifically America's gold reserves, which are supposed to be locked away inside the vaults of Fort Knox. According to the government, there are 147.3 million ounces of gold stored within several small secured rooms that are themselves locked behind a massive 22 ton vault door, but the truth is that no one has officially seen this gold since 1953. An audit is long overdue, and President Trump has already shown interest in the idea.

America's gold reserve has been surrounded by suspicion for the better part of a hundred years. It all started in 1933, when FDR effectivelynationalized the United States's private gold stores, forcing Americans to sell their gold to the government. This gold was melted down, forged into bars, and stored in the newly constructed U.S. Bullion Depository building at Fort Knox. By 1941, Fort Knox had held 649.6 million ounces of gold—which, you may have noticed, was 502.3 million ounces more than today. We'll come back to that.

By 1944, World War II was ending, and the Allies began planning how to rebuild Europe. The U.N. held a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the USD was established as the world's reserve currency. This meant that any country (though not U.S. citizens) could exchange the USD for gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Already, you can see where our gold might have gone.

Jump to the 1960s, where Lyndon B. Johnson was busy digging America into a massive debt hole. Between the Vietnam War and Johnson's "Great Society" project, the U.S. was bleeding cash and printing money to keep up. But now Fort Knox no longer held enough physical gold to cover the $35 an ounce rate promised by the Bretton Woods agreement. France took notice of this weakness and began to redeem hundreds of millions of dollars. In the 70s Nixon staunched this gushing wound by halting foreign nations from redeeming dollars for gold, but this had the adverse effect of ending the gold standard.

This brings us to the present, where inflation is through the roof, no one knows how much gold is actually inside Fort Knox, and someone in America has been buying a LOT of gold. Who is buying this gold? Where is it going and for what purpose? Glenn has a few ideas, and one of them is MUCH better than the other:

The path back to gold

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

One possibility is that all of this gold that has been flooding into America is in preparation for a shift back to a gold-backed, or partial-gold-backed system. The influx of gold corresponds with a comment recently made by Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who said he was going to:

“Monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.”

Glenn pointed out that per a 1972 law, the gold in Fort Knox is currently set at a fixed value of $42 an ounce. At the time of this writing, gold was valued at $2,912.09 an ounce, which is more than a 6,800 percent increase. If the U.S. stockpile was revalued to reflect current market prices, it could be used to stabilize the dollar. This could even mean a full, or partial return to the gold standard, depending on the amount of gold currently being imported.

Empty coffers—you will own nothing

Raymond Boyd / Contributor | Getty Images

Unfortunately, Glenn suspects there is another, darker purpose behind the recent gold hubbub.

As mentioned before, the last realaudit of Fort Knox was done under President Eisenhower, in 1953. While the audit passed, a report from the Secretary of the Treasury revealed that a mere 13.6 percent was checked. For the better part of a century, we've had no idea how much gold is present under Fort Knox. After the gold hemorrhage in the 60s, many were suspicious of the status of our gold supply. In the 80s, a wealthy businessman named Edward Durell released over a decade's worth of research that led him to conclude that Fort Knox was all but empty. In short, he claimed that the Federal Reserve had siphoned off all the gold and sold it to Europe.

What would it mean if America's coffers are empty? According to a post by X user Matt Smith that Glenn shared, empty coffers combined with an influx of foreign gold could represent the beginning of a new, controlled economy. We couldstill be headed towards a future where you'll ownnothing.

Glenn: The most important warning of your lifetime—AI is coming for you

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here. The future we once speculated about is no longer science fiction—it’s reality. Every aspect of our lives, from how we work to how we think, is about to change forever. And if you’re not ready for it, you’re already behind. This isn’t just another technological leap. This is the biggest shift humanity has ever faced.

The last call before the singularity

I've been ringing this bell for 30 years. Thirty years warning you about what’s coming. And now, here we are. This isn’t a drill. This isn’t some distant future. It’s happening now. If you don’t understand what’s at stake, you need to wake up—because we have officially crossed the event horizon of artificial intelligence.

What’s an event horizon? It’s the edge of a black hole—the point where you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. AI is that black hole. The current is too strong. The waterfall is too close. If you haven’t been paying attention, you need to start right now. Because once we reach Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), there is no turning back.

You’ve heard me talk about this for decades. AI isn’t just a fancy Siri. It isn’t just ChatGPT. We are on the verge of machines that will outthink every human who has ever lived—combined. ASI won’t just process information—it will anticipate, decide, and act faster than any of us can comprehend. It will change everything about our world, about our lives.

And yet, the conversation around AI has been wrong. People think the real dangers are coming later—some distant dystopian nightmare. But we are already in it. We’ve passed the point where AI is just a tool. It’s becoming the master. And the people who don’t learn to use it now—who don’t understand it, who don’t prepare for it—are going to be swallowed whole.

I know what some of you are thinking: "Glenn, you’ve spent years warning us about AI, about how dangerous it is. And now you’re telling us to embrace it?" Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because if you don’t use this tool—if you don’t learn to master it—then you will be at its mercy.

This is not an option anymore. This is survival.

How you must prepare—today

I need you to take AI seriously—right now. Not next year, not five years from now. This weekend.

Here’s what I want you to do: Open up one of these AI tools—Grok 3, ChatGPT, anything advanced—and start using it. If you’re a CEO, have it analyze your competitors. If you’re an artist, let it critique your work. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, have it optimize your budget. Ask it questions. Push it to its limits. Learn what it can do—because if you don’t, you will be left behind.

Let me be crystal clear: AI is not your friend. It’s not your partner. It’s not something to trust. AI is a shovel—an extremely powerful shovel, but still just a tool. And if you don’t understand that, you’re in trouble.

We’ve already seen what happens when we surrender to technology without thinking. Social media rewired our brains. Smartphones reshaped our culture. AI will do all that—and more. If you don’t take control now, AI will control you.

Ask yourself: When AI makes decisions for you—when it anticipates your needs before you even know them—at what point do you stop being the one in charge? At what point does AI stop being a tool and start being your master?

And that’s not even the worst of it. The next step—transhumanism—is coming. It will start with good intentions. Elon Musk is already developing implants to help people walk again. And that’s great. But where does it stop? What happens when people start “upgrading” themselves? What happens when people choose to merge with AI?

I know my answer. I won’t cross that line. But you’re going to have to decide for yourself. And if you don’t start preparing now, that decision will be made for you.


The final warning—act now or be left behind

I need you to hear me. This is not optional. This is not something you can ignore. AI is here. And if you don’t act now, you will be lost.

The next 18 months will change everything. People who don’t prepare—who don’t learn to use AI—will be scrambling to catch up. And they won’t catch up. The gap will be too wide. You’ll either be leading, or you’ll be swallowed whole.

So start this weekend. Learn it. Test it. Push it. Master it. Because the people who don’t? They will be the tools.

The decision is yours. But time is running out.

The coming AI economy and the collapse of traditional jobs

Think back to past technological revolutions. The industrial revolution put countless blacksmiths, carriage makers, and farmhands out of business. The internet wiped out entire industries, from travel agencies to brick-and-mortar retail. AI is bigger than all of those combined. This isn’t just about job automation—it’s about job obliteration.

Doctors, lawyers, engineers—people who thought their jobs were untouchable—will find themselves replaced by AI. A machine that can diagnose disease with greater accuracy, draft legal documents in seconds, or design infrastructure faster than an entire team of engineers will be cheaper, faster, and better than human labor. If you’re not preparing for that reality, you’re already falling behind.

What does this mean for you? It means constant adaptation. Every three to five years, you will need to redefine your role, retrain, and retool. The only people who survive this AI revolution will be the ones who understand its capabilities and learn to work with it, not against it.

The moral dilemma: When do you stop being human?

The real danger of AI isn’t just economic—it’s existential. When AI merges with humans, we will face an unprecedented question: At what point do we stop being human?

Think about it. If you implant a neural chip that gives you access to the entire internet in your mind, are you still the same person? If your thoughts are intertwined with AI-generated responses, where do you end and AI begins? This is the future we are hurtling toward, and few people are even asking the right questions.

I’m asking them now. And you should be too. Because that line—between human and machine—is coming fast. You need to decide now where you stand. Because once we cross it, there is no going back.

Final thoughts: Be a leader, not a follower

AI isn’t a passing trend. It’s not a gadget or a convenience. It is the most powerful force humanity has ever created. And if you don’t take the time to understand it now, you will be at its mercy.

This is the defining moment of our time. Will you be a master of AI? Or will you be mastered by it? The choice is yours. But if you wait too long, you won’t have a choice at all.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's Zelenskyy deal falls apart: What happened and what's next?

SAUL LOEB / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump offered Zelenskyy a deal he couldn’t refuse—but Zelenskyy rejected it outright.

Last Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington to sign a historic agreement aimed at ending the brutal war ravaging Ukraine. Joined by Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump met with Zelenskyy and the press before the leaders were set to retreat behind closed doors to finalize the deal. Acting as a gracious host, Trump opened the meeting by praising Zelenskyy and the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers. He expressed enthusiasm for the proposed agreement, emphasizing its benefits—such as access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals for the U.S.—and publicly pledged continued American aid in exchange.

Zelenskyy, however, didn’t share Trump’s optimism. Throughout the meeting, he interrupted repeatedly and openly criticized both Trump and Vance in front of reporters. Tensions escalated until Vance, visibly frustrated, fired back. The exchange turned the meeting hostile, and by its conclusion, Trump withdrew his offer. Rather than staying in Washington to resolve the conflict, Zelenskyy promptly left for Europe to seek support from the European Union.

As Glenn pointed out, Trump had carefully crafted this deal to benefit all parties, including Russia. Zelenskyy’s rejection was a major misstep.

Trump's generous offer to Zelenskyy

Glenn took to his whiteboard—swapping out his usual chalkboard—to break down Trump’s remarkable deal for Zelenskyy. He explained how it aligned with several of Trump’s goals: cutting spending, advancing technology and AI, and restoring America’s position as the dominant world power without military action. The deal would have also benefited the EU by preventing another war, revitalizing their economy, and restoring Europe’s global relevance. Ukraine and Russia would have gained as well, with the war—already claiming over 250,000 lives—finally coming to an end.

The media has portrayed last week’s fiasco as an ambush orchestrated by Trump to humiliate Zelenskyy, but that’s far from the truth. Zelenskyy was only in Washington because he had already rejected the deal twice—first refusing Vice President Vance and then Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It was Zelenskyy who insisted on traveling to America to sign the deal at the White House. If anyone set an ambush, it was him.

The EU can't help Ukraine

JUSTIN TALLIS / Contributor | Getty Images

After clashing with Trump and Vance, Zelenskyy wasted no time leaving D.C. The Ukrainian president should have stayed, apologized to Trump, and signed the deal. Given Trump’s enthusiasm and a later comment on Truth Social—where he wrote, “Zelenskyy can come back when he is ready for peace”—the deal could likely have been revived.

Meanwhile, in London, over a dozen European leaders, joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, convened an emergency meeting dubbed the “coalition of the willing” to ensure peace in Ukraine. This coalition emerged as Europe’s response to Trump’s withdrawal from the deal. By the meeting’s end, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a four-point plan to secure Ukrainian independence.

Zelenskyy, however, appears less than confident in the coalition’s plan. Recently, he has shifted his stance toward the U.S., apologizing to Trump and Vance and expressing gratitude for the generous military support America has already provided. Zelenskyy now says he wants to sign Trump’s deal and work under his leadership.

This is shaping up to be another Trump victory.