Center on the United States and Europe

[Trump] didn't say one word about Ukraine and he had to be briefed on this stuff. The only person to say that the United States says the annexation of Crimea wasn't legal and disagrees with Russia was the president of Russia. The overall contrast [with Trump's criticisms of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and the EU earlier in the trip] coupled with Trump's inability to say Russia had done anything to contribute to the downturn of US-Russia relations, either way it's scary. Either he forgot there's a problem or he wasn't willing. He would have had no problem listing his grievances against Germany, but against Putin, he's not capable of saying anything.

Everyone in the administration has to really reflect over the next week or two and ask themselves if they stand a better chance of constraining President Trump from within or from without.

[European allies will be relieved Trump did not announce major concessions but] will note that this U.S. president is much more interested in domestic politics than geopolitics or anything to do with Europe... [Trump] doesn’t worry about getting too close to Russia now, his base won’t mind and his people won’t resign.