Almost every day of Donald Trump’s seems to produce Earth-shattering news – not only for America but for the world.

But yesterday might have been the start of a story that will be top of the agenda for the rest of the year, if not longer.

After the President’s first (yeah, sure Donald) phone call with Vladimir Putin since returning to office, the pair decided the war in Ukraine was, like, so 2023 and it should probably be brought to an end.

And funnily enough, the terms Trump seemed to be hinting at in the press conference that followed were all pretty beneficial to the Kremlin…and not so much for Kyiv. Funny that.

Whether this will all wash in Europe is very much up in the air – but here’s a rundown of the weird moments in the last 24 hours that led to where we are.

Early in the day, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth – in retrospect – seemed to be preparing the ground for what was to come, with the not particularly popular sentiment that Ukraine getting back all the territory that has been illegally invaded by Russia since 2014 was not “realistic”.

Trump isn’t shy about suggesting Ukraine should just have let the tanks roll in and allowed Putin to annex their entire country.

He repeated the sentiment again last night in the Oval Office – saying: “I think they have to make peace. This was not a good war to go into.” And – definitely not repeating everything Putin had just said to him on the phone – Trump went further, saying Russia should keep the territory it has invaded. Russia “took a lot of land, and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers”, Trump said. Is the Hegseth line from earlier starting to make a bit more sense now?

For an internationally famed dealmaker, Trump has a habit of giving away key negotiating chips before talks even start. Cast your mind back to 2020, when he set out a timetable for US withdrawal from Afghanistan before he’d even sat down for a chat with the Taliban. Well, it looks like the master negotiator has done the same again.

Asked if he’d put any preconditions on his going to meet with Putin, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “Not that I’m aware of.” Another funny thing that’s starting to make sense: Trump indicated the opening round of negotiations could take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Now, way back on January 23, who was the first world leader Trump picked up the phone to after being inaugurated (to the surprise and annoyance of some who had to wait several days)? That would be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But yeah, Trump and Putin definitely didn’t speak until yesterday.

Trump’s slimming down of the government workforce clearly doesn’t end at the border. He signed an executive order demanding staff working for the State Department at US Embassies around the world fully reflect the President’s priorities and agenda – with failure to be fully in lockstep resulting in termination.

Meanwhile, the state department announced it would not be renewing contracts for security and personal services staff – including maintenance and housekeeping staff. Worth remembering that three of the four people killed in the 2012 raid on the Libyan diplomatic mission in Benghazi – which Trump has occasionally been very angry about – were civilian security contractors.

Discussing the differences between the US and Jordanian views on the future of Jordan, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that despite King Abdullah not being thrilled about 2m Palestinians being (forcibly) displaced from their homeland, “the president feels it would be much better and more majestic if these Palestinians could be moved to safer areas.”

Yeesh.

Leavitt was asked (by the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, no less) whether Trump signed a conflict of interest waiver for Elon Musk. There’s a law, apparently, which prevents employees from interacting with government bodies they might have private business with. Such as, for example, the Pentagon – which has massive contracts with Musk’s rocket business SpaceX.

The answer came: “I have not seen the law you are referring to. Elon said everything he’s doing is very public and if you all perceive a conflict of interest, you are welcome to bring that up.” So, that’s either a “no” or a “we’re not telling you.”

The Associated Press was excluded from a White House photo op the other day, and informed it was because of their reporting. See, the AP’s style guide still insists the body of water to the south of Louisiana is called the Gulf of Mexico (because it is). The White House, which claims to be a champion of free speech, has decided it’s not OK for the AP to deadname the Gulf – now rebranded the Gulf of America by Trump.

At a briefing, Leavitt noted Google and Apple had already gleefully placated the Toddler-in-Chief by changing their maps to reflect the new name. Perhaps scrawled on their websites in crayon.

Of the AP’s fate, Leavitt said: “I was very up front in my briefing on day one that if we feel there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we will hold those lies accountable. “It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. I don’t know why news outlets don’t want to call it that. That’s what it is.” It’s obviously not, though. Even Google outside of the US list it as ‘Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’

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