Current and former employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency just sounded the alarm over their agency's ability to continue their mission. In an extraordinary letter they warn of another impending disaster on the scale of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the title of their open letter is: "Katrina Declaration And Petition To Congress." In it, they warn that another man-made disaster on the same scale could easily happen soon, as a direct result of the changes the administration of Donald Trump has been making to their agency.

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After Donald Trump held two back-to-back summits, in an effort to get a quick ceasefire and peace agreement in Ukraine, not much of anything has actually changed. Unless you count the rest of the world either laughing at America's president or gingerly trying to not bruise his all-too-fragile ego. Both of those things have increased, sadly.

The whole kid-gloves treatment of Donald Trump, in an effort not to provoke a toddler-level tantrum, is just downright pathetic. What other U.S. leader has ever needed coddling and effusive false praise in order to even have a conversation with other world leaders? What other president would force a foreign leader to admire his collection of campaign hats, for that matter? Trump's narcissism knows no bounds, though.

Here is how people are talking about this sad situation:

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Donald Trump has ushered in a period of political shamelessness. Things that politicians used to do very quietly or in secret are now done right out in the open. There is no longer any pretense about such moves, the politicians now brag about what they're doing. This is evident in too many ways to even list, but the most prominent example right now is the mid-decade redistricting battles being waged in the states. Led by Texas and California, this could soon spread to other states as well, as Republicans jockey to avoid losing control of the House of Representatives next year and Democrats move to counterbalance these efforts.

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The prospects of a ceasefire happening soon in Ukraine were always pretty slim. Now they seem to be receding into oblivion. Without some strong and decisive action by Donald Trump, the situation in Ukraine does not look likely to change in any meaningful way any time soon. The war will continue, people will keep dying, and Vladimir Putin will feel no compunction to bring an end to any of it. That seems to be the emerging reality.

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After two big meetings between Donald Trump and the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and various Europeans, it's hard to figure exactly where things stand. Was anything accomplished at all? If so, what?

While Trump has been cheerfully optimistic in his statements, the Europeans seem a lot more cautious and guarded in their outlook. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, though, don't exactly seem filled with any of this happy spirit. In fact, Russia keeps contradicting what Trump and the rest of them are claiming has been accomplished.

The most telling of the cheerful optimism that Trump displays is his apparent belief that he and Putin are great buddies, and that Putin really desires an end to this war. Neither of these things seem likely to be true, or at least certainly not to the degree that Trump believes. This was best evidenced by something an open microphone caught Trump saying to the president of France: "I think [Vladimir Putin] wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds." To Trump, Putin wants to be Trump's buddy so badly he'll make a peace deal just to please Trump. And yes, knowing Putin, that does sound pretty crazy.

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After watching and waiting all afternoon, it is looking like the talks at the White House will continue at least through dinnertime. So I decided that writing a column with only half-impressions (or half-baked impressions) of what was going on was a pointless waste of time, so I will not be posting a column today. Last Friday, as we were all staring at two empty podiums (podia?) for 45 minutes, waiting for the leaders to appear after their summit, I heard countless journalists wildly speculate that because the press conference had even been called it must mean they had a big deal to announce -- this was the consensus among pretty much everyone (as they killed time and filled the airwaves with sheer speculation).

Of course, it didn't turn out to be true. There was no big deal announced. There were no questions, even. The shortness of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meant that nothing much was decided at all.

So to avoid making as big a fool of myself as those reporters did last Friday, I am going to refrain from commenting now on the little tidbits that have been leaking out to the press all day and instead wait until tomorrow to more adequately (and accurately) comment on the White House meeting today. My apologies for the lack of a real column today.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

We begin today with a program note. Our normal "Friday Talking Points" format is going to be pre-empted today, since it is a historic occasion and everyone is following the same story. Yesterday's column can be considered a stand-in for a talking points column, as it was all about how Democrats should be talking about the economy right now, and earlier this week I wrote about the militarization of Washington D.C., which was the other big political story this week.

Today, however, all eyes are looking north to Alaska.

As I write this, the summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin has just begun. The two leaders met on the tarmac in a staged display of pomp, complete with red carpets and a shared limo ride to the building where the meetings will take place. Trump even applauded as Putin approached him, which is notable mostly for the difference in how Trump is treating Putin today and how he treated Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he visited the White House earlier this year (which was disgraceful, to say the least).

The best news so far is that Trump will not be sitting alone with Putin (with no one else present but interpreters). This is how Trump's first big meeting with Putin (back in his first term in office) took place, and it was universally condemned as a disaster. Trump lapped up Putin's lies in Helsinki, even when they directly contradicted what America's intelligence services had told him.

This time, to everyone's relief, there will be others in the room, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's personal envoy to Putin (who has done all the negotiating so far). This will hopefully mean that Putin won't be able to play Trump like a violin this time around. Hopefully, that is.

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If they want to win the midterms next year, Democrats should really return in a big way to that old chestnut from the Bill Clinton era: "It's the economy, stupid." Because that is where both Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are the weakest, and the economy is almost always either at or very near the top of the list of issues voters care the most about.

Donald Trump got elected on two big issues: immigration (deporting everyone in sight) and the economy. The public has soured on his handling of immigration, after seeing Trump's thuggish tactics, but on the subjects of the economy and inflation Trump scores his worst polling of any issue out there. Which makes it ripe for Democrats to bring up -- which they should, continually and unceasingly and relentlessly.

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While campaigning, Donald Trump promised the world he would end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office. Sometimes he even one-upped himself, suggesting he could probably end the war before he was even sworn in.

That, of course, didn't happen. Here we are more than 200 days in to Trump's second term, and the war rages on.

Donald Trump likes to see himself as a strongman -- a real "tough guy." But what we've seen is that he is at heart no more than a bully who immediately backs down when confronted with a truly strong opponent. Vladimir Putin is fully aware of this fact. Which all sets the stage for their summit meeting this Friday in Alaska.

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So apparently Washington D.C. is going to become an armed camp now. Donald Trump has taken control of the District's police force, sent a bunch of federal agents (from the F.B.I., D.E.A., etc.) out onto the streets, and has called up the National Guard, who will doubtlessly soon appear in full battle dress. All to solve a problem Trump is lying about. There really couldn't be a better argument for D.C. statehood, really, because if it were an actual state it would have an actual governor who might object to such tactics (to put it mildly).

This is more of what might be called "performative militarization" of the police, which Trump introduced in Los Angeles (again, to solve a problem Trump was lying about). The big difference here is that there were only a couple of buildings in L.A. that were federal property, so we had the spectacle of 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 U.S. Marines guarding a couple of buildings. It was preposterous on the face of it. But all of the District of Columbia is federal property, so Trump doesn't have to be so restrained.

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