The White House asked Ukrainian officials if President Volodymyr Zelensky will wear a suit to his meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, two sources with direct knowledge tell Axios.

Why it matters: Zelensky’s outfit became an issue ahead of his previous Oval Office meeting with Trump in March, which exploded into a diplomatic fiasco.

Flashback: Trump didn’t like Zelensky’s military-style attire. He offered a sarcastic aside — “he is all dressed up today” — when he welcomed him into the West Wing.

• Some U.S. officials thought at the time that the suit issue contributed somewhat to the disastrous outcome of the meeting.

What to watch: The sources said Zelensky will show up at the White House on Monday wearing the same black jacket he wore to a NATO summit in the Netherlands in June. “It is going to be ‘suit-style’ but not a full suit,” one of the sources said.

• The NATO summit was the first time Zelensky had worn a business-style jacket since the 2022 invasion, and U.S. officials said that Trump was pleased by it.
• “Zelensky came like a normal human being, not crazy, and was dressed like a somebody that should be at NATO. … So they had a good conversation,” a U.S. official told Axios at the time.

The other side: One Trump adviser, partially in jest, told Axios that “it would be a good sign for peace” if Zelensky wore a suit on Monday, but added: “We don’t expect him to do it.”

• Said another: “It would be great if he wore a tie but we don’t expect him to.”
• The source added that Vice President Vance was more annoyed than Trump by Zelensky’s look and attitude the last time around. “The tie thing was a JD thing when it first happened.”
• Zelensky won’t wear a tie on Monday, the sources said.

Between the lines: Trump is a big believer looking the part, which in his mind, for a world leader, means wearing a suit. But his displeasure with Zelensky last time was about more than his clothes, his advisers say.

• U.S. officials say he has gotten better at appealing to Trump.
• “Give him some credit. He’s not as bad as he used to be,” the second Trump adviser said.

The intrigue: Asked if the summit will be a repeat of the last time, the adviser said, “No, absolutely not.”

I just heard that French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived. The New Republic‘s Greg Sargent dives into Trump’s obsession with rigging the midterms in his favor. Is it more than ironic that the man who has fantasized about the Democrats rigging elections is being so obvious about rigging the elections? “Angry Trump Accidentally Blurts Out Unnerving New Plot to Rig Midterms. Donald Trump just gave away his own game.”

President Donald Trump raged at Democrats Monday for supposedly cheating in elections in a long and unhinged Truth Social rant—and buried in his tirade is a clear indication of how he hopes to corrupt the 2026 midterm elections at a time when his agenda is nose-diving in polls.

In his screed, Trump rehashed his familiar lies about how mail balloting is riddled with fraud, and promised to lead a new “movement” to abolish it.

But then he added this:

WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.

Trump already unveiled a similar executive order in March designed to change election rules. It would have barred states from accepting ballots mailed on time but that arrive after Election Day and forced state officials to require documented proof of citizenship for everyone who registers to vote in federal elections.

Such changes would have disenfranchised large numbers of voters. Two federal judges blocked it this spring after a coalition of states sued, the plaintiffs successfully arguing that it usurped their authority to set election rules. The administration is appealing.

Trump appears prepared to have a second run at such an executive order. But what’s critical about Monday’s post is he connected this scheme directly to the midterms, inadvertently revealing the real aim behind it.

Trump’s new rant says he’s going to “lead a movement to get rid of” mail balloting, then later says this “movement” will begin with his new executive order—a strong indication he will try to ban vote-by-mail by executive order.

Voting rights advocates have long expected him to attempt something like this, perhaps by arguing that vote-by-mail is a threat to national security. That’s because Trump’s argument for his previous executive order failed in the courts after judges affirmed that the Constitution authorizes states to set the “time, place and manner” of elections.

You may read more at the link. The chickens are still coming home to roost with right-wing media sites pushing lies about the last election. This is from the AP. Nicholas Ricarddi has the analysis. I take offense at labelling this propaganda site as “conservative.” I wish the legacy media would just call them what they are.

The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, according to documents filed Monday.

The settlement comes after Fox News Channel paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers describe as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax did indeed defame Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis left it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages. Newsmax and Dominion reached the settlement before the trial could take place.

The settlement was disclosed by Newsmax on Monday in a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It said the deal was reached Friday. A spokesperson for Dominion said the company was pleased to have settled the lawsuit.

The disclosure came as Trump, who lost his 2020 reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden, vowed in a social media post Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. It was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.

The same judge also handled the Dominion-Fox News case and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies by Trump’s allies about his 2020 loss despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were bogus. At the time, Davis found it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations was true.

Internal correspondence from Newsmax officials likewise shows they knew the claims were baseless.

Marcy (emptywheel) has this important read. President Zelenski is on his way to the White House. Yam Tits is standing outside waiting for him. I think Zelenski is showing some pretty powerful cards today. “Trump Confesses that the United States Is a Client of Russia.”

There’s a great deal of normalcy bias in the reporting on Trump’s capitulation. NYT reports (based on watching the Sunday shows) that Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff “hint” that Putin will make concessions to reach a plea deal with Ukraine, without questioning whether those are anything but personal inducements to Trump (like a Trump Tower) and without noting that Wikoff is incompetent to understand what would be a real concession in any case. WaPo describes that Putin was willing to offer security guarantees, without noting that guarantees without NATO are useless (and one of the tools Putin has used to lull his imperial victims in the past).

Curiously, one place that is not suffering from normalcy bias is WSJ’s editorial page, which notes what is being shared with “friendly media” (seemingly excluding WSJ from that moniker) are “worse than worthless.”

The President went into the summit promising “severe consequences” if there was no agreement on a cease-fire. He left the summit having dropped the cease-fire with no consequences in favor of Vladimir Putin’s wish for a long-term peace deal as the war continues. Mr. Trump took new sanctions on buyers of Russian oil off the table.

Mr. Trump also said the burden is now on Ukraine to close the deal. European leaders told the press that, in his conversations with them, Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin demanded that he get all of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which would mean that Ukraine give up its main line of defense in the east.

White House leaks to friendly media suggest Mr. Putin promised that, in return for Donetsk, he’ll stop his assault and won’t invade other countries. No wonder Russian commentators and Putin allies were celebrating the summit’s results. Their President ended his isolation in the West, made no public concessions, and can continue killing Ukrainians without further sanction.

Mr. Putin’s promises are worse than worthless. He has broken promise after promise to Ukraine and the West. This includes the 1994 Budapest Memorandum promising to defend Ukraine against outside attack, and multiple Minsk agreements. He wants Donetsk because he would gain at the negotiating table what he hasn’t been able to conquer on the battlefield. It would also make it easier to take more territory when he or his successor think the time is right to strike again.

The silver lining is that European leaders say Mr. Trump told them Mr. Putin had agreed to accept “security guarantees” for Ukraine. The suggestion is that the U.S. might even be one of those guarantors, albeit outside NATO. But Mr. Trump provided no details.

For guarantees to have real deterrent effect, they would have to include foreign troops in Ukraine. Kyiv would need the ability to build up its military and arms industry.

All this is distracting from the question not asked at the Sunday shows yesterday: Why Trump’s team walked out of their meeting with Putin looking like they had seen death.

Let’s recap what got us here:

• Some weeks ago, Trump gave Putin the 50 days the Russian president wanted before he would come to the table. Then, as Putin kept bombing, making Trump look weak, Trump shortened the timeline to ten days. But instead of imposing the sanctions that Lindsey Graham had spent months crafting, Trump instead sent Steve Witkoff to Moscow. Witkoff, by design (because this is what happens when you choose to put someone with no relevant expertise or temperament in charge of negotiating deals), came back promising deals he couldn’t describe, it’s just not clear for whom.
• On an impossibly short notice, Trump arranged to host Putin on former Russian land. Going in, Trump promised that if Russia didn’t deal on a cease fire, there would be tough consequences. Europeans and Volodymyr Zelenskyy smelled a rat, but didn’t succeed in convincing Trump how badly he would be manhandled.
• And manhandled he was. Sergei Lavrov showed up wearing a CCCP jersey, Putin displayed undisguised contempt for everyone. And Trump walked out looking ashen. Putin treated Trump like a menial client.
• Trump told Sean Hannity that he shouldn’t have done his interview right afterwards, and I wonder if he had not — if Trump had not felt it necessary to immediately declare a success, ten of ten — then Trump’s team might have tried to find a way out. But whatever Trump then said to Zelenskyy and European leaders made them realize things were worse than they anticipated.
• Trump sent out Rubio and Witkoff on the Sunday shows to basically defer, making transparently bullshit claims of concessions from Russia. But today, Trump is making it clear that he will made demands Zelenskyy cannot accept — the Crimea recognition Trump floated to get elected in 2016, and no hopes of NATO membership — even while suggesting that Zelenskyy will have to make all the concessions.

Effectively, Putin ordered Trump to make Ukraine capitulate. Hell, maybe he even gave Trump a deadline.