So the day before conducting a highly consequential meeting with the very man who has upended America’s faith in the foundations of our republic, Trump, driven by his ever-shrinking ego, gave Putin the strategic upper hand. And Putin, a master of intelligence with some 30 years of diplomatic experience, played Trump like a fiddle at their meeting the following day.

In fact, after their Friday confab dragged on more than two hours, Trump walked away with nothing—absolutely zilch!—in the way of a concession from Putin on Russia's calculated and pervasive effort to undermine the will of the American people in 2016. Though we will never know for certain what was said between Putin and Trump given the omission of a stenographer and the competing accounts of Sec. of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Surgey Lavrov, one thing we can be sure of is that Tillerson put the best spin possible on Trump's performance. And frankly, that’s an ominous sign.