Zelensky feeling braver at 3rd WH visit

 

Oct 17, 2025 (270/1461)

Seems Zelensky has gained some confidence that TOM isn’t going to filet him in front of the world anymore. He’s back for a chat at the White House. “President Donald Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House on Friday, with the U.S. leader signaling he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.

Zelenskyy gets his one-on-one with Trump a day after the U.S. president and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict.

In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the U.S.-Russian relationship.But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers).” Should be an interesting warm up to the meet TOMs supposed to have with Putin later in the month.

The universities might have found a backbone. Penn and USC have joined the “thank you, no.” coalition of those rejecting TOMs offer of dollars for fealty. “The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have become the latest two universities to reject the Trump administration’s offer of favored treatment for government funding in exchange for a compact full of changes to curriculum and policies. MIT and Brown University had previously turned down the same offer.

The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” outlines 10 key points related to hiring, admissions and school finances. They amount to demands that universities change campus culture and reduce foreign enrollment to no more than 15% of the undergraduate student population. Other schools receiving the offer — Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona and the University of Virginia — have not yet responded to the administration.

The White House has warned that universities unwilling to embrace the principles specified in the compact could lose federal funding altogether.” Strength in numbers, folks. Strength in numbers. As Nancy R so famously coined, ‘Just say NO!”