President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Russian city of “Leningrad” — which has been called St. Petersburg since 1991 — is raising eyebrows, and causing concern among some experts.

Just before the fall of the Soviet Union, Leningrad’s name was changed back to its original name, St. Petersburg.

Some are struggling with the President of the United States calling St. Petersburg “Leningrad,” especially just days after telling reporters — twice — that he would be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia, when the two are meeting in Alaska, which has not been a part of Russia since 1867.

Complaining about the “unfair” media’s reporting on his upcoming meeting with Putin, which is slated to be a summit to discuss ending the Russian President’s illegal war against Ukraine, Trump wrote:

“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!”

READ MORE: Trump’s Kennedy Center Remarks Veer Into Grievances, False Claims, and Lessons on Grass

Alexander Vindman is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC).

After pointing to Trump’s slip-up of calling Alaska “Russia,” Vindman noted Trump’s use of the word “Leningrad.”

“If this were the ‘Manchurian Candidate,’ the President would be exposed as a Russian agent,” Vindman charged, referring to the popular fictional film. “Nonetheless, this doesn’t inspire confidence and reflects just how inept Trump and his team are heading into this summit. How tough do the Russians think we will be if our leader is repeating narratives on the Russian legacy of Alaska, even accidentally?”

Some fringe elements in Russia wrongly insist America’s 1867 Alaska Purchase was merely a lease that has since expired.

READ MORE: ‘Alaska Is a State’: White House Scrambles, Says Trump Will Host Putin ‘On American Soil’

“Looking beyond these slip-ups (that would make any counterintelligence officer’s alarm bells ring), let’s think about the venue and location of the summit,” Vindman continued. “Trump is meeting Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. In 2017, Trump held a bizarre meeting with Russian diplomats in the oval office without any public announcement or access to the American press – is anyone going to keep an eye on Putin’s entourage during this summit, or will they be free to run around a US military base?”

Olga Lautman is a senior fellow at The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and the creator and co-host of the Kremlin File podcast series.

“The only people who call St Petersburg Leningrad are those who have nostalgia for the Soviet Union and the s—– communist system. Does Trump miss communism?” she wondered.

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, co-author of several books including “Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution,” remarked: “Noting that Putin is a Leningrad native….”

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

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President Donald Trump wandered through a litany of grievances and a long list of concerns during his announcement of the Kennedy Center honorees at the iconic Washington, D.C., venue on Wednesday.

During his lengthy remarks, Trump falsely claimed once again that he won the “rigged” 2020 election that he actually lost, he spoke about renovations to the White House and the Kennedy Center, he gave a lesson about the importance of grass, he praised U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for newly-released favorable poll numbers, he repeatedly attacked Democrats, talked about purchasing new seats rather than refurbishing the ones at the Kennedy Center, claimed trillions of dollars in tariffs are coming in from foreign countries all over the world, acknowledged accusations of being a “dictator” after taking over Washington, D.C.’s police force, claimed D.C.’s crime statistics are fraudulent, and warned that he may do the same to top Democratic cities across the nation that he did to the nation’s capital city — all before taking questions from reporters.

As he took questions, the President continued to veer off topic. He told reporters that Congressional Democrats are led by “insane” and “crazy” people, he called the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York a “communist,” he claimed that there are no taxes on Social Security payments, he complained about “potholes” in D.C.’s roads, called for a “very talented asphalt-type person” to repave the roads, and brushed off news Russia had hacked into U.S. federal court computer systems.

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

Trump continued talking to reporters, saying that he turned down “a couple of wokesters” who were nominated, talked about viewership for his “Apprentice” TV series, claimed he “finished” building the wall at the Southern border during his first term, complained about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s building renovations, talked about his nicknames for Powell — “Too Late” and for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — “Pocahontas,” U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) — “Shifty Schiff,” and Hillary Clinton — “Crooked Hillary.”

Some excerpts:

“The bones are so good,” Trump said of the Kennedy Center. “The bones of a building, you don’t have good bones, you might as well forget it. I’m working in another building, a thing, called the White House. We’re fixing it up so beautifully. It needed it.”

He also said, “we’re going to also fix up a place called Washington, D.C. We’re going to make it so beautiful again, we’re going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass. You know, grass isn’t a lifetime like people have a lifetime, and a lifetime of this grass is long been gone when you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted, we’re going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses, and if you don’t have good grass, you’re not in business very long.”

“Lindsey Graham. By the way, you have very good poll numbers. Lindsey, I just saw congratulations.”

READ MORE: ‘Alaska Is a State’: White House Scrambles, Says Trump Will Host Putin ‘On American Soil’

“We ended the woke political programming, and we’re restoring the Kennedy Center as the premier venue for performing arts anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world.”

Trump also said, “we secured the critical funding necessary to rebuild the building and we’re gonna get all brand new, highest level seats magnificent seats, and it’s gonna be all new. We could have taken the existing ones and do it a little paint job, a little fabric, but it’s not the same thing. So we’ll be taking out next season, all of the seats will be taken out.”

“If we say, ‘We want to stop crime in this country, or, as an example, bail, we want to make it so that people if they murder somebody, they’re in jail, they don’t get out on no bail,” Democrats “say, ‘We don’t want that. We want people to murder somebody, and they immediately are released, and they go out and murder somebody else.”

Crime in Washington, D.C. “is the worst that’s ever been, but it started as of about yesterday. It started, you see a big change, and people are feeling safe already. I’ve had so many calls. ‘Thank you, sir, thank you.’ They were afraid to walk out. They’re not afraid anymore.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Maryland’s Democratic Governor Wes Moore criticized President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal officers to the streets of Washington, D.C., branding it a “performative” act that does nothing to address crime long term.

“I can tell you right now, what people want more than anything in those communities is they don’t want performative, they want performance,” Governor Moore told “Fox and Friends” on Wednesday.

“They’re not looking for someone to walk around with military fatigues and a big gun. They’re looking for someone who actually understands how to make people feel safe and how to make people actually safe in their communities. Our National Guards are not trained for this.”

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

Moore said he was happy to stand on his record of success in fighting crime in the Old Line State, stressing that his success did not come from deploying the military to police the streets of his state.

“And so all I’m saying is this, if we want to have a serious conversation about violent crime, we can have a serious conversation about violent crime, and I would love to be able to share the multitude of things that we are doing in the state of Maryland, where we are surging support for local law enforcement, surging support for predictive analytics and technologies, surging support for community groups and allowing more supports for the mayor and the county executive, and the people on the ground doing the work, and we were able to receive some really encouraging and historic results in Baltimore and around the state of Maryland, and I never once had to mobilize the National Guard in order to accomplish accomplish those feats.”

In April, Baltimore’s homicide rate dropped to a historic low, according to The Baltimore Banner. Last month, Governor Moore wrote that “In the first half of 2025, Baltimore had the fewest homicides ever recorded. Compared to this time in 2022, we’ve seen a 62% decrease.”

READ MORE: ‘Alaska Is a State’: White House Scrambles, Says Trump Will Host Putin ‘On American Soil’

Moore’s emphasis on his record of success without deploying the National Guard did not appear to please host Lawrence Jones.

“And so if we want to be serious about making people safe,” Moore said, “let’s actually do the things that make people safe.”

“I’m way over time, Governor,” Jones said, closing down the interview.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Wes Moore on Fox & Friends: “Our National Guards are not trained for this. I’m very specific in my role as commander in chief of the Maryland National Guard, and we know the missions that they are trained for. Municipal policing is not one of them. If we want to be serious about… pic.twitter.com/xdwksQxD6u

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2025

READ MORE: Revealed: Pentagon Planning Rapid-Deploy ‘Reaction Force’ to Quell Civilian Dissent

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