[Donald Trump today, while speaking on an unrelated subject:]

You know, I'm going to see Putin. I'm going to Russia on Friday.

[Friday, dateline Alaska. Donald Trump emerges from his meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin and takes the podium:]

I am pleased to announce that President Putin and I have made a deal. Part of it covers Ukraine, which I will get to in a little bit. But here's the big news -- I have agreed to sell back to Russia all of the state of Alaska above the Arctic Circle. Not a lot of people know this, but Russia actually owned all of Alaska a while ago. That's right! The land we're standing on right now was actually part of Russia -- who knew?

Now this may upset some people, but I want them to know this is the right thing to do. It's going to be beautiful. Nobody wanted all that land way up there -- even the waterfront properties were losers, since they were way too cold. So Putin has graciously agreed to take it all off our hands. Oh and for some reason he also wanted the Aleutian Islands so I agreed he could have those, too. This will make maps much easier for American schoolchildren, since they won't have to learn about these little, itty-bitty islands that are much closer to Russia anyway.

I think this is the greatest and biggest real estate deal America has ever struck, by the way. I think it is -- and that's what people are already saying: "Biggest ever!" But you may be wondering what America gets in return. This is the best part!

Until the end of 2028 -- that's more than three years -- Russia will just give us all the oil it produces. Free! So gas prices for American drivers will go far below two bucks a gallon, it will actually go below one dollar a gallon! All we'll have to do is refine the oil and put it on trucks and take it to all the gas stations. The price will be zero dollars a barrel! For over three years -- right up until the end of my second term, in fact.

And that's not all, folks! Putin has given me the green light to go right ahead and invade Greenland. You thought I had forgotten about that one, right? Well, I haven't. We're going to send some Marines up there and just take over the whole damn island. It'll be ours. It'll be a beautiful thing, really. We'll be able to mine all the rare rocks we need and Denmark can just go suck on a lemon. I mean... there really aren't that many people up there! Nobody knew that before -- there are very few people in Greenland. You'd think more people would live there, if it's green and everything, but there's only a couple thousand of them. Maybe like 20 or 30 thousand, maybe 50 thousand, I don't know. Not very many. We could take it all over in, like, one day. One weekend, maybe. It'd be easy! And now Russia will back us up in the U.N. Security Council and just tell the rest of the world this is the way it now is -- if you're a big enough country and have a big enough military, you can just take what you want.

But the best thing -- and Putin had tears in his eyes when he promised me this -- he said, "Sir," that's what he calls me, "Sir, you've got to please allow us to carve up a mountain in the new Russian Alaska so we can put your face on it."

That's right -- why bother with Mount Rushmore? Why should I have to share a mountain with four other presidents who, let's face it, were not nearly as great as I am. Let's have Mount Trump and let's make it much bigger too! When they're done with it, people won't even bother looking at Mt. Rushmore anymore since it is tiny and has people on it who aren't Donald J. Trump. Maybe, I dunno, maybe they can paint the new Mount Trump gold when they're done, that would be a nice touch, don't you think?

This is truly a big win for the United States. We're going to get rid of this piece of land where half the time the sun doesn't even come up -- no, really! -- they sit around and it's dark all the time and there's no sun in the sky. I'm not sure how that works, but people tell me it's true. Anyway, all those people sitting around in the dark can just be Russians now. And all that land -- land that is too cold to build seaside resorts on and way too dark, because how can you suntan when there's no sun? -- all of that will no longer be a big problem for America to have to deal with. Instead, the Russians will deal with it for us. What a deal!

We will get to keep the parts of Alaska that most of the people actually live in. Anchorage, and the state capital and all the rest of it. All the places the cruise lines go to. That valley, where Sarah Palin came from, we get to keep that. And we even get to keep Nome and Fairbanks, we get all the good stuff. And we get those crab fishermen with the teevee show, but Russia gets part of the ice road thing from that other show. All in all, we keep the good stuff and they take all the stuff that's cold and dark and where there are no seaside resorts or golf courses. It's a really good deal!

And don't worry -- I checked the map, and Mount McKinley will still be in the American Alaska. I wanted to have them carve my face on that, but they told me it couldn't be done. So we'll keep it as it is, and people will just have to go a little further north to see Mount Trump with my face on it in the Russian Alaska. They'll have to be careful to go the part of the year when the sun is in the sky, but that'll be OK. But they can still go see Mount McKinley, which is what we officially call it now, instead of some weird name nobody can remember.

This has always been my plan all along, as Vladimir reminded me today. I've always said that Alaska just goes too far north. And there's a senator from Alaska who sometimes annoys me because she votes against me, so this will make her job easier -- she'll have a lot less land to worry about now!

In fact, I've long said it: "Make Alaska Russia Again!" They call it "MARA" -- like Mar-a-Lago, right? MARA. And although it was a tough negotiation, in the end I finally wore Putin down and forced him into agreeing to take back half of Alaska. We never should have bought the whole thing from them in the first place.

Oh, and we also agreed that Ukraine can either accept annexation of half its land and an election to get a pro-Putin leader in there, or else Putin can go right on doing whatever the heck he wants in Ukraine. It's now up to the Ukrainian leader to decide whether he wants peace or whether he wants a lot more war. It's his choice. I made this great peace deal, and if they don't want peace, that's on them. I wash my hands of the whole thing.

But the big news is the MARA thing. Make Alaska Russia Again! And three years of free gas for everyone, and we get to take Greenland, and my big beautiful face on a gigantic mountain.

I will now take your questions....

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant