{"id":1643,"date":"2025-08-31T10:08:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2025-08-31T10:08:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:08:33","slug":"trumps-rogue-envoy-blamed-for-his-endless-humiliations-by-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1643","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s \u2018Rogue\u2019 Envoy Blamed for His Endless Humiliations by Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is being\u00a0blamed\u00a0for the failure of the president\u2019s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, with colleagues becoming increasingly frustrated with his unprofessionalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s kind of a rogue actor,\u201d a senior White House staffer told\u00a0Politico. \u201cHe talks to all these people, but no one knows what he says in any of these meetings. He will say things publicly, but then he changes his mind. It\u2019s hard to operationalize that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources told the news outlet that Witkoff refused to consult experts or prepare for meetings in the lead-up to the historic summit in Alaska, where Trump failed to secure a peace agreement in Ukraine. The envoy assumed, like Trump, that his personal charisma and rapport with the Russian president would be enough to force a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, Witkoff isn\u2019t consistently engaged,\u201d a White House source told Politico. \u201cHe will pop in for a visit to Vladimir Putin, say a bunch of stuff, not tell anyone what really happened, and then just f— off to his life again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Steve<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Steve Witkoff is a former real estate developer with no prior experience in diplomacy. \/ Andrew Harnik \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, the Russians are talking to you about how \u2018Witkoff says \u2026\u2019 and you don\u2019t know whether they\u2019re right or not, but you can\u2019t get a readout from the Russians,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Witkoff has met with Putin five times over the past six months, but\u00a0little is known\u00a0of what was said between the two men behind closed doors. A former real estate developer with no prior experience in diplomacy, Witkoff views the negotiations through the lens of real estate, thinking of the conflict as merely a land dispute, Politico reported.<\/p>\n

According to Politico, Witkoff\u2019s failure to read intelligence briefings, check his government emails, or take notes at meetings has led him to parrot Putin\u2019s talking points about the state of the frontlines in Ukraine and misinterpret his position, which, by proxy, may have\u00a0influenced Trump\u2019s understanding\u00a0of the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seems to have bought into the false Russian narrative that they are winning on the front lines, which we all know is not true,\u201d another source told the publication.<\/p>\n

Following his last meeting with Putin before the summit in Alaska earlier this month, Witkoff returned to the White House with news of a major breakthrough\u2014Putin had agreed to a land-swapping deal in eastern Ukraine in which Russian forces would withdraw from the occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in return for Kyiv ceding Donetsk and Luhansk. With this information, Trump would negotiate the details in Anchorage.<\/p>\n

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\"Witkoff<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Witkoff has refused to take notes or share details of his meetings with Putin. \/ Gavriil Grigorov\/Pool\/AFP via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The news shocked world leaders, who were adamant that Putin would never give up occupied territory in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The next day, further talks between White House and Kremlin officials revealed that Putin had said nothing about withdrawing from the occupied territories and merely conceded that he would not demand that the West formally recognize them as Russian, according to\u00a0Reuters. Witkoff had\u00a0misinterpreted\u00a0Putin\u2019s demand that Ukraine withdraw from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as a concession offer.<\/p>\n

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\"President<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach a peace agreement at the bilateral summit in Alaska earlier this month. \/ Andrew Harnik \/ Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Witkoff disputed Politico\u2019s characterization of him, telling the outlet: \u201cWhat I\u2019m here to do is actually bring two sides together, narrow the issues and get it to a place where we can build political capital and fix this stupid thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance has also praised his colleague\u2019s work ethic, saying, \u201cWitkoff has made more progress towards ending the bloodshed in Ukraine than all his critics combined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witkoff was set to meet with top Ukrainian officials on Friday to discuss technical details he hopes will lead to a three-way summit between Trump, Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kyiv remains cautiously optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main focus is to reiterate that Ukraine is ready to meet Russia at the presidential level, but Russia continues to delay the process and constantly invents new pretexts as to why to delay it,\u201d a Ukrainian official said, adding they hope Witkoff will be receptive to their positions.<\/p>\n

White House Deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast: \u201cIt\u2019s typical for the TDS-ridden activists and fake \u2018journalists\u2019 of the Daily Beast to regurgitate fake news just to undermine President Trump and his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike President Trump, Steve Witkoff left behind a massive business enterprise to serve his country, and he is doing an incredible job advancing peace around the world. Over 70 Americans detained abroad have returned home as a direct result of Mr. Witkoff\u2019s efforts, and the President has full confidence in Mr. Witkoff\u2019s ability to advocate for America First foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast has contacted the State Department for further comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is being\u00a0blamed\u00a0for the failure of the president\u2019s summit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,51,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-russia","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1645,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}