Steve Witkoff, the Trump-appointed special envoy to the Middle East, has found himself in hot water.
The billionaire real estate investor has been dubbed “kind of a rogue actor” by one White House official, while others speaking anonymously revealed a collective irritation with Witkoff.
“He 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’s hard to operationalize that,” the unnamed official told Politico.
Though President Donald Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign that he would solve the Russia-Ukraine crisis on the first day of his presidency, by late August, little progress had been made toward a ceasefire or peace agreement. As frustrations mount within diplomatic circles at Witkoff’s alleged unprofessionalism, the conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 wages on.
Officials told Politico that Witkoff declined to consult experts in the run-up to the “peace summit” in Alaska earlier this month between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The summit concluded earlier than planned after Trump failed to secure an agreement. Witkoff reportedly believed that his charisma alone would be sufficient to broker a deal with Putin.
“The thing is, Witkoff isn’t consistently engaged,” a White House official said. “He 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.”
“Meanwhile, the Russians are talking to you about how ‘Witkoff says …’ and you don’t know whether they’re right or not, but you can’t get a readout from the Russians,” the official said.
Witkoff, like many of Trump’s appointees such as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., does not have prior experience in the role to which he was assigned. According to Politico’s reporting, he views diplomatic negotiations through a real estate lens, the industry he is familiar with, thinking of the violent conflict between the two Eastern European nations as a simple land dispute.
Officials said that Witkoff has been steered toward reiterating Putin’s own talking points by his own refusal to check his government emails, read intelligence briefings or take notes at critical meetings. Witkoff repeating Putin’s positions due to convenience may have influenced Trump’s own understanding of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Politico reported.
“He seems to have bought into the false Russian narrative that they are winning on the front lines, which we all know is not true,” another official said.
A White House official said, in contrast, that Witkoff checks his government email daily and receives a regular intelligence briefing. Witkoff also now uses a State Department translator during official meetings after he was criticized for using Putin’s translator in Russia, they added.
Neither the White House nor Witkoff’s office immediately responded to The Daily Express’ request for comment on Politico’s reporting.
After Witkoff met with Putin before the Alaska summit, he reportedly returned to the White House with a misunderstanding about Putin’s idea of concessions. He claimed Putin had agreed to a land-swapping deal in eastern Ukraine which would involve Russian troops withdrawing from occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. In return, Witkoff said, Putin expected Ukraine to cede Donetsk and Luhansk, according to Politico.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly confirmed that Kyiv will not agree to a cessation of land, a reduction of its military capability, nor its ambitions to secure a NATO membership.
The following day, conversations between the White House and Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Putin had not said anything about withdrawing from the territories, officials told Politico. He had instead simply stated that he would not demand that the West formally recognize the regions as Russian, Reuters reported.
“His inexperience shines through, he has the president’s ear, which is evident, but there has been some confusion about what has been said and agreed,” one official told Politico.
Witkoff reportedly told Politico in response to its reporting: “What I’m 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.”
