When it came time for Donald Trump to choose a special envoy to work on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, the president had a small army of experienced, knowledgeable and qualified diplomats to choose from. The Republican tapped Steve Witkoff for the job instead.
As The New York Times reported soon after, the choice “prompted head-scratching in diplomatic circles.” The report added, “Many foreign officials had never heard of Mr. Witkoff, a billionaire New York real estate developer who has known Mr. Trump since the mid-1980s. The president’s new envoy not only lacked expertise in the region apart from some business dealings, he had no diplomatic experience.”
It seemed pretty obvious that Witkoff was in over his head, and he effectively admitted as much to Tucker Carlson during an interview in March. “I underestimated the complications in the job, that’s for sure,” he said. “I think I was a little bit quixotic in the way that I thought about it. Like, I’m going to roll in there on a white horse. And no, it was anything but that, you know.”
Six months later, conditions in Ukraine are, by many measures, considerably worse. Politico reported that many close to the diplomatic efforts are blaming the rookie whom Trump chose for reasons that have never been explained.
Some frustrated U.S., Ukrainian and European officials say part of the problem is the go-it-alone style of Witkoff. … He has refused to consult with experts and allies, leaving him uninformed at times and unprepared at others, according to seven people familiar with internal discussions. Two said he misses the mark by viewing the conflict through a real estate lens, like a land dispute.
Though Politico’s report hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, it quoted a senior administration official who lamented the fact that Witkoff’s “inexperience shines through” — a point that was easily to believe, given his recent confusion about a Russian offer.
Another U.S. official said of Witkoff, “He’s kind of a rogue actor. 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.”
Unfortunately, it gets worse. The same Politico report noted that Witkoff’s staff “often doesn’t know where he is or what he is doing,” the envoy “is not a voracious consumer of his intelligence briefing materials and doesn’t read them every day” and “rarely reads his government email.” The White House has vigorously pushed back against the reporting, and Vice President JD Vance went so far as to condemn the Politico article as “journalistic malpractice” and a possible “foreign influence operation.” But given the lack of evidence of Witkoff’s successes and his well documented public missteps, such denials ring hollow. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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