Trump Gives Shocking Defense of Call Between His Team and Putin Aide

On Tuesday, Donald Trump had to defend the contents of a leaked call between his envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Yuri Ushakov, a senior foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin.

The call took place on October 14, days before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to meet Trump at the White House. On the call, Witkoff seemed to be coaching Ushakov on convincing language to use on Trump, and promising to give Russia Ukrainian land under a final peace deal.

On Air Force One Tuesday evening, a reporter asked Trump if he had heard the “audio of Witkoff coaching the Russians on how to appeal to you.” Trump said no, and dismissed the call as “a standard thing.”

“He’s gotta sell this to Ukraine, he’s gotta sell Ukraine to Russia.… That’s what a dealmaker does. You’ve gotta say, look, they want this, you’ve gotta convince them of this. You know, that’s a very standard form of negotiation. I haven’t heard it, but I heard it was standard negotiation, and I would imagine he’s saying the same thing to Ukraine,” Trump responded.

Another reporter asked Trump if he was worried Witkoff was too pro-Russian, alluding to the envoy’s chumminess with Ushakov on the call. Trump’s answer blew past that premise.

“I think, look, ahh—this war could go on for years, and Russia’s got a lot more people, got a lot more soldiers. So I think if Ukraine can make a deal, it’s a good thing. Frankly, I think it’s great for both. But, Ukraine’s gotta—it’s a much smaller group of people. They’ve lost a lot of people, Russia’s lost a lot of people. But Russia has a much bigger pool of people,” Trump said.

The released transcript of the call seems to show Witkoff effectively telling Russia how to sell the early peace deal draft to Trump, as if it was being proposed by Putin to the United States, with Witkoff suggesting Putin praise Trump as a “man of peace.”

We know now that the initial deal was effectively drafted by Russia and contained what Secretary of State Marco Rubio describes as a “wish list” for the country, with no Ukrainian input at all. It turns out that Trump wasn’t even that involved himself.