Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin Torches Team Trump Over Russia Talks: Putin ‘Is Laughing’

Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Jennifer Griffin, Fox News’ chief national security correspondent, torched the Trump administration over its approach to negotiating an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine Friday, submitting that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin must be “laughing.”

Reacting to a video of Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, being greeted by Putin, who was flanked by his advisors the Kremlin, conservative commentator Mike Coté mused that “By the end of this, we’re going to have ceded Alaska back to Russia.”

In turn, Griffin quote-tweeted Coté’s post and asked, “Where are the subject matter experts with Witkoff? Putin, the KGB officer, is laughing.”

She continued:

Meanwhile the instability at the Pentagon is not helping project strength during these delicate negotiations. There is still no confirmed NSA (Cyber Command) director after Defense Secretary Hegseth fired Gen Hauck and his deputy for no reason, not even a nominee yet for the person overseeing the crown jewel of US intelligence and SIGINT, which might come into handy when you are negotiating with Putin and Xi.

Griffin has been a relatively persistent critic of the second Trump administration’s national security team in its early days.

Trump and Witkoff have both faced scrutiny from voices across the political spectrum over their conciliatory rhetoric about Putin. For his part, the president has repeatedly blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the outbreak of the war and preventing its cessation, most recently in a Wednesday statement in which he mused that Zelensky “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.”

Meanwhile, Witkoff has said  “I tend to believe that President Putin is operating in good faith. He said that he was going to be operating in good faith to the president [Trump] yesterday, and I take him at his word.”