‘Terrible Guy Doing a Terrible Job’: Conservatives Roast Trump Peace Envoy Steve Witkoff

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, is facing harsh criticism from conservatives unimpressed by his approach to ending the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

Witkoff, who has taken on an outsized role in the Trump administration’s foreign policy team told Fox News on Sunday that he had been “duped” by Hamas.

“I was in Doha. I met with many of the Arab leaders at the Arab Summit. I thought we had a deal, an acceptable deal,” said Witkoff. “I even — I even thought we had an approval from Hamas, maybe that’s just me getting — getting, you know, duped . . . but I thought we were there and evidently, we weren’t. So, this is on Hamas. The United States stands with the State of Israel.”

But in a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, Witkoff nevertheless toyed with the idea of having Hamas continue to operate in Gaza.

“What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there till the end of time, and they want to rule Gaza, and that’s unacceptable. We had to know what they wanted. What they want is unacceptable,” he told Carlson. “What’s acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit, right? Be involved politically.”

Witkoff stepped in hit on the issue of Ukraine, too.

Asked by Fox News’ Shannon Bream if he believes Russian dictator Vladimir Putin “wants peace,” Witkoff replied, “I feel that he wants peace. The president had two very productive calls this week, or last week, I should say. One with President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, one with President Putin. I was in on– I sat and listened to both of them. In both conversations, it was all about a lasting peace. Lots of progress got made last week.”

But wait, there’s more:

BREAM: Do you feel like there’s a misconception though about the characterization of him as a tyrant or someone whose political opponents often disappear or die?

WITKOFF: I think in my 68 years on this Earth, I’ve never ever seen a situation where there isn’t two sides to a story. It’s just never as black and white as people want to portray. So, there are grievances on both sides. . . . Our job is to narrow the issues, bring the parties together, and stop the killing. That’s the game plan, and that’s what we’re all there to do, and I think that we’re doing a pretty effective job of it.

The string of comments have compelled many traditional, Reaganite conservatives to sound the alarm.

“Witkoff’s answer here is pure mush,” argued Fox News’ Brit Hume about the special envoy’s answer on Putin. “Putin is a tyrant and his political opponents are often defenestrated. I wonder what this wizard thinks is the other side of those stories.”

“Witkoff is a disaster,” submitted The Washington Examiner‘s David Harsanyi.

https://x.com/davidharsanyi/status/1904165944999485774

“Witkoff is completely out his depth. He’s dealing with a KGB mastermind in psyops who is playing him like a cat with a mouse in its paws,” declared The Washington Post‘s Marc Thiessen.

“Yes, Mr. Witkoff. You were duped. From all the available evidence, duping you is not quite as difficult to do as you think it is,” chimed in National Review‘s Jim Geraghty.

“Tucker and Witkoff have adopted Putinist talking points, but Putin gets more of the basic facts correct,” suggested Richard Hanania. “Tuckerism is Putinism with worse fact checkers.”

“Steve Witkoff is a terrible guy doing a terrible job. The people sniping at him are mad because he’s an utter failure,” declared conservative social media influencer “Han Shawnity” after Vice President JD Vance offered a defense of the embattled official.

“The only success he’s had so far was to force Israel into that horrible hostage deal that was initially negotiated by the Biden team. Israel was forced to release thousands of bloodthirsty terrorists who will inevitably go on to murder more. Other than that, the only purpose he served so far was to whitewash Hamas and run cover for Qatar.”