Joe Scarborough Slaps Steve Witkoff With Blunt Warning for Trusting Putin’s Iran Intel Denial: Russians ‘Lie’

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough slapped President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff with a blunt warning about trusting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the Kremlin was “not” sharing intelligence with Iran.

The show opened as the MS NOW crew rolled back a clip of Witkoff’s CNBC interview on Tuesday, when he was asked about reports Russia shared intel on the locations of U.S. military assets with Tehran amid the ongoing conflict.

Witkoff told the host that he’d spoken with Putin and Russian officials on a call Monday, during which they denied the reports.

“We can take them at their word,” he said, saying Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had heard the same on a similar call, before adding: “But let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”

As the video finished rolling, Scarborough quoted back the statement: “‘Let’s hope they’re not sharing.’”

He immediately recalled a 2018 Politico interview Trump had with his co-host Jonathan Lemire, in which he was asked whether he trusted his own intel chiefs more than Putin.

“The president said, fill in the blank…” Scarborough said, cuing up Lemire.

Lemire continued: “At the time, the president made clear he sided with Vladimir Putin, that he took Vladimir Putin at his word. And yesterday his lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff, suggested the same.”

Scarborough interjected, mocking Witkoff’s statement as perhaps a tactful, at best: “And then he said, ‘Well, let’s hope they don’t do that.’ Yes. You know, diplomats, you gotta work with both sides.”

Looking down lens, the host called out Witkoff directly.

“But I will just say, if Steve is watching: ‘Steve, they lie! This is what Russians do. They think it’s the smart move to always lie. That’s the very nature of it, they are disruptors. They count on American suckers to think that they’re going to win them over by force of personality. It never happens.””

Scarborough mused that trusting Russia was what former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt “tried to do” during the Cold War, and joked, “You wake up the next day and Eastern Europe has a wall just right through Berlin.”

“Because FDR thought he was going to win Stalin over at Yalta with the force of his personality,” the host said, imitating a game show wrong-answer buzzer.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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