Jake Tapper Grills Trump Foreign Policy Honcho About His Sitdown With Putin: ‘Is it Now Clear Putin is the Impediment to Peace?’
CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled a top foreign policy figure from President Donald Trump’s administration about his 3-hour sit down with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
In an interview on Sunday’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper quizzed Steve Witkoff — the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, who is now also taking a lead role in discussions with Russia and Ukraine — about his meeting with Putin in Moscow on Friday, for which he was reportedly made to wait eight hours by the Russian leader. (A report Trump vehemently denied in a post Saturday on Truth Social.)
“It was positive,” Witkoff said of his conversation with Putin. “It was a solution-based discussion, and that’s how I would describe it.”
Tapper laid out what he understood to be conditions Russia is seeking in order to enter into a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine — including “international recognition” that the Ukrainian territory seized by Russia now belongs to Russia.
“Jake, I would not call your description entirely accurate,” Witkoff said of the conditions the CNN anchor listed off. He added, “the two sides were miles apart in where they were. The two sides are today a lot closer.”
Witkoff noted that Trump himself “is involved in every aspect and dimension of these discussions.” He added that Trump and Putin are likely to speak by phone sometime this week.
Tapper then confronted Trump’s envoy about the ceasefire deal with Ukraine has agreed to, but Russia has not. The CNN anchor quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that if Russia says no to the agreement, “we’ll, unfortunately, know what the impediment is to peace here.”
“So as Secretary Rubio puts it, is it now clear that Putin is the impediment to peace right now?” Tapper asked.
Witkoff refused to go there.
“I don’t want to put words in President Putin’s mouth, but I think he’s indicated that he accepts the philosophy of President Trump,” Witkoff said. “President Trump wants to see an end to this. I think President Putin wants to see an end to this. I think President Zelensky wants to see an end to this … [there] are all details that have to get worked out at the table, and all sides, I believe, are committed to doing that.”
Asked how quickly he expects an agreement, Witkoff said, “the president uses the time frame weeks, and I don’t disagree with him. I am really hopeful that we’re going to see some real progress here.”
Watch above, via CNN.
