CNN’s Tapper to Steve Witkoff: Do You Think It’s Good That Russians Think Trump Is in Total Alignment with Putin?

TZAPPER: “Trump is publicly attacking Zelenskyy as a dictator. He blamed him for starting the war in the first place, called for new elections in Ukraine, took NATO membership for Ukraine off the table. He said it‘s unlikely Ukraine will be able to get back its territory seized by Russia. Russian state TV suggests that President Trump is getting all of this straight from his conversations with president Putin. Take a listen.”

[Clip starts]
SOLOVIOV (via translator): “When Trump is answering questions at a press conference, I think it’s not a coincidence that many of the narratives that are being voiced largely materialized after the conversation. (...) The phrases he’s saying are so deep and so correct, they’re in alignment with the way we see things.”
[Clip ends]

TAPPER: “Do you think it’s good that the Russians think that the Trump Administration is in total alignment with the way that Putin sees things?”
WITKOFF: “I think we’ve had, Jake, by my estimation, almost a million and a half deaths here. And finally, we have a leader that is President Trump, who is determined to end the carnage. And so, the only way you‘re going to end the carnage is if you have a relationship with the leaders of of both countries that are involved. I was — I went over to Russia. I had a meeting with President Putin. It was a long meeting, positive, constructive, lots of good things got discussed, in large part because the president enjoyed a positive relationship with President Putin from his first term in office. And that then evolved into a positive conversation with the president on a telephone call from the White House. And then there was a positive conversation with President Zelenskyy. So I think you‘ve got to have these relationships. You‘ve got to have communication. That‘s the only way you get deals done.”