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(WASHINGTON) — Officials with the White House’s National Security Council say they “are reviewing” how a journalist could have been “inadvertently” added to an 18-member group chat that included several of the nation’s top military officials.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a piece published Monday that he was added to a group chat in the commercially available Signal app in which officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing impeding strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Goldberg said he was apparently added to the chat by Waltz.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to remain confident in Waltz, saying “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson and is a good man,” according to NBC News.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the review on Tuesday, but said that that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.” She added that no classified material was sent to Signal group chat.
“The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” she said.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement, which was sent to ABC News after first being published by The Atlantic.
The scope of the review, including whether it would attempt to determine why high-level discussions about military planning were taking place outside of official channels, was not immediately clear from Hughes’ statement.
Democrats in Congress voiced their concern, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling for an investigation, saying in a statement that the use of a non-classified text app “is completely outrageous and shocks the conscience.”
“If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach,” Jeffries said.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed Jeffries’ statement in a floor statement in the Senate on Monday.
“Mr. President, this is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Schumer said.
The group chat included Vice President JD Vance, according to Goldberg’s reporting, and that it was spun up prior to a U.S. military operation that Trumpordered against the militant Houthis, whom the U.S. says are backed by Iran.
Goldberg told ABC News on Monday he initially thought it might have been a “spoof” or “hoax,” but that “it became sort of overwhelmingly clear to me that this was a real group” once the attack occurred.
Trump, when first asked about the report on Monday, said at the time he didn’t “know anything about it.”
When asked about the story on Monday, Hegseth told reporters that he had “heard how it was characterized.”
He added, “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Luis Martinez, Lauren Peller, Lalee Ibssa, Isabella Murray and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Valeria Zarudna/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Following separate talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia this week, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea, according to readouts from the White House.
Russia and Ukraine “have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” according to the readouts.
They both also agreed to “develop measures to implement the agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine,” according to the readouts.
All parties are working toward “achieving a durable and lasting peace,” they noted.
The White House made a specific agreement with Ukraine over the exchange of prisoners of war, according to a readout on the Ukrainian talks in Riyadh.
“The United States and Ukraine agreed that the United States remains committed to helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children,” the readout stated.
The White House also made a specific agreement with Russia, focused on agriculture and maritime costs, according to a readout on the Russian talks in Riyadh.
“The United States will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transaction,” the readout stated.
Monday’s closed-door talks with Russia in Riyadh lasted for 12 hours, a source told Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
Grigory Karasin, the chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, who took part in the talks in Riyadh, told Tass that “the dialogue was detailed and complex but quite useful for us and for the Americans.” Karasin added, “We discussed numerous issues.”
A source told the RIA Novosti state media agency that a joint statement on the negotiations was to be issued on Tuesday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov subsequently said the details of talks between would not be made public.
The talks were expected to include discussions on a potential ceasefire in the Black Sea, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. That proposal, Peskov said, came from President Donald Trump and was agreed to by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A proposed pause in long-range attacks on energy and other critical infrastructure targets was also expected to be part of the discussions. Though Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy both agreed to the proposal in principle last week, cross-border strikes had continued.
The U.S.-Russia meeting on Monday came on the heels of a meeting between the American and Ukrainian teams in Riyadh on Sunday. U.S. and Ukrainian representatives also held talks after the American meeting with the Russian team concluded, a source familiar with the discussions told ABC News.
On Monday, responding to another round of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, Zelenskyy wrote on social media that “the war was brought from Russia and it is to Russia that the war must be pushed back. They must be the ones forced into peace. They are the ones who must be pressured to ensure security.”
On Monday night into Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched one missile and 139 drones into the country, of which 78 drones were shot down and 34 lost in flight without causing damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down five Ukrainian drones over occupied Crimea.
ABC News’ Anna Sergeeva, Oleksiy Pshemyskiy, Will Gretsky, Ellie Kaufman and Guy Davies contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said he is confident in his national security adviser, Mike Waltz — a day after a report detailed how he inadvertently added a journalist to a Signal group chat discussing Yemen war plans.
Trump told NBC News on Tuesday that Waltz “has learned a lesson and is a good man.”
The president brushed off concerns about the group chat on the messaging app, which reportedly included operational details about war plans in Yemen — and mistakenly included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, according to a report from Goldberg published Monday.
Trump told NBC News that Goldberg’s presence in the chat had “no impact at all” and called the whole ordeal “the only glitch” his administration has faced since Inauguration Day.
Goldberg said he received a Signal invitation from Waltz, who was a member of the group chat. Goldberg said the group chat also appeared to include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told ABC News on Monday that the group chat “appears to be authentic.”
Trump tapped Waltz, a former Florida congressman, to be his national security adviser in November, calling him “a nationally recognized leader in national security” and an “expert on the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, and global terrorism.”
Waltz is a China hawk and was the first Green Beret elected to Congress. During the presidential campaign, Waltz proved to be a key surrogate for Trump, criticizing the Biden-Harris foreign policy record.
Elected to the House in 2018, Waltz sat on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. He also serves on the House China Task Force with 13 other Republicans.
Before running for elected office, Waltz served in various national security policy roles in the George W. Bush administration in the Pentagon and White House. He retired as a colonel after serving 27 years in the Army and the National Guard.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Benjamin Siegel, Katherine Faulders and John Santucci contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is refusing to provide a federal judge with any additional information about last week’s deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, arguing the disclosure of the information would “pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs.”
In a court filing Monday evening and in a series of sworn affidavits by three top cabinet officials, the Trump administration invoked the “state secrets privilege” to attempt to stop U.S. District Judge James Boasberg from learning more information about the flights as the judge tries to determine if the government willfully violated a court order last week.
Boasberg last week issued a temporary restraining order and ordered that the government turn around two deportation flights on their way to El Salvador after the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.
The government failed to turn the flights around, and an official subsequently acknowledged that “many” of the detainees did not have criminal records in the United States.
“This is a case about the President’s plenary authority, derived from Article II and the mandate of the electorate, and reinforced by longstanding statute, to remove from the homeland designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of, and predatory incursion into, the United States,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign wrote in Monday’s filing. “The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it.”
To determine if the Trump administration complied with his order last week, Judge Boasberg had requested information about the number of alleged gang members on each flight, when the flights took off and left U.S. airspace, where the flights landed, and when the men were transferred out of U.S. custody. The Trump administration so far has refused to provide any of the requested information.
In a sworn affidavit, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem argued that disclosing the timing of the flights or the number of alleged gang members on board each flight would “cause significant harm to the national security of the United States” by exposing “critical means and methods of law enforcement operations” and potentially harming diplomatic relationships.
“Removal flight plans — including locations from which flights depart, the planes utilized, the paths they travel, where they land, and how long they take to accomplish any of those things — reflect critical means and methods of law enforcement operations,” said Noem.
“In addition to flight operations, the number of TdA members on a given removal flight is also information that, if disclosed, would expose ICE’s means and methods, thus threatening significant harm to the national security of the United States,” Noem said, referring to the Tren de Aragua gang.
While the flight information in question is available through public aircraft tracking programs, Noem argued that confirming the information would still be “damaging to national interests” by enabling the country’s “enemies.”
“If the Government were to confirm or deny the information sought by this Court’s Minute Order, there would arise a danger that enemies of our national security would be able to stitch together an understanding of the means and methods used to thwart their unlawful and sometimes violent conduct,” Noem wrote.
In addition to Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi also submitted sworn affidavits. In his declaration, Rubio said that disclosing the information would make it harder to negotiate removals going forward and harm the “high stakes negotiation” with the detainees’ home county.
“If foreign partners believed that any relevant details could be revealed to third parties, those foreign partners would be less likely to work with the United States in the future,” Rubio wrote. “That impairs the foreign relations and diplomatic capabilities of the United States and threatens significant harm to the national security of the United States.”
With the Trump administration invoking state secrets privilege, Judge Boasberg will have to determine whether the government has provided sufficient information to justify keeping the information under wraps. Justice Department lawyers also declined to provide any information to Judge Boasberg in camera — in a private setting without public disclosure of the materials — by arguing that he is not entitled to information about diplomatic secrets.
“Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address,” Ensign wrote.
The Trump administration faces a separate deadline Tuesday to prove they did not violate Judge Boasberg’s order to return the two flights carrying alleged gang members. Ensign wrote that the government plans to comply with that request and prove that there is “no basis for the suggestion of noncompliance with any binding order.”
Monday’s court filing came on the same day a federal appeals court heard arguments from the Trump administration seeking to overturn Boasberg’s block on the use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. The appeals court did not issue an immediate ruling.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York will hear arguments Tuesday over whether to extend an order that prevents Columbia University from the sharing student disciplinary records of a number of pro-Palestinian activists with a House of Representatives committee.
The request for an injunction was filed by a group of Columbia students and graduates, including Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian activist detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement who is separately fighting his detention by the Trump administration.
Khalil and the others said the Republican-controlled committee’s request for their records violates the First Amendment and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and made Columbia “feel pressure to cooperate with the government in its efforts to chill and punish protected speech.”
Judge Aruba Subramanian has temporarily blocked Columbia from disclosing the student records and will hear arguments Tuesday afternoon over whether to permanently block sharing of the records or allow the school to cooperate with the committee.
The government arrested Khalil on March 8 after invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law that they said allows the secretary of state to revoke the legal status of people whose presence in the country could have “adverse foreign policy consequences.” He continues to be held in Louisiana awaiting further court proceedings.
Last week, Columbia University ceded to Trump administration demands after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold $400 million in federal funds. The school agreed to ban masks on campus, one of the Trump administration’s key demands, as well as stricter controls over its Middle East Studies department, which will now be overseen by a new senior vice provost who “will conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting immediately with the Middle East.” The university also agreed to hire 36 new police officers empowered to make arrests of student protesters on campus.
The Trump administration canceled $400 million worth of grants and contracts to Columbia University, accusing the university of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The administration sent a letter to Columbia interim President Katrina Armstrong on March 13, listing nine demands the university needed to comply with by last Thursday “as a precondition for formal negotiations” regarding federal funding.
Columbia’s response was closely watched by other schools that became flashpoints for pro-Palestinian protests last year. The university has come under intense scrutiny for its handling of pro-Palestinian protests, which led to arrests, property damage and backlash.
Former Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned last August, months after the protests. She was the third Ivy League president to step down within a few months.
Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill previously announced their resignations following congressional testimony on the handling of antisemitism on campus.
(NEW YORK) — Consumer attitudes worsened in March as President Donald Trump’s tariffs set off a market rout and warnings of a possible recession, Conference Board survey data on Tuesday showed. Sentiment worsened more than economists expected.
The fresh data on consumer sentiment arrives a week before the onset of additional U.S. tariffs, indicating potential fear of further escalation in an ongoing global trade war.
Trump has repeatedly referred to April 2 as “liberation day,” saying a wide-ranging slate of reciprocal tariffs would rebalance U.S. trade relationships.
Trump’s plan for reciprocal tariffs next week, however, is expected to be more targeted and narrower than he previously vowed, though the plan remains under discussion, sources told ABC News on Monday. The administration is focused on trading partners who have major trade imbalances with the U.S., the sources said.
The news of a potentially softer approach to forthcoming tariffs rallied U.S. stocks on Monday, recovering some of the losses suffered earlier this month.
Consumer sentiment appears to align with dampening expectations at the Federal Reserve. Last week, the Fed predicted weaker year-end economic growth and higher inflation than it had in a December forecast.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell faulted tariffs for a “good part” of recent inflation.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(HOUSTON) — Three teenagers allegedly attacked their mom and tried to stab her with kitchen knives because she turned off the Wi-Fi, according to authorities in Texas.
The three siblings — ages 14, 15 and 16 — “allegedly coordinated a plan to try and kill” their mother, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
Because the mom turned off the Wi-Fi, the teens allegedly grabbed kitchen knives Sunday night and chased their mother through their Houston home and into the street, according to the sheriff.
The mom was also hit with a brick, Gonzalez said, and their grandmother was knocked over while attempting to protect the mom.
The mother and grandmother were not seriously hurt, the sheriff’s office said.
The three siblings were arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and were booked in the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center, according to the sheriff’s office.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Multiple incendiary devices were found at a Tesla dealership in Austin, Texas, on Monday morning, according to the Austin Police Department.
Officers located the “suspicious devices” after responding to a Tesla dealership on U.S. Route 183 just after 8 a.m. local time and called the Austin Police Department Bomb Squad to investigate, police said in a statement.
The devices were determined to be incendiary and were “taken into police custody without incident,” officials said.
The FBI said on Monday that a task force to address the incidents targeting Teslas has been established.
“The FBI will be relentless in its mission to protect the American people. Acts of violence, vandalism, and domestic terrorism — like the recent Tesla attacks — will be pursued with the full force of the law,” the FBI said in a statement to ABC News.
Austin police said it is an ongoing investigation, and had no further information to release at this time.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting in this investigation, according to a spokesperson for the agency, with the FBI leading the efforts.
Recent attacks aimed at Tesla dealerships, vehicles and charging stations have been reported in Las Vegas; Seattle; Kansas City, Missouri; and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as other cities across the United States since Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his role with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The bureau has received reports of 48 instances where Tesla dealerships, cars and charging stations have been targeted, a law enforcement source told ABC News.
The FBI said on Friday evening that incidents targeting Teslas have been recorded in at least nine states since January, including arson, gunfire and graffiti.
“These criminal actions appear to have been conducted by lone offenders, and all known incidents occurred at night,” the FBI said in the public service announcement. “Individuals require little planning to use rudimentary tactics, such as improvised incendiary devices and firearms, and may perceive these attacks as victimless property crimes.”
The FBI urged the public to be vigilant and to look out for suspicious activity in areas around Tesla dealerships.
(ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — Two alleged victims of Matthew Weiss are suing the former co-offensive coordinator for the University of Michigan’s football team, who was arraigned Monday on federal charges that allege he hacked into the accounts of thousands of athletes to access private information, including “intimate images.”
The federal lawsuit was filed a day after the Department of Justice announced Weiss had been indicted on two dozen federal charges alleging he hacked into thousands of athlete and alumni accounts and downloaded private data, including intimate photos, over eight years.
The plaintiffs, who are not identified by name in the lawsuit, are two former University of Michigan female athletes. One was a member of the university’s women’s gymnastics team who attended the school between 2017 and 2018, and the other was a member of the women’s soccer team who attended between 2017 and 2023, according to the lawsuit.
Citing the allegations in the indictment against Weiss, the lawsuit claimed that between 2015 and January 2023, the former coach unlawfully gained access to the social media, email and/or cloud storage accounts of more than 3,300 people, including the two plaintiffs, and then downloaded personal, intimate photos and videos. Weiss primarily targeted female college athletes, the indictment alleged.
ABC News has reached out to Weiss’ attorney for comment on the lawsuit and federal charges and has not gotten a response.
The University of Michigan and the Regents of the University of Michigan are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleged that as a result of their “recklessness and negligence,” Weiss downloaded the women’s “personal, intimate digital photographs and videos.”
The lawsuit alleges the university violated Title XI and that its “deliberate indifference to protection against the invasion of privacy for female athletes created a heightened risk of sexual harassment.”
“Plaintiffs are embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, and mortified that their private information has been access[ed] by total strangers and third parties,” the lawsuit stated.
In response to the lawsuit, Kay Jarvis, the director of public affairs for the University of Michigan, said in a statement to ABC News, “We have not been served with the complaint and cannot comment on pending litigation.”
The lawsuit alleges that Weiss was able to gain unauthorized access to the student-athlete databases of more than 100 colleges and universities maintained by Keffer Development Services, LLC, a Pennsylvania-based company, and downloaded the personally identifiable information and medical data of over 150,000 athletes.
He is then accused of gaining access to the social media, email, and/or cloud storage accounts of more than 2,000 “targeted athletes,” including the plaintiffs, by guessing or resetting their passwords, according to the lawsuit.
“Once he obtained access to the accounts of targeted athletes, Weiss searched for and downloaded personal, intimate photographs and videos that were not publicly shared, including but not limited to Plaintiffs and others similar to them,” the lawsuit alleged.
Weiss illegally gained access to the accounts of more than 1,300 additional students or alumni from universities across the country, the lawsuit alleged.
Keffer is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which alleged that the company’s “misconduct, negligence, and recklessness also contributed to Weiss invading the privacy of Plaintiffs and their fellow student athletes.” ABC News has reached out to the company for comment.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the two plaintiffs and as a potential class action on behalf of other alleged victims. The number of potential class members is unclear but is estimated to exceed 1,000, the lawsuit stated.
Weiss, 42, was arraigned Monday on 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf, The Associated Press reported. His attorney, Douglas Mullkoff, declined to comment to the AP following the proceeding.
He was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond, ESPN reported.
If convicted, Weiss could face up to five years in prison on each count of unauthorized access and two years on each count of aggravated identity theft, according to the attorney’s office. Michigan fired Weiss in January 2023. Athletic Director Warde Manuel said in a statement the termination came “after a review of University policies.”
Weiss acknowledged an “ongoing investigation” and told ESPN at the time of his firing that he was “fully cooperating.”
“I have nothing but respect for the University of Michigan and the people who make it such a great place,” Weiss tweeted after his firing. “I look forward to putting this matter behind me and returning my focus to the game I love.”
Weiss started his career at Michigan as a quarterbacks coach in 2021 and then became co-offensive coordinator as well the following year. Before that, he worked as a coach in various capacities for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens from 2009 to 2020.
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy and lead negotiator tasked with ending the war in Ukraine, has attracted criticism in Europe and Ukraine after an interview where he appeared to back a number of well-known Kremlin talking points on the conflict.
The comments, in which Witkoff seemed to accept the results of sham referenda Russia has previously held in Ukraine to justify its seizure of land there — including Crimea, will likely feed fears among European allies that the Trump administration is leaning too far toward the Kremlin’s vision.
In the interview for “The Tucker Carlson Show,” posted online on Friday, Witkoff talked about his efforts to negotiate with President Vladimir Putin, speaking warmly of the Russian leader. Witkoff said he believed the heart of the conflict was Russia’s desire to control four regions of Ukraine it partially occupied and has claimed annexed since 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Talking about Putin’s claims to the regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, Witkoff suggested Russia had a right to them because they were majority Russian-speaking and repeated a false Kremlin claim that fair referenda there showed residents wanted to be absorbed by Russia.
“They are Russian-speaking, and there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff told Carlson.
However, Witkoff did not acknowledge that the supposed referenda held in those territories — whether in 2014 in the case of Crimea or 2022 in the other regions — were widely dismissed by Western powers, human rights organizations and international bodies as fraudulent and illegitimate.
Russia conducted referenda in the areas it occupied in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the fall of 2022, several months after seizing them with its full-scale invasion launched in February that year. Putin used the referenda to justify Russia’s subsequent annexation of the regions. Russia also held a similar referendum in Crimea in 2014 following its occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
The referenda were staged after Russia’s invasion had already forced hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to flee, and while Russian security forces were abducting and torturing anyone expressing opposition to its takeover. In some areas, Russian soldiers were filmed accompanying vote collectors as they went from house to house.
No legitimate independent international observers monitored the referenda and they were widely dismissed as shams, including by the United States. The United Nations General Assembly rejected the referenda as illegal and violating the U.N. Charter.
In September 2022, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. “does not, and will never, recognize any of the Kremlin’s claims to sovereignty over parts of Ukraine that it’s seized by force and now purports to incorporate into Russia.”
Witkoff made the remarks on the Russian referenda a day before a new round of talks between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia aimed at trying to make progress toward ending the war. His portrayal of the referenda as legitimate triggered some fierce criticism in Europe.
“Witkoff’s repeating of Kremlin lies about ‘russian-speakers’ [sic] wanting to ‘join Russia’ is truly chilling,” Lithuania’s former foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, wrote on X. “Hearing Americans talk like this should be an electric shock for Europe, not a wakeup call.”
Some Ukrainian members of parliament also condemned Witkoff’s comments.
Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the statements were “shocking.”
“I don’t understand what this is about — ignorance, naivety, unprofessionalism?” said Merezhko, who suggested Witkoff should be removed from his negotiating role. “Because we are talking about a representative of the president, who should professionally understand this issue and know some basic things. And he doesn’t know this. He is relaying Russian propaganda.”
In the interview with Carlson, Witkoff appeared to struggle to remember the names of the Ukrainian regions. “Donbas, Crimea. You know the names,” he told the conservative media personality, who prompted him to say “Lugansk” — the Russian transliteration for Luhansk. “Lugansk, and there’s two others,” Witkoff replied.
Although Putin declared he had annexed the four regions, his troops still do not fully control most of the area. Much of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, including their regional capitals, remain unoccupied.
A wealthy real estate developer, Witkoff has emerged as the lead negotiator for Trump’s effort to end the war, twice now traveling to Moscow, where he has said he spent several hours talking with Putin.
In his interview on Carlson, Witkoff was effusive in his praise for Putin, calling him a “very smart guy” and noting Putin told him he had prayed for Trump after the assassination attempt against him during last year’s presidential campaign. Witkoff added that Putin had given him a portrait of Trump which he says the Russian leader had commissioned from a famous Russian artist.
“This is the kind of connection that we’ve been able to reestablish through a simple word called communication, which many people would say I shouldn’t have had because Putin is a bad guy. I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff also told Carlson he believed Russia “does not need to absorb Ukraine,” saying, “They’ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?” He also said he “100%” believes Russia does not want to invade Europe, saying he took Putin “at his word” on that.
Witkoff also repeated an unsupported claim made by Putin that Russian forces have surrounded a significant number of Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region. Although Ukraine was forced to retreat from Kursk earlier this month, no evidence has emerged to suggest many Ukrainian soldiers are encircled, and both independent researchers and Ukrainian officials have said it is false.
“Witkoff uncritically amplified a number of Russian demands, claims and justifications,” the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote.
Witkoff’s comments could feed deep unease in Europe that the Trump administration, which is moving fast to restore relations with Russia, is more aligned with the Kremlin than NATO allies over the war in Ukraine. European officials and observers have also warned the administration, in its hurry to reach a deal, is vulnerable to manipulation by Putin.
The White House has argued its reengagement with Russia brings peace closer, but critics point out that the Kremlin has, so far, yet to make any significant concessions. Trump has claimed he isn’t “aligned” with Putin. “I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world,” Trump said last month.
Vice President JD Vance on Monday defended Witkoff, writing on X he was doing an “incredible job.”
