Trump Defends Envoy’s Tactics Coaching Russia in Ukraine Negotiations
President Trump said the envoy, Steve Witkoff, was using standard negotiating methods, after he appeared to coach a Russian official in a leaked call.
Nov. 26, 2025
President Trump is defending his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, over the way he has conducted negotiations during the latest American push to end the war in Ukraine and will send him back to Russia to meet again with President Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Trump’s comments came Tuesday evening after Bloomberg published what it said was a transcript of a phone conversation on Oct. 14 between Mr. Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, a top foreign policy aide to Mr. Putin. In the reported conversation, Mr. Witkoff appeared to offer the Russian official advice on how the Kremlin could win backing from Mr. Trump for its preferred terms to end the conflict.
Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that Mr. Witkoff had been meeting with Russian and Ukrainian officials, and he cast the conversation as part of negotiations to end the conflict. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and then launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago.
“I haven’t heard it, but it’s a standard thing,” Mr. Trump said of the conversation. “That’s what a deal maker does.”
Mr. Trump said that the latest flurry of U.S.-led diplomacy was making “good progress,” but that securing a deal was proving harder than he expected. The president said he thought his relationship with Mr. Putin would have made achieving a peace deal easier, and that reaching an agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders was a “complicated process.”
The White House has said that the peace plan was developed by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, and Mr. Witkoff, who met Russian officials several times before details of the plan emerged last week.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a London-based reporter on the Live team at The Times, which covers breaking and developing news.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 27, 2025, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Envoy Tactics With Russia Are Defended By Trump. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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