Vice President J.D. Vance and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took a Politico reporter to the woodshed for the attempted hit job the outlet did on a top member of President Donald Trump’s team, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
In the Politico piece out Friday titled, “‘His inexperience shines through’: Steve Witkoff struggles to manage Russia as Trump peace envoy,” the outlet claimed that it spoke with “13 people, including U.S. and foreign officials and other people familiar with the diplomatic effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine,” granting anonymity to most of them.
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According to the article, officials said the problem is Witkoff’s “go-it-alone style.” In short, the quotes from anonymous sources paint the picture that Witkoff isn’t up for the task of negotiating the end to the war. Witkoff is described with words like “inexperienced,” “rogue,” “uninformed,” and having an inability to focus.
The outlet noted that after the White House learned of its reporting, it provided several statements, including one from U.K. National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell.
In the piece, Powell is quoted as saying Witkoff “has been able to open doors that no one else could,” and “is exactly [the] sort of person” who gets results in diplomacy by concentrating “on building trust between key leaders … and moving quietly to cut a deal.”
“Witkoff has made more progress towards ending the bloodshed in Ukraine than all his critics combined,” VP Vance said in another statement.
After the report was published, Vance took to X and wrote a brutal response.
This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.
Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it’s two or three… https://t.co/LsPmTpZfqy
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 29, 2025
It read, in part:
“This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members,” the VP wrote. “Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it’s two or three deep staters who are angry that Witkoff has succeeded where they’ve failed.”
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Vance noted that the “reporter” left out several on-the-record quotes, including from him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and “the full quote from the UK’s Jonathan Powell, one of the most respected national security people in the Western World, who defended Steve vigorously from these malicious smears.”
“The person who wrote this garbage is @felschwartz,” the VP wrote. “Aside from the failure to include on the record information directly contradicting her reporting, I wonder if she ever asked herself why these anonymous sources came to her at this moment with this particular story. They have an agenda to blow up the president’s efforts to make peace, and they saw her as a useful vessel to launder garbage into the conversation, truth be damned.”
“There are two possible explanations: Felicia is just not very smart, and allowed herself to be used by deep state con men,” he added. “Or she’s in on it, and used her position to willingly participate in a literal foreign influence operation. Either way, it’s disgraceful.”
“To set the record straight: Steve Witkoff is an invaluable member of our team,” Vance continued. “He did not mislead anyone on what the Russians told him and what the Russians conceded. (Trust me, I’ve seen the intel.) The fruits of his negotiations are that we have narrowed the list of open issues in the Russia-Ukraine war to a set of clearly defined issues–specifically, security guarantees and territorial concessions.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also reacted to Vance’s post, and wrote that she couldn’t have said it any better herself.
I could not have said it better myself.
Not only did Felicia and her editors refuse to use the many quotes from high-ranking officials provided to them by the White House, they also did not include nearly an hour of context from the subject of the story, Mr. Witkoff.
Too many… https://t.co/E9MHOnidR3
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) August 29, 2025
“Not only did Felicia and her editors refuse to use the many quotes from high-ranking officials provided to them by the White House, they also did not include nearly an hour of context from the subject of the story, Mr. Witkoff,” Leavitt wrote.
“Too many ‘journalists’ are used as sheep by people pushing a clear agenda,” she added. “Unfortunately, we see this every day.”
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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