Real estate developer turned Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said the U.S. should take Russia at its word after it was reported that the Kremlin shared intelligence on U.S. targets with Iran.
The top Trump official, who was tasked with negotiating an Iran deal before the U.S. launched its war and is still trying to bring an end to Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, was asked about the intelligence sharing report on CNBC on Tuesday.
“Do we think the Russians have shared intelligence about the location of U.S. military assets, and if they have, why would we be giving waivers on Russian oil sanctions?” host Carl Quintanilla asked.
“Well, I’m not an intel officer, so I can’t tell you,” Witkoff said. “I can tell you that yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said they have not been sharing. That’s what they said, so you know, we can take them at their word, but they did just say that.”
President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday, but Witkoff also shared that he and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has no government position but has been teaming up with Witkoff on negotiations, had a call with Ushakov, presumably Russian policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who he said “reiterated the same.”
After Witkoff parroted what the Kremlin told him, he went on to say “that’s a better question for the intel people, but let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”
His eyebrow-raising comments came after The Washington Post reported last week that Russia was providing Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.
It said that since the war began last Saturday, Russia has passed along locations of military assets, including warships and aircraft.
Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to comment on the intelligence report, but then made the shocking claim that “frankly, it does not really matter.”
She went on to argue that the U.S. was decimating the Iranian regime.
When asked about his call with Putin on Monday, Trump said it was a “very good call.” The president indicated that they spoke about the war in Ukraine, but he also said, “We obviously talked then about the Middle East, and he wants to be helpful.”
“We had a very good talk, and he wants to be very constructive,” Trump claimed.
When the president was specifically asked about the Russians helping Iran target Americans at his college sports roundtable last week, Trump cut off the Fox News reporter before he could finish and shot back, “What a stupid question to be asking at this time.” He then proceeded to only answer questions directly related to the event.
