PUTIN IT BLUNTLY

Fox News Star Tears Apart Trump Goon After Putin Tribute

The network’s veteran analyst called the special envoy’s praise for the Kremlin boss “absurd.”

Brit Hume isn’t buying the idea that Vladimir Putin is a humanitarian.

The Fox News chief political analyst rejected Trump peace envoy Steve Witkoff’s glowing description of the Russian dictator on a visit to Putin’s hometown of St Petersburg on Wednesday.

Witkoff heaped praise on Putin after the Russian leader freed American Stephen Hubbard, 74, telling him: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”

“The guy’s a war criminal, for God’s sake, and he’s rained down bombs on civilians without regard to human life,” Hume told host John Roberts on Fox News’ America Reports.

“So to call him a humanitarian is absurd.”

Roberts said he was “maybe hoping more than expecting” that Witkoff was “just blowing a little diplomatic smoke” to help get Hubbard home.

Hume gave the envoy some credit.

“Witkoff is famously a very genial guy and a very kind of nice guy,” he said. “Maybe now Vladimir Putin likes him, too, for saying something pretty extravagant there.”

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Hume says he saw the method behind the madness. He pointed to Donald Trump’s reason for holding off on the Russia sanctions in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill. According to Hume, the president told reporters on the South Lawn that you don’t punish people you’re trying to strike a deal with.

“When you’re trying to get a guy out of what has been locked up for four years illegally, you don’t insult the guy,” Hume said. “Maybe you flatter him.”

The conversation then turned to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who told Fox & Friends that he would be willing to freeze the front lines to start peace talks.

“A lot of people are assuming that that means that Zelensky would agree to give up the eastern part of Donbas, the eastern part of Ukraine,” Roberts said.

But how do people in the Donbas feel? It’s a complicated question.

In a 2019 face-to-face survey of residents in the Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, about half wanted their region to join Russia outright, and only 5 percent wanted a return to Ukrainian rule as it was before 2014. A broader survey taken weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 found that 42 percent of people across Donbas wanted to stay in Ukraine, while 31 percent preferred joining Russia. In the Russian-held areas, nearly half wanted to be part of Russia.

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Ukrainians elsewhere are divided, too. In a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll this month, 61 percent rejected handing all of Donbas to Russia in exchange for security guarantees, while 35 percent said they could live with it.

In a clip from Roberts’ interview earlier that day, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matt Whitaker, sounded hopeful.

“I think there’s a real chance here that we have both sides that are willing to take a deal,” Whitaker said.

Roberts noted that Ukraine’s constitution bars Zelensky from giving up territory without a public referendum.

“At least that’s what they’ve always said and what Zelensky has always said, to the frustration of President Trump,” Hume replied.

Whether Putin bites is another matter.

“Now that he’s said this, it’ll be interesting to see if Vladimir Putin responds in a positive way or whether he brushes this aside as he brushed aside nearly every other offer and every ceasefire proposal as well,” Hume said.

“But I think, for the moment at least, it puts Putin on the spot to respond in kind, and it puts President Trump on the spot as well after he’s been blaming Zelensky for the failure of these negotiations or the failure even to get them started,” he continued. “Zelensky’s now said something. It’s a big deal.”

He added that the offer “may be constitutionally difficult, but it’s a meaningful proposal.”

Roberts stayed skeptical.

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“He said he’s not prepared to give up any territory,” he said. “We’ll see if maybe he is this time around.”

Witkoff and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

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