IT’S COMPLICATED

White House Melts Down Over Trump Goon’s Putin Suck-Up

Someone in the Trump administration nerve center is rattled.

The White House’s rapid response X account couldn’t handle a fair critique of the president’s Russia point man shilling for Vladimir Putin.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s property developer-turned-diplomat, praised the Kremlin dictator as a “humanitarian” after he released retired American teacher Stephen Hubbard from a Russian jail earlier this week.

The comment landed like a thud with those cognizant of the fact that warcrime-accused Putin is overseeing a bloody, years-long incursion into Ukraine.

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Trump Goon Pays Nauseating Tribute to ‘Humanitarian’ Putin

Will Neal

Even Fox News’ Brit Hume shared his distaste. “The guy’s a war criminal, for God’s sake,” he pointed out on the network’s America Reports on Wednesday.

Independent journalist Caitlin Doornbos shared her take on X. In one post, she wrote, “I’m used to diplomatic pandering by now, but this? 😳”

She followed up with, “For my Republican strategist friends — where the headlines could have been, ‘President Trump brings home American wrongly imprisoned in Russia’ - Witkoff calling Putin a ‘humanitarian’ will be the only thing anyone talks about.”

Her take was seized upon by Trump’s comms machine, which leaned on the excuse that “things are complicated.”

“Should the Special Envoy have insulted the man, imperiled the release of an American citizen, and torched any possibility of finally resolving a war that has gone on for far too long?” Rapid Response 47 asked.

“These things are complicated. This is why you’re not a negotiator.”

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Hume, meanwhile, saw the method in the madness. “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, seemingly siding with Rapid Response’s view. “Maybe you flatter him.”

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian,” Witkoff told Putin during a face-to-face meeting in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

“You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”

Witkoff shared a post on X about Hubbard’s release. MS NOW host Joe Scarborough shared it, writing, “Stephen was kidnapped and abused for FOUR YEARS by the dictator you just called a humanitarian. Putin kidnaps Americans, assassinates political rivals, kills journalists, murders toddlers, and kidnaps thousands of children. And you call him a humanitarian. There are no words.”

Hours later, Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure killed three people overnight in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Approximately 700,000 people, including at least 17,000 Ukrainian civilians, 150,000 Ukrainian service members, and more than 500,000 of Putin’s own troops, have died since he launched his full-scale invasion in 2022.

The Russian leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the unlawful transfer of children from occupied Ukrainian territory into Russia.

Putin is also under U.S. sanctions over his invasion.

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Leigh KimminsReporter

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