The Tucker Carlson Clip About Putin Praying for Trump

ICYMI, we're reposting the clip from the lengthier conversation between ex-Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson and Trump's trusted special envoy, Steve Witkoff. Mr. Witkoff is a Bronx-born Jewish lawyer and real estate developer known for his common touch who became a billionaire in the New York property markets. One of Witkoff's sons co-founded a DeFi protocol with Trump's sons Eric and Don Jr.

Watch the full Tucker Carlson-Steve Witkoff interview here at TCN's YouTube channel

Witkoff Reported Putin Praying for Trump and Gifting the President with a Russian-Painted Portrait

The interview has sparked an uproar this weekend among the trans-Atlantic foreign policy Blob and its media minions. The Blob is enraged not only at Witkoff's refusal to demonize Putin or the Russian President's allegedly Hitlerian motives for launching the Special Military Operation in 2022, but also for disclosing that Putin went to his Orthodox Church and prayed for then candidate Trump, after Trump was wounded by a would-be assassin's bullet last summer. Naturally, any detail that humanizes Putler in the eyes of Americans, or reminds them that Russia is a vast country with deep roots in Orthodox Christianity, especially in the eyes of Trump's supporters, is taboo. So too is acknowledging the choice of Donbass and especially Crimea natives voting to join Russia, which Witkoff also did, identifying the southeast Ukraine (re)joining Russia as the chief stumbling block for Kiev in accepting any negotiated settlement to the conflict.

The official EU/NATO position and of the previous two Administrations including Trump's first term has been that those referendums were invalid, as they were held at gunpoint in the presence of intimidating Russian troops and/or with faked results. Clearly Witkoff is publically signaling US de facto if not de jure US recognition of Crimea and potentially the entire land bridge territory to Crimea, that is much of Novorossiya/Tauridia is on the table (Russia has invested billions of rubles in Crimean highways and the ring highway linking its recognized and newly re-acquired territories along the entire Sea of Azov littoral). That shows that the Trump team is very serious about pivoting out of Europe to Asia, even if the British and French who jointly fought a Crimean War of aggression against Imperial Russia are obsessed with the pipe dream of a Ukrainian reconquest of Crimea.

Arestovych Claims of a Secret Ukrainian Scorched Earth/Nuclear Reactor Destruction Policy

Witkoff's interview was published by the Tucker Carlson Network amid the revelation from Oleksii Arestovych, an exiled Ukrainian dissident living in the US and former spin doctor aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky, that the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has seriously proposed blowing up Ukrainian and Russian-seized nuclear power plants to scorch the Earth with radioactive fallout. Kiev will of course, dismiss Arestovych's claims regarding Budanov's alleged Nero Führerbefehle, Der Untergang Führerbunker levels of fanaticism as fake news. But the timing with Trump's musings about the US taking custody of Ukraine's Soviet-built nuclear facilities hardly seems coincidental. Despite the slow pace of US-Russia negotiations, the Administration is indeed, throwing Zelensky and his ballyhooed psychopathic GUR chief Budanov under the bus--and thank God they are!

Witkoff Ridicules NATO and Especially British Propaganda That Russia is Hellbent on Invading Countries Beyond Ukraine

To make matters worse for the Blob, Witkoff notably ridiculed the NATO and especially British propaganda that Putin has any intention of invading Europe, particularly Poland and the Baltic states. Tucker Carlson asked Witkoff for his opinion about why the British and French are posturing toward sending troops as "peacekeepers" to openly fight the Russians in Ukraine, pointing out that the entire British Army is smaller than the US Marine Corps. (The chickenhawkish-ness of the Brits and to a lesser extent, the French, is something the "Trump's betraying our allies" screaming crowd always ignores).

Witkoff responded that he thinks it is a form of posturing and clinging to the past, trying to act like Winston Churchill, but that NATO did not exist during WW2 and times have changed. Witkoff said not only do the Russians not want to invade Europe, they have no intention of trying to absorb the whole Ukraine. He compared a Russian occupation of the entire Ukraine to Israel trying to absorb Gaza with its hostile Palestinian population. Granted, this has been one of the weakest spots in London's propaganda, especially directed at US veterans via NAFO and various bread tubers, as it constantly depicts Russia as hopelessly backward and too weak to respond to NATO-directed Ukrainian deep strikes, yet potentially conquering much of Europe, in the event American aid gets withdrawn by the Trump Administration.

The most important takeaway from the interview was the disclosure that new elections in Ukraine have been agreed upon in principal, meaning that the current dictatorial wartime regime of Zelensky and his handler Andriy Yermak is living on borrowed time. This provides critical context for what drove Zelensky's churlish attitude that led to the Oval Office smackdown of Zelensky, one that Vice President JD Vance has denied was any sort of premeditated ambush.

The Legacy GOP-Leaning Media Reacts With Predictable Outrage

Here's the excerpt from the pro-Trump, but pro-Kiev tabloid New York Post:

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin claims he rushed over to his local church and prayed to God for President Trump’s safety after he was nearly assassinated at a rally in Butler, Pa. rally last July, according to special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Witkoff met with Putin, 72, last week while trying to advance peace talks with Moscow over their brutal war in neighboring Ukraine and the Russian leader described Trump as a personal friend.

“[Putin] told me a story, Tucker, about how when the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president,” Witkoff told pundit Tucker Carlson during an interview posted Friday.

“Not because he could become the president of the United States, but because he has a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend.”

Trump came within a quarter inch of death, turning his head just in time so that would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’ bullet struck his right ear.

At the time, a Russian spokesperson suggested that the “atmosphere around candidate Trump” created by his opponents led to the conditions that paved the way for the assassination attempt.

Putin, who is a Russian Orthodox Christian, also gave Witkoff a portrait of Trump to bring back home to the 47th president as the Kremlin seeks to flatter Washington amid delicate deliberations over Ukraine.

“President Putin had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trump, from the leading Russian artist, and actually gave it to me and asked me to take it home to President Trump,” Witkoff recounted.

When Witkoff debriefed Trump on Putin’s overtures, the president “was clearly touched by it,” the special envoy recalled.

Flight data had suggested that Witkoff was kept waiting hours before meeting with Putin, though Trump has denied that there was any “wait whatsoever.”

“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy. That is a complicated situation, that war, and all the ingredients that led up to it,” Witkoff explained to Carlson of the conflict.

Lieutenant Bill Robertson of the 69th Infantry Division, who went on to become a physician and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko of the 58th Guards Division's reconnaissance unit, embrace for a photographer in occupied Germany, April 25, 1945. Initial contact with the Russians' reconnaissance element was actually made by Russian-speaking GI Albert Leon Kotzebue, who is buried in California.

Elbe Day, 1945 newsreels collected by Mark Felton Productions (all credit to him)

Elbe Day and VE Day Are Coming

Elbe Day, the 80th anniversary of GIs and Soviet Army soldiers linking up in the small German town of Torgau, is coming on April 25th.

Although Trump declined Putin's invitation to join him and Xi Jinping at the May 9th Victory Day Parade in Moscow, it will be interesting to see the Trump Administration and Kremlin statements as well as events at the historic spot in Torgau marking this historic occasion; a date which along with VE Day reminds many Russia-haters on both sides of the Atlantic that the American, British, French and Russian people were once allies.

ESW will have some Russia related-offer announcements soon. Stay tuned here as we approach 300 Patreon posts, and at the upcoming new website, ExitStrategyWorld.com for details. In the meantime, if you're interested in personal or family relocation to Russia, contact us: Stanislav@ExitStrategy.world (Stanislav@exitstrategyworld.com)

– Belisarius

March 22, 2024

Winds of Change -- Scorpions piano cover by the lovely Russian pianist, Gamazda

I follow the Moskva

Down to Gorky Park

Listening to the wind of change

An August summer night

Soldiers passing by

Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in

And did you ever think

That we could be so close, like brothers?

The future's in the air can feel it everywhere

Blowing with the wind of change...