Read the full transcript of President Trump’s chief negotiator Steve Witkoff’s interview on The Tucker Carlson Show, Premiered March 21, 2025.

TRANSCRIPT:

The Art of Presidential Diplomacy

TUCKER CARLSON: Steve, thank you so much for coming. I think you’ve had one of the most, maybe the most remarkable life trajectories of anyone I’ve ever met. And you wind up close to Trump. You campaigned with Trump. You’re an intimate friend of the president’s, and you could have had any job. You don’t want any job because you’re doing your own thing. And then he taps you as a diplomat, as a negotiator on behalf of him, and you wind up becoming probably the most effective negotiator in my lifetime. You speak for the president. I think everyone acknowledges that you’re honest and people like you personally. So those are obviously the foundations of effective diplomacy. But what have you learned about negotiating on behalf of a country in the last couple months?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, first of all, I think President Trump sets the table for all of us. He really does this whole peace through strength thing. It’s not just a slogan. It actually works. And so when he dispatches you to go to the Middle East, people are almost a little bit intimidated before you get there. And this goes for me and other people who are doing similar jobs. So he sets the table in a pretty powerful way.

But negotiating is being outcome oriented. I talk about this a lot. It’s figuring out where you want to get to. That’s Trump’s game plan all the time. I sit with the president and we talk often about what the end game is, where does he want to get to? And once you decide where you want to get to, then it’s all about tactically figuring out what that pathway is.

With the Middle East, you know, Tucker, when I first got in and I was talking to Brett McGurk, who was the envoy on behalf of Biden, he was a smart guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: He just didn’t have a great boss giving him direction. So he couldn’t really speak on behalf of Biden. I was able to speak on behalf of Trump because we talked about it. We had a great conversation about it. He said to me, “This is where I want to get to, Steve.” And so when I went in there, I went in with the imprimatur of the president, and that’s the difference maker.

TUCKER CARLSON: But I mean, clearly, and no one doubts that you speak for the president, that you know what the president wants, because you know the president, you actually talk to him. You’re not some guy he just hired, and that makes a huge difference. But it also seems like you think through where whoever you’re negotiating with is coming from. Like, what do they want?

Understanding All Sides of Negotiation

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, there’s no doubt. I’m always trying to put myself in the shoes of the other person, because a good deal has to work for everybody. But I want to just say this. When I say I speak for the President, it’s not because I presume what he’s thinking. It’s because I ask what he’s thinking. He is the president. I’m in my job only because of him. And to me, I give him the respect of always asking the question, where do you want to get to, Mr. President? And so that’s critical.

So now I know where he stands. And now it’s about tactics. From the other side’s standpoint, it’s important for me to know or to have a feeling of where the Israelis want to get to. What about the Qataris? They’re the mediators at the table. What do they want to accomplish here? What about Hamas? Where are they? Will they really demilitarize? Is that something they’ll do? Will they take the Golden Bridge out of Gaza? All of these are considerations, but first I have to find out where the boss wants to end up. And the boss is President Trump.

TUCKER CARLSON: It almost feels forbidden for you to say what you just said. So what does Israel want? Obviously, a critical, the key question, but there are other players, and what do they want? And I don’t know that I’ve heard anybody say that out loud ever. Any Americans say that out loud? And I think you’ve been criticized for saying that out loud.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think it’s important to recognize that everybody may want something. I think in the case of the Qataris, they’re criticized for not being well motivated. It’s preposterous. They are well motivated. They’re good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that’s effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they’re a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker.

And I think the president realizes that, and I realize that today. But we have to know that if they had a different agenda, it would be important for us to know that. Operating blind is really the problem in a negotiation like this. You have to know where everybody stands.

TUCKER CARLSON: Just laughing because what you’re saying is so obviously true. It’s a prerequisite to getting a deal. And yet it is so different from the posture that the last couple of generations of diplomats have taken, which is like, here’s what we want. Shut up and do it. And I just don’t think, leaving aside moral considerations, I don’t think it’s been very effective.

The Reality of Gaza Reconstruction

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, you know, here’s an example. Gaza and what the President set forth is what he wanted to do with Gaza. I came back from my first trip, this is before he was inaugurated, where we had permission from the Biden administration to collaborate with them.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: And the President said, when do you think Gaza can be reconstructed? 15 years was my answer. Maybe 20. And he said, why? I gave him the battlefield conditions. I was in Gaza, actually, that it’s been decimated, it’s been destroyed, there are tunnels underneath, so think Swiss cheese underneath. And then they got hit with bunker buster bombs. So there’s no rock there anymore.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

STEVE WITKOFF: There’s no place to put footings if you’re going to build buildings. And yet the whole world thought that this was a five year reconstruction plan. And why? Because the Biden May 27th protocol, which is the operating agreement pursuant to which the negotiation between Hamas and the US Government and Israel happen, talks about a five year plan. But those are a false set of facts.

Level setting the facts. You have to acknowledge that it’s a 15 to 20 year plan. When we first started talking 15 to 20 years, everyone said that we didn’t know what we were talking about until the Journal wrote an article and said 15 to 20 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: So the President’s plan about Gaza was all about how do we put people back in a battle zone where there are munitions all over the field, or where there are these latent conditions so that a kid could fall into a hole and go 40, 50, 60ft down and you’d never know that he was there. Who would do such a thing? If we had buildings in those conditions in New York, there would be yellow tape all around and no one would be allowed in.

And then of course, he got criticized for that, as if he was looking to create a beachside community with gleaming towers and casinos. It was preposterous. He was being realistic about what Gaza needed. So I think it’s really important that when you’re making these decisions that you level set the facts. And that was my instructions from President Trump. Go out there, level set the facts, figure out what it is, and then we’ll make decisions about where we want to see Gaza going. And I think we’ve got a better program.

Understanding Key Players in the Middle East

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s definitely a better program. I mean, operating on the basis of honesty works. So, okay, I think the President’s goal is pretty clear. He said it many times. He campaigned on it, he was elected on it, which is we want stability and peace in the world. It’s not good for anybody when we don’t have that. But to the extent that you understand it, and since you’re one of the few people who seems willing to say it out loud, can you just describe the three players in the current conflict in the Middle East, the big ones, can you go through and tell us what you think each one wants? What’s their goal?

STEVE WITKOFF: So Israel.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: Hamas.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: And Qatar.

TUCKER CARLSON: And Qatar.

STEVE WITKOFF: So I think Qatar is a small nation, probably has the highest GDP per capita per person of anyone in the world. Huge reserves. I think they want stability. I think they want a peace treaty from the United States. Why? Because all the Middle East, all the GCC countries want this.

By the way, this is an interesting point. Everybody thinks the peace treaty is about physical defense. What it’s really about is the United States providing a security wrapper so that they’re all financeable today. You can’t borrow money in those countries. So if you want to go do a deal in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, JP Morgan, if they are the hypothetical bank, has to underwrite war risk. They have to underwrite: Will the Houthis in Saudi Arabia fire in a hypersonic missile and destroy that AI data center that you just bought for $200 billion?

That’s a real problem. So a lot of these want defense treaties so that they’re not just building out of their pocket, they’re taking their oil money and they’re actually leveraging it and creating a better economy long term. So I think the Qataris want stability and they don’t get enough credit for that motivation. It’s a good motivation for their people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Amen. But they’re often accused, almost universally accused in the US Media of being agents of Iran.

STEVE WITKOFF: It’s preposterous. Look, they’re a Muslim nation. In the past, they’ve had some views that are a little bit more radical.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

STEVE WITKOFF: From an Islamist standpoint than they are today, but it’s moderated quite a bit.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: There’s no doubt that they’re an ally of the United States. There’s no doubt about that.

TUCKER CARLSON: They have a huge air base there.

STEVE WITKOFF: I mean, by the way, and they pay for every dollar of it. They don’t have their hand out for a thing. There is nothing that the United States has to fund with regard to that airbase. That’s pretty unusual.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s amazing, right?

STEVE WITKOFF: So they fund everything. They don’t ask for much. I had a conversation with General Kurilla, Eric Kurilla, who runs CENTCOM—amazing man—and I said to him, what do you think of the Qataris? He says they’re special people. So the people in the know understand that they’re good, decent people.

What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there till the end of time. And they want to rule Gaza.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: And that’s unacceptable. So we have to know that. We had to know what they wanted. What they want is unacceptable. What’s acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit. Be involved politically. But they can’t be involved militarily. We can’t have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won’t be acceptable to Israel. Then we’ll just have the same exact experiences every five, 10, 15 years. We’re going to have an October 7th. So that’s what Hamas wants. That’s not possible.

TUCKER CARLSON: What are they like to deal with?

STEVE WITKOFF: I’ve never really been in the same room as them, which is a little bit weird, wouldn’t you say? Like a negotiation where you don’t have the other party. You don’t even know if the guy behind the wall is the wizard of Oz or not.

TUCKER CARLSON: How do you… I mean, without giving away anything you can’t.

STEVE WITKOFF: I think you have to trust the Qataris. If I didn’t trust the Qataris, then that would be really problematic, not meeting with Hamas.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you can communicate with Hamas through the Qataris.

STEVE WITKOFF: Right. And Sheikh Mohammed, the Prime Minister of Qatar, is a good man. He’s really—

TUCKER CARLSON: He certainly is.

STEVE WITKOFF: He’s a special guy. He really is. And he cares and I spent a lot of time with him and broken bread with him. And he’s just a good, decent human being who wants what’s best for his people. But also like what you were alluding to before, he’s able to put himself in the shoes of the Israelis, of the United States and I think, explain to Hamas where they’re going to have to get to to make a deal.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I mean from an American perspective. Like, it’s just hard to even understand what Hamas is thinking. But it’s essential to understand. I mean, just as a procedural matter, we need to know.

STEVE WITKOFF: Correct.

Negotiating with Hamas

TUCKER CARLSON: So is it hard for you to understand? Like, do you feel like you can effectively communicate with them, even through proxy, and understand what they want and what their red lines are or whatever? Can you negotiate with them?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, it’s hard. You know, I’ll give you an example of what makes it hard. I went to Gaza and then I had this fabulous lunch with CENTCOM people, military guys. I shook hands of everybody I met, because who doesn’t want to shake the hand of these guys who are out in the field, you know, they protect our country. I’m talking about all military guys. And then they showed me. This is Southern Command of Israel, then showed me a film of what happened on October 7th.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

STEVE WITKOFF: And the film is horrific.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: It is about mass rapes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: There’s pictures of Hamas people cutting the head off of an Israeli soldier. I watched them saw the head off. I mean, it’s really terrible stuff. And it’s beyond what I’ve ever seen. And it can taint you, right? It can taint the way you’re going to feel about these people. And I think sometimes as a negotiator, you have to be dispassionate.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: It’s not easy to make decisions if you’re going to. But I had to see that film, Tucker. I mean, that film is a reality. I mean, we can’t ignore the reality of what happened on October 7th. Right now they would tell you that they’ve got justification, but there’s no justification for what happened that day. There just isn’t. And unfortunately, there were security lapses that day that shouldn’t have happened, that accentuated what happened that day, which shouldn’t have happened.

TUCKER CARLSON: But do we understand that?

STEVE WITKOFF: I think we understand that there were security lapses, that there were some mistakes that were made.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: But we’re humans. We’re not robots. You know, we’re not completely overwhelmed by AI right now. So people will make mistakes. There were intelligence mistakes, but there’s some really good people who were involved here. I met some exceptional people in Israel. I mean, really, some exceptional people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: And it’s a difficult situation, but I think you have to know what Hamas wants. Just to go back to your question.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

Understanding the Negotiation Process

STEVE WITKOFF: And then you’ve got to figure out what you can give them that allows them to walk out, because that’s what’s needed here. You know, what we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological. They’re prepared to die for a whole variety of reasons. I personally, and I talked to the president about this. There’s nothing I don’t talk to the president about before we’re going to make a decision. Yes, because he is the guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: He was elected. I was not. None of the other people were. He was elected, and I think that’s how we have to function. With that said, I said to him, I don’t think that they are as ideologically locked in. They’re not ideologically intractable. I don’t. I never believe that. By the way, I believe they strap on the suicide vests onto young kids who don’t know what they’re doing right. And they tell them a story. And once you understand that, once you understand that they wanted to live, then you were able to talk to them in a more effective way.

TUCKER CARLSON: Smart. Smart. That is total. That is smart. But it’s. How hard was it to come to that conclusion?

STEVE WITKOFF: You know what? I get a lot of intelligence reports, so I’m able to read things. And it just felt to me that the rhythm and the cadence of the negotiation, that’s part of it, too, right. If I’m not there all the time, I’m getting secondhand information. I had to feel it for myself. I had to be able to sort of live it in real time. And that’s when I sort of came to the conclusion that they wanted alternatives.

We’re in a negotiation right now to maybe stop some of these Israeli strikes and maybe finish this conflict with dialogue. And if I don’t have a feeling that we can accomplish that, why would I waste my time or the United States time? And worse yet, why would I put the—why would I come to the president, recommend to him that we could finish something with dialogue, and then effectively we can’t be that effective? That’s a bad policy prescription.

If I’m not in this thing, making those sort of assessments and being able to come back to the president and say, I think we can finish it with dialogue or not. And those calculations are going to be the same with the Iranians, and they’re going to be the same with the Russians and the Ukrainians, and they’re going to be the same with Azerbaijan and Armenia. So those principles apply to all of these conflicts that we’re going to maybe talk about today.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m just going to say this for a third time. I won’t keep repeating myself, but that’s just such a different way of looking at the conflict. Not just in Gaza, but in all the places you just mentioned acknowledging that, you know, we’re sympathetic to one side, but both sides have an interest and reason can still play a role in this. Negotiation can play a role. Dialogue can play a role. I haven’t heard anybody say that in so long.

And you’ve taken an enormous amount of abuse. I don’t even know if you’re aware of it because you’re always on an airplane. But like in US media and social media attacking you as like an agent of all kinds of different foreign powers. You know, he’s working for Hamas, he’s working for the Qataris. Like, does that penetrate at all?

Dealing with Criticism

STEVE WITKOFF: You know, in the beginning I didn’t like it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I bet.

STEVE WITKOFF: But one night I was reflecting on what someone told me after my son Andrew died and they said to me, you’re never going to have a bigger hit than that in your life. Losing a child, it’s a bad club to be a member of.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, there’s nothing. Nothing worse.

STEVE WITKOFF: Nothing worse. And then I began to get like President Trump, not caring what people said. I wake up in the morning, read the paper. I’d read some sort of explanation about why I said something or did something, and it was preposterous, Tucker, just preposterous. So one day I—what’s that movie? There was some movie where they kept it, won the Academy. I can’t remember the name. I just stopped caring.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: I just stopped caring about what the news media said about me.

TUCKER CARLSON: So I’ve experienced a little bit of this myself. Nothing compared to what you’ve just experienced. But it does seem like some of these criticisms of you are not actually sincere. Nobody really thinks you’re, like, pro Hamas, are working for the Qataris, but the point is to throw you off balance and to sort of put a leash around your neck and control you.

STEVE WITKOFF: No doubt.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

STEVE WITKOFF: That’s the agenda.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the agenda, no doubt. And it seems to have had no effect.

STEVE WITKOFF: From all sides?

TUCKER CARLSON: From all sides, of course. Oh, absolutely.

STEVE WITKOFF: I’ve had a couple of experiences where first I was attacked as being pro Qatari sympathizer. By the way, Qatar is a mediator here. They’re not a party to the conflict, they’re a mediator. And by the way, they’ve mediated all over the world, no different than the Swiss and the Norwegians. They’ve mediated in Russia, they’ve mediated in Afghanistan, God bless them. And they’ve done an effective job. They’re good at it.

So I am—how could I not collaborate with the mediator? And if I’m not collaborating with the mediator, I’m bound to be ineffective. It’s not even possible that I could do the job. I had to know everything that they knew. So that means collaboration. And that’s how President Trump operates, too. I learned the business from him. I went into the business because of him, the real estate business. And this is his ethos, this is how he operates. And so I’m really following him in a certain respect.

TUCKER CARLSON: I didn’t realize you went into. That’s so. I didn’t know. I knew you’d known him forever. I didn’t know that.

Trump’s Influence and Personal Loss

STEVE WITKOFF: I know I wanted to be him, by the way. Everybody wanted to be him. He’d come to 101 Park Avenue, where I was a lawyer. He had this swashbuckling style. I used to see him come in and I used to say, God, I want to be him. I don’t want to be the lawyer. I don’t want to be the scrivener. I want to be that man. Yeah, I can remember saying that. He was like the Michael Jordan to me, you know, of the real estate business.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s incredible the turns your life has taken. It’s just incredible when you have a chance to sort it out. When all this is over, I think you’re gonna look at your own life and say, well, that was amazing.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I’ve been blessed. I mean, it used to be that I couldn’t use the word blessing because of my boy, of his death, but now I can say I was blessed, but for this overwhelming tragedy. And I think my son allows me to have this sense of—I relate to a lot of the hostage families. You know, many of these families are never going to get their children back. Their children have either been killed or may, in fact, get killed if we don’t successfully get to a peace program in Gaza.

So I think that this sense of sensitivity or empathy that I have, I can relate to them. They all have my telephone numbers. I talk to them on a daily basis, and I think that’s been a big help for them. But interestingly enough, it’s been a big help for me.

TUCKER CARLSON: I believe that.

STEVE WITKOFF: And I talked to the President about this. I had hostage families in the Oval Office the other day. The president was tired, and he said to me, he knew they were at my office, and he said, bring them up. Let me, you know, at least say hello to them and get connected to him, but let them know I only have a couple of minutes because it was a hectic day.

He spent an hour and a half with them, talked to every one of them, gave them his challenge coin. Every one of them listened to their stories. People who talked about children who might not come home. Many of them were captives themselves, hostages. You know, it’s a very real experience when you sit there and you listen to what it was like. Some of these people lived in cages, were chained 24 hours a day. You know, we talked about what it was like to find a bathroom.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

Trump’s Chief Negotiator Steve Witkoff on Middle East Peace Strategy

STEVE WITKOFF: Or what it was like to live in the dark or to be starving to death, as some of them were, or to have watched people be murdered. And the President, as a president, he doesn’t have to do that if he doesn’t want to. He could sort of get the information just from me. But it’s up close and personal for him. And that way of doing things guides people like me who work for him.

Now I want to get up close and personal. That’s why I went to Gaza. I was the first US official to go to Gaza in 22 years. But how would you implement a peace deal if you didn’t go to the place where the peace deal was being implemented? I mean, it’s curious, right? Like, it is curious who would try to get a peace deal done, and then it’s all in the implementation. So what the contract says, what the writing says, now we have to figure out the battlefield conditions, nobody had been there. It’s kind of crazy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it is crazy. And it’s connected to what you’ve been saying for the last 20 minutes, which is you have to understand all sides if you want to affect the outcome that you’ve decided you want.

STEVE WITKOFF: Correct.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. Again, that’s a revolutionary development in American diplomacy, and I just am thrilled to see it. So, finally, the biggest player in all of this, of course, is the government of Israel. What do they want? What does the government of Israel, leaving aside the population of Israel, I have no idea. But what does the government making these decisions want?

Israel’s Strategic Position

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think that’s complicated. I think they’re well motivated. I think there are things that they’re trying to get done. You know, as an example, we would not be as effective in what we’re doing there if Bibi did not get Nasrallah out of the picture in Lebanon, if he did not decapitate, because he’s effectively decapitated Hezbollah. If he did not do what he did with Hamas, he’s decapitated Hamas. Hamas is nowhere close to the terrorist organization that they were beforehand.

Both of those events inform on his relationship with Iran. And Iran using, continuing to use proxies and so forth. They’re less prone to do those sorts of things today. Right. And so that sort of Iranian crescent or that Islamist crescent that everybody thought was going to be effective, it’s been largely eliminated. So he’s done an exceptional job with that.

But of course, the rap he gets is that he’s more concerned about the fight than he is about the hostages. I think in some respects, I understand how people make that assessment, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. I think that he does want to get hostages home if he can, but he believes that pressuring Hamas is the only way to do it. I think in some respects he’s right.

Look, the nuances here, the changes that happen there on a day-to-day basis. We were at the Arab summit a week and a half ago. We made a proposal to Hamas. They considered it, they rejected it the next day. We thought it was unacceptable that they rejected it. Three days later, the Israelis went in. Guess what, they’re talking again. Stuff changes there, Tucker. Hour to hour, you really have to stay on top of it. I think Bibi feels that he’s doing the right thing. I think he goes up against public opinion because mostly because public opinion there wants those hostages home.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s what public opinion in Israel.

STEVE WITKOFF: In Israel, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don’t get that sense, I don’t think, from American media. But Israel has always been, you know, there’s been a robust debate since, you know, I started going to Israel. You know, they have a very vigorous debate internally about their government. Like it’s, you know, people feel free to say.

The Hostage Crisis and Israel’s Soul

STEVE WITKOFF: I went to Hostage Square and I went with a detail and my guys were afraid for me to get out. There were, I don’t know, four or five thousand people there and we were passing by and I said, let’s stop. You know, there was no plan to go there. Let’s stop. We didn’t have a lot of security with us. I knew it was going to be fine. I knew it.

I came in there, I spent almost an hour there. It was spiritual. All the families were there. Hostages who had been released were there. People were crying. Look, getting this has infected Israel. It’s fractured Israel. It’s like a seam cutting right through the soul of the country. We’ve got to get these people back.

I talked to Bibi about it, I talked to Dermer about it. But they also have a view strategically about Hamas, how they have to be dealt with, I’m not sure. In some respects, there are times that we agree with each other. There are times we slightly disagree, but I think they’re well motivated is my point. And our policy is that Hamas cannot continue to exist here. That’s the president’s policy. And I’m someone who follows the president because he’s the one who got elected. And I believe in his policy.

TUCKER CARLSON: And he got elected on, I think, a pretty clear vision of how he wanted to manage the world to the extent that we can. And again, it was, you know, no more chaos and to the extent you can avoid it, no more wars. And Americans really responded to that. And the world understands that, like everyone kind of knows that’s the agenda.

And you said many times we talk through what we want the outcome to be before we begin, the tactical considerations. Just in my traveling, there are a lot of Gulf countries that are, you know, have extensive, very much more than people understand relations with Israel. Some have signed the accord, others haven’t, but they all deal with the Israelis all the time. They’re not hostile to the Israelis. But not one person I’ve spoken to understands what the long term vision is like. What’s the plan here? What are we, you know, if you get everything you want, what does it look like?

STEVE WITKOFF: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you understand it?

Economic Potential of Middle East Peace

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I understand we have to have that notion. I understand that we have to be outcome oriented. What would be how we’re operating myopically if we’re not outcome oriented, if we don’t, I mean, peace, stability.

The Gulf coast could be one of the most undervalued opportunities if we get peace and stability throughout the region. If we solve Iran and you can finance in that market. The Israelis are brilliant from a technological standpoint. They’ve got a huge technological base there. Yes, they’re in AI, Robotics, blockchain. That’s where the UAE is today.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know.

STEVE WITKOFF: That’s where Saudi Arabia is today. That’s where Qatar is today. Can you imagine all these countries working collaboratively together and creating that type of market? It could be much bigger than Europe. Europe is dysfunctional today. Imagine if they became functional and everybody’s a business guy there. It could be amazing.

TUCKER CARLSON: I completely agree. I think the core question is the map. You know, for thousands of years it’s been about the land. What does the map look like, who controls what? And it’s clearly had a destabilizing effect on some of the poorer, more populated countries in the region, specifically Jordan and Egypt. 100 million people in Egypt.

I think it might be helpful for everybody if there was just a clear picture of when this is all done. Here’s what we want the map to be, and then we can debate that. Do you have any sense of what the map would look like from Israel’s perspective?

STEVE WITKOFF: When you say the map, you mean what, what countries?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, what. Okay, so Israel’s moved into Lebanon and Syria. They’re not part of Israel, but they control them. So when all this is over, what does the Israeli government hope to control? And then if that were clear, then I think people would say, you know, they could either live with it or they can’t. But you could. It would have a calming effect if people knew what the goal was.

Addressing Iran and Regional Normalization

STEVE WITKOFF: So I would say the goal begins with how do we deal with Iran? That’s the biggie.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: So the first is nuclear. We cannot have that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

STEVE WITKOFF: And we can talk about it in this session how bold it was for the president to send that letter, because many would not. And that’s an important thing. But I’ll leave it to the end.

So it begins with Iranian nuclear. But most importantly, because Iranian nuclear. If they were to have a bomb that would create North Korea in the GCC, we cannot have that. North Korea, where they are, has outsized influence. As a very small nation, we can never allow someone to have a nuclear weapon and have outsized influence. That doesn’t work. So if we can solve for that, which I’m hopeful that we can. And we can talk about that, too.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: The next thing we need to deal with Iran is they’re being a benefactor of these proxy armies because we’ve proven that that’s not existential. They, for all intents and purposes, destroyed Hezbollah. So they’re not really an existential risk. Hamas, same thing. The Houthis, we’re having, you know, we’re in a conflict with them today. I think we’ll prove that they won’t be an existential risk either.

But if we can get these terrorist organizations eliminated as risks. Not existential, but still risks. They’re destabilizing risks. Then we’ll normalize everywhere. I think Lebanon could normalize with Israel, literally normalize, meaning a peace treaty with the two countries. That’s really possible.

Syria, too, the indications are that Jelani is a different person than he once was. And people do change. You at 55 are completely different than how you were at 35, that’s for sure. And I say to myself, I’m a different person today at 68 years old. I’m not the person I knew 30 years ago. So maybe Jelani in Syria is a different guy. They’ve driven Iran out.

Imagine if Lebanon normalizes, Syria normalizes, and the Saudis sign a normalization treaty with Israel because there’s a peace in Gaza. They must have that as a. Without question, as a prerequisite. That’s a condition precedent to Saudi normalizing. But now you’d begin to have a GCC that all work together. I mean, that would be. It would be epic.

TUCKER CARLSON: It would be. And I think it’d be good for the world. For sure. It would be good for the world because Europe is dying, unfortunately. And so, yes, the United States needs allies abroad, and those are all potential allies. Well, they are allies already. I couldn’t agree with you more.

New Leadership in the Region

STEVE WITKOFF: And remember, Tucker, one more thing. As a condition in that region, you have young leadership, you have young leadership in MBS, you have relatively young leadership in the UAE, you have relatively young leadership, new leadership in Qatar. People who don’t have the old sensibilities, people who want to have, want to do business, who realizes like Trump’s way is people vote their pocketbook. Right. So he wants to bring the bacon home to the United States. I think everybody’s bought into that over in the GCC.

TUCKER CARLSON: I agree. I mean, we’re reverting to like human nature. People want stability and prosperity for sure.

STEVE WITKOFF: Correct.

TUCKER CARLSON: But looming over all of these countries and their remarkable success both economically and socially, there’s like great countries, in my opinion is the conflict in Gaza. And not just Gaza, but the idea that, wow, this could all blow up tomorrow because we don’t know what the Israeli plan is. And even people who should know don’t seem to know. And do you think at some point they will articulate like, here’s our plan?

The Future of Gaza

STEVE WITKOFF: I think so. First of all, I think that the president, President Trump’s approach to Gaza has engendered a lot of lively discussion about different ways to deal with Gaza. We’re now seeing an Egyptian plan, we’re seeing the Saudis put together a white paper.

So I think what we’re going to do with Gaza is going to become much more apparent over the next six to 12 months. But Gaza is a flashpoint and we’ve got to figure that out. And I agree with the President when he said the old plans don’t work. The old plans, the last 40, 50 years of policy prescription in Gaza meant war, rebuild, more war, more rebuilding. It just, that’s not something that made any sense. Which is why the President began to say maybe we need to think about it in a different way now. He got criticized for it because that’s what happens when you begin to go up against the old way of thinking and you want to sort of introduce a new way of thinking.

Trump’s Chief Negotiator Steve Witkoff on Middle East Peace Efforts

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, a new way of thinking is definitely needed. I think everybody realizes that. So we’re not positive that cryptocurrency is the future of finance, but we do know that what we have now is broken and dangerous. Debt has never been higher in this country. Many of our so-called leaders are getting rich, serving you. It’s a scam.

So where does it go? Well, thankfully there are options. Donald Trump has said repeatedly he wants the United States to be the crypto capital of the world. He’s already created the Crypto Advisory Council and recently signed an Executive order to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve. This could give normal people an alternative to the government’s failing system and frankly to the US dollar. I’m not saying put all your money outside the US dollar but like don’t be crazy, don’t be stupid.

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One question, I don’t know if it’s answerable. I was talking to some Israeli government people yesterday and here you have October 7th, obviously traumatic to Israel, but you get the destruction of the leadership of Hamas. You expelled, you broke Hezbollah, Nasrallah is dead. No one ever thought that was going to happen. I was there for the 2006 war. I didn’t think it would happen. Anyway, that happened and Bashar Al-Assad’s gone from Syria and there’s a more kind of pro-Israel Jelani leader in Syria.

So those seem like massive wins from an Israeli perspective that nobody thought were possible. And yet I detect in the people I know in Israel a feeling like they feel more under threat almost. Do you feel that?

The Future of Gaza and Hamas

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I go to Israel quite often and I think there’s a feeling with some: when does the violence end? At what point have we had enough of it?

I think that’s the issue. Maybe the Israeli government needs to do… Look, I understand where they’re coming from. Their central premise or thesis is that Hamas cannot be allowed to live on. And I think we’re talking about now demilitarizing. That’s the big thing.

I don’t think anyone has a feeling that you can just sort of kill off Hamas. It’s an idea, right? That’s what Hamas is about. It’s an ideological idea, but they can’t be allowed to ever again foment alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, alongside Islamic Jihad. These were all groups that are operating in Gaza today. We just can’t have an October 7th ever again. Now October 7th was like 9/11. What 9/11 was in the United States, October 7th was the Israelis’ version of.

TUCKER CARLSON: But what’s interesting is it happened at exactly the moment that it felt like things were on track to get better. I mean Abraham Accords had been signed, Saudi didn’t sign. But there was some thought that they might, I think. The trajectory was like that and all of a sudden it just went in the opposite direction. So then the question becomes, well, how do you ensure, how do you build a framework where there’s enduring peace and everyone can just go on with living their lives and building their businesses and all that?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, we’re going to need a very good plan on Gaza. It’s going to begin with that. We’re going to need stability on Gaza. Stability on Gaza could mean some people come back, it could mean some people don’t come back.

But I believe we have to get to a place where people can live a better life in Gaza and we have to have a plan for that. That involves housing, but it also involves these people’s aspirations. What is going to happen for their children? Are their children like our children? You want better for your kids. I want better for my kids. I want them to have to go and get an education to be self-sufficient.

I don’t think Gazan people have ever really had that opportunity for their families. We have to give them that opportunity or find pathways for them to pursue those opportunities. That’s what President Trump was talking about when he talked about a new way of thinking about Gaza. So we’re going to attempt to ascertain different development plans for Gaza. Could involve the word two-state, could not involve the word two-state.

The Two-State Solution Question

TUCKER CARLSON: What about that? You don’t hear that anymore. I mean, for my whole life the stated aspiration was a Palestinian state, like an actual state. And then the debate was over what it would look like and who controls utilities and airports and all that stuff. But lots of details to hammer out. But man, I haven’t in the past five or six, 10 years heard anybody in authority even mention it.

STEVE WITKOFF: Because when you use those words it’s like a flashpoint, right? I could be attacked for it. To me it’s just a word, right? What two-state to me means is how do we have a better living prescription for Palestinians who are living in Gaza? Let’s get to that place.

But it’s not just about housing. Maybe it’s about AI coming there. Maybe it’s about hyperscale data centers being seeded into that area because we need to have that and these people can now take advantage and we can create jobs for them there. Maybe it’s about blockchain and robotics coming there. Maybe it’s about pharmaceutical manufacturing coming there.

We can’t rebuild Gaza and it be based on a welfare system. We have to give people prospects, economic and financial prospects.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s exactly right. You have to treat them like human beings, adults, where they have nothing interesting. So you think by saying two-state, I mean, that’s a controversial thing to say now.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: But obviously you don’t care. So do you think the ceasefire that you, on the President’s behalf got the ceasefire? That was my read. Anyway. You went to Israel and said, the President wants this and you got it. But then it ended. What are the prospects now? What do you think happens next?

Trump’s Approach to Middle East Negotiations

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, let me say this. We got it because they didn’t want to defy him. He’s a bad guy to defy.

TUCKER CARLSON: But the Israelis did not want to defy Trump.

STEVE WITKOFF: But not just the Israelis. It was the Israelis, it was Hamas, it was Qatar wanting, everybody had to know that we needed to pull in this right, to pull in the same way. There was a lot of miscommunication in that deal. Lots. We cleaned up the miscommunication. That was the game plan.

But it was the President’s overarching personality. And letting everybody know that success was not an option. It had to be, it was a mandate. And that’s how we got to that place. I mean, it would take me a 10-hour interview to explain to you the ins and outs.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I can’t even imagine. I can’t even imagine. But the story was that you just kind of rolled in and said, here’s what we’re doing, this is what the President wants.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, that’s what he would do.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: So that’s what I did. Because that’s what he would do. He would roll in and say, this is unacceptable. This is what we need to have happen. And that’s effectively what I did. By the way, why reinvent the wheel? Why not copy the master? He’s the master.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: So why not copy the strategy? It’s worked effectively.

TUCKER CARLSON: When I saw you do that on his behalf, my first thought was, why didn’t the Biden people do this? I mean, they lost for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons they lost was the ongoing Gaza conflict. And that alienated a ton of their voters. I mean, that was a crisis for them. You know, Muslims in southeast Michigan voted for Trump in part because of that.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yep.

TUCKER CARLSON: And like a lot of them did. Never thought I’d live to see that. And Orthodox Jews voted for them too, which was like, amazing. So why didn’t. And they knew it was hurting them. Why didn’t they do that?

STEVE WITKOFF: Because Joe Biden is not Donald Trump. It’s as simple as that. So you think about it. When his policymakers walked into the Oval Office, were they going to get that sort of direct mandate from him? And I was not there. So this is just a thesis. My bet is not.

I walk into the Oval Office, Tucker. It’s purposeful. That’s what it feels like. We’re there to get solutions, to agree on solutions, and then to decide on how tactically we’re going to get to that place. That’s what we do.

We sit in the Oval Office. I could be sitting there with Susie Wiles, John Ratcliffe, Mike Waltz, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. I mean, exceptional human beings, Tulsi Gabbard, and yeah, we have some fun together because it’s a very tight-knit team. He’s got a great team this year that he’s put into place and hopefully they’ll all be there for the entire term.

But we’re there to be solution-based and it’s a collaborative conversation with the President leading the conversation. He’s interested in a lot of different opinions, which I think underscores what a great leader he is. He’s not stuck on a view. He’s prepared to consider different things.

I think people have that misconception about him that he wakes up in the morning and this is the way it’s going to be. No, he listens, he’s intent on understanding different viewpoints, that’s for sure. He’s prepared to be flexible in his thinking. I think that’s what comes from a lifetime of experience. And I think it’s a great example to all of us who work for him because we go out with that way of thinking too, for the most part.

Prospects for Peace in Gaza

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think there’s hope for cessation of violence in Gaza, like soon?

STEVE WITKOFF: I do, I do. I mean, I’m not at liberty at this moment to talk about.

TUCKER CARLSON: I bet you’re not.

STEVE WITKOFF: But I think there have been signs. I think the Israelis going in is in some respects unfortunate and in some respects falls into the “had to be” bucket. It kind of had to be. Hamas was not responding. And their responses were unreasonable.

Look, I warned everybody at the Arab summit. We presented a proposal at the Arab summit two weeks ago that was reasonable. That was a bridge to get to a peace deal, a bridge to get to demilitarization of Hamas and a discussion about an enduring truce. That’s what I was presenting 10 days ago. And Hamas, their reaction was completely inappropriate.

I warned everybody that this was going to result in some sort of military action. Not because I knew, I did not know before the Israelis went in. I just sensed that that was going to be the only alternative based on Hamas’s reaction.

We may be able to reverse things or we may use this to get Hamas to be a whole lot more reasonable because they have a lot of sway there and they impose that sway at the point of a gun, which is why we have to demilitarize them.

We need real elections in Gaza. There has to be a whole new way of thinking. We need a real security force there to ensure to Israel that they’re not going to have a problem long term. If Israel thinks they’re going to have a problem in Gaza because Hamas is going to be there long term, this is never going to end.

So the only way to deal with this conflict is to make sure that we satisfy everybody that we’re never going to have an October 7th ever again.

TUCKER CARLSON: There is huge concern, as I know you know, from a lot of the neighboring countries, that the conflict in Gaza, which is of course streamed in everyone’s iPhone, a lot of people killed in Gaza, a lot of kids. And that’s inflaming the populations of some of these countries again, specifically Egypt and Jordan, to such a point that those governments could fall and cause like massive chaos, including in Europe. Is that a factor as that worry? Is that a factor in.

Regional Stability Concerns

STEVE WITKOFF: Huge factor. It’s a huge factor. I think King Abdullah in Jordan has done an amazing job of figuring out how to deal with that instability but, you know, in some respects he’s been lucky. I think Egypt is a flashpoint. All the good that happened in the Ayoun election because Nasrallah and Sinwar being eliminated, that could all be reversed if we lose Egypt.

What happened in Syria was a huge data point for the region. I mean, getting Assad out was a big deal and no one ever expected it. But Egypt has a very restive population. The stats in Egypt are huge – unemployment among under 25 is like 45%. A country can’t exist like that. They’re largely broke. They need a lot of help. If we have a bad event in Egypt, it could take us back.

And Saudi Arabia is also large. MBS is an amazing leader, but people are worried about his young population and how they’re looking at this whole thing, which is why we’ve got to solve Gaza. Because if we solve Gaza, which is the condition precedent to Saudi normalizing, then Saudi can normalize. And if they normalize, we’re building on the framework of the Abraham Peace Accords, which of course is the President’s creation. He wants the Abraham Peace Accords to be augmented and we’re in the process of doing it. We think we’re going to be announcing several new countries who are joining.

TUCKER CARLSON: So it feels like, I don’t know, I’m not there, but it feels like there’s some significant unrest in Turkey being driven by what’s happening in Syria, which of course Turkey participated in. Erdogan is seen by some in his country as a tool of Israel. I mean, if you had real problems in Turkey, that would be like a global disaster, of course, because they’ve got this massive military. Is there a lot of concern about that?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think there was, but I think the President had a great conversation with Erdogan a couple of days ago. Really transformational, I would describe it. I think it’s been underreported, to tell you the truth. And I think it’s underreported because of the Houthis, because of what happened with Israel and because of what’s going on with Russia-Ukraine.

I think Tom Barrack, who’s the ambassador there, has done an exceptional job. I think the President has a relationship with Erdogan and that’s going to be important. And there’s some good coming – just a lot of good, positive news coming out of Turkey right now as a result of that conversation. So I think you’ll see that in the reporting in the coming days.

Russia-Ukraine Peace Efforts

TUCKER CARLSON: Good. So if you don’t mind, I’d love to… So here’s the timeline as I understand it as an observer. So you go over, you deliver the President’s message. There is a ceasefire in Gaza, which, as you’ve said five times, is a prerequisite to a lot of other things. Like, it’s hard to do anything with this open wound. So you do that. And the President says, wow, Steve Witkoff, my friend from the real estate business, like, you’re really good at this. Sends you to Russia. Is that fair?

STEVE WITKOFF: It’s not so far from the truth.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. It’s like, I’m watching this because I knew you before and I was like, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I’m cheering you, by the way. Where are we there with that conflict, would you say?

STEVE WITKOFF: I think we’ve made more progress again. Look, Tucker, I’m not just saying it – every solution comes as a result of President Trump. And I don’t get paid to say that. I say it because it is the absolute truth. Putin’s got a huge respect for the President. And, you know, you saw what happened in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy and the President. Disrespecting him is not a healthy way to have a good relationship.

TUCKER CARLSON: The arrogance of small countries. It’s like, get some perspective. I mean, come on, how can you imagine acting like that?

STEVE WITKOFF: And they’re dependent on us. Oh, I know. And we’ve been so good to them.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know.

STEVE WITKOFF: But look, that’s been corrected and that’s a really good thing. It got corrected. And hopefully we’ll chalk it up to a misunderstanding and we’ll get to a peace solution here.

But I believe that we have made more progress in this Russian-Ukraine conflict in the last eight weeks than anyone thought we would ever make. I hear people describe this last conversation that the President had with President Putin as unsuccessful. It’s preposterous. By the way, we talked throughout a two-hour conversation about an ultimate ceasefire. And there are conditions that the Russians will need for an ultimate ceasefire, because an ultimate ceasefire is complicated. There’s Kursk where Ukrainian troops are surrounded. Fact. And the Russians…

TUCKER CARLSON: Kursk is within Russia.

STEVE WITKOFF: Kursk is within Russia. The Russians have taken it back.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: And they’ve got people trapped there. And the President doesn’t want to see everybody getting killed. That’s a significant battlefield condition that has to be dealt with. But on top of that, is that acknowledged?

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, I don’t know if the New York Times is writing that story right now.

STEVE WITKOFF: I think it gets lost a little bit. First of all, I think a lot of these newspaper stories are agenda driven.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: People start out saying, I support the Ukrainians, so I’m going to write the article in a certain way. Look, we want to see Ukraine come out of this okay. I want to see Russia come out of it okay. Again, we’re outcome oriented. In this circumstance, that means we need a deal that the Ukrainian people can live with. We have to sell it. There’s going to be various Senate approvals that we may need here.

We’re going to want everybody to be, in some respect, satisfied. So we’re going to want the Russians to be satisfied in some respect. We’re going to want the Ukrainians to be satisfied in some respect. We’re talking to the Europeans. When I say satisfied, feeling that we came out of this thing okay with a deal that everybody can live with.

I think that we have moved Russia in ways that no one thought was possible. So in the last conversation, they agreed to an energy infrastructure ceasefire, which means Russia is not going to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and Ukraine will not target Russia’s energy infrastructure. They’ve never talked about that before. Here we are talking about that.

They’ve never talked about reinstituting the Black Sea moratorium on maritime hits – Ukrainian firing on Russian ships, Russia firing on Ukrainian ships. Now that’s going to be implemented over the next week or so. There’s some details that need to be discussed, but that became a part of that conversation. That’s big stuff, really big stuff.

What’s the ultimate goal? The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire, during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire. We’re not far away from that. But a 30-day ceasefire is something where we have to figure out what all the battlefield conditions are, which is why I began with Kursk.

But Kursk is just the beginning of it because there’s this 2,000 kilometer – that’s 1,200 miles – border between Ukraine and Russia where the Russian and Ukrainian troops are involved in 50, 60, 70, maybe 80 firefights throughout this border with all kinds of different conditions.

Putin asked me in the meeting, “What should I do in a particular area where we have people surrounded and they don’t want to give up? Do I kill them? How do I get them to give up? I’m happy not to kill everybody. I’m happy to get people to wave the white flag if I can get them to wave the white flag.”

And that one situation, Steve – this is Putin talking to me – is just one example of 70, 80, 90 different situations out there along this border, each one having different battlefield conditions, each one needing a separate conversation. That’s what has to happen for a ceasefire, and yet we’re talking about it. That’s a big, big deal.

Our technical teams are going to be meeting in Jeddah beginning Monday. That’s a big deal. There’s all kinds of good, positive talk coming out of Russia about their willingness to consider all of these different things. And Zelenskyy had a wonderful conversation with the President after the President-Putin conversation the next day. And I think that indicates that they’ve got some degree of flexibility in the way that they’ve been thinking about finishing up this conflict.

So I am not to sound like a forever optimist, but I am very, very optimistic that we’re going to be able to bring the two sides together. We have narrowed the issues so considerably, so I’m optimistic.

TUCKER CARLSON: [Advertisement section removed]

Core Issues in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

TUCKER CARLSON: So Russia, Putin has been in power 25 years, has been consistent for the whole duration of his presidency in one demand, which is that NATO stop encroaching on its borders and specifically that Ukraine, which is the largest country that borders Russia, not be in NATO. And that is my understanding. My certainty is that that still remains the central demand, period. No Ukraine in NATO – can’t have peace without that. In the same way that Israel doesn’t want Hamas on its border, they don’t want that. What can the US deliver on that?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, first of all, I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions. Donbas, Crimea. You know the names.

TUCKER CARLSON: Lugansk.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah, Lugansk. And there’s two others. They’re Russian speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: I think that’s the key issue in the conflict. So that’s the first thing that, when that gets settled – and we’re having very, very positive conversations – and Russia controls that.

TUCKER CARLSON: In fact, some of those territories are now, from the Russian perspective, part of Russia, correct?

STEVE WITKOFF: That’s correct. But this has always been the issue.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

STEVE WITKOFF: And it’s sort of no one wants to talk about it. That’s the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is there are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory. The Russians are de facto in control of these territories.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: The question is will they be, will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Will Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict. Absolutely.

That on NATO, I think that Zelensky, and he’s got a right-hand guy Yermak, I think that they’ve largely conceded that they are not going to be a member of NATO. There’s been all kinds of talk about whether they could still have, quote-unquote, what is called Article 5 protection, which gives every NATO country this Article 5 protection, whether Ukraine could have that in some respect from the United States or European nations without being a member of NATO. And I think that’s open for discussion.

But I think it’s accepted that if there’s going to be a peace deal, Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. I think that’s largely accepted.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you spent… sort of an amazing story that got downplayed in the media. But you go to Moscow and then you wind up meeting directly with Putin for a long time.

STEVE WITKOFF: Long time.

TUCKER CARLSON: Which is kind of remarkable, I think, considering you’re the president’s envoy, but you’re not…

Meeting with President Putin

STEVE WITKOFF: I’m not the president.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re not the president, exactly right. So the Russians are very formal, as you know, in every regard. They’re very formal. And so you can imagine a scenario where it’s like, well, it’s not the president, so our president’s not going to meet with him. But he did meet with you for a long time. What did you think of him?

STEVE WITKOFF: I liked him.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

STEVE WITKOFF: I thought he was straight up with me. Of course, by the way I’ve said that. And you can imagine, by the way I say that I get pilloried. “Oh, my gosh. You’re actually saying that you like that.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Every American president until Biden has said that. Every single one.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Bill Clinton said that. George W. Bush said that. Barack Obama said that. Every president around the world I’ve ever spoken to is like, they may disagree with what Russia’s doing or whatever, but they’re like, you know, Putin’s a straightforward guy.

STEVE WITKOFF: First of all, I thought it was gracious of him to accept me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: To see me. Why would I interpret it any other way? But that was gracious. Now, I’m an emissary of the president.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: And the president had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin in his first term. So I think Vladimir Putin knew that it was going to be hard for the president at this time to come over to Russia. I think they’re going to meet in the coming few months. But I think it was enormously gracious for him to accept me. And I need to acknowledge that.

TUCKER CARLSON: It takes balls to say that.

STEVE WITKOFF: I know, but by the way, that’s the same way that I said that Sheikh Mohammed is a good guy, because that’s—

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, he is a good guy.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah. I mean, if you don’t, you know, in our country, if you don’t act like a lemming and just walk off the cliff like everybody else, then, you know, you get attacked. By the way, how would we settle a conflict with someone who is the head of a major nuclear power unless we establish trust and good feelings with one another? I don’t know how you would do such a thing. And President Putin said to me in the first meeting I had, he said, “Steve, do you know that I didn’t talk to Joe Biden for three and a half years.”

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s craziness.

STEVE WITKOFF: How would you resolve that, Tucker? Can you imagine me and you having a conflict? I don’t know what it was. You live in this house, I live in that house. Okay. I think you’ve encroached on my land, and we never have a conversation about it. I mean, who—how do you resolve this?

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s why I went over there last year, because I thought we’re moving toward a nuclear war. And I just feel like if no one’s talking to Putin, like, someone should at least broadcast his views to the world because we could have a war otherwise. That was my thinking. Anyway.

Diplomatic Progress

STEVE WITKOFF: When I came back after—before the first meeting with President Putin, when President Trump said to me, go over and have that conversation. I think we’re going to have a good, healthy conversation. Before that conversation, there was no talk about a Black Sea moratorium. There was no conversation about an energy infrastructure moratorium on hits between the two. We were not talking about prisoner exchanges and all kinds of other stuff after one meeting.

And I am saying to you, not because of me, because this was President Trump sending a signal to President Putin that he wanted to resume his relationship together and that they were going to be two great leaders figuring out this conflict. That was the message. That was me coming there. That was my message to President Putin. I was directed by President Trump to deliver that message, that we were here to begin a real discussion, a productive discussion about how to end this conflict. And President Putin, to his credit, sent all kinds of signals back to the president that this is the path that he wanted to be on, including statements that he made.

In the second visit that I had, it got personal. 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, which I brought home and delivered to him. It’s been reported in the paper, but it was such a gracious moment.

And 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, not because he was the President of the United States or could become the President of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend. I mean, can you imagine sitting there and listening to these kind of conversations?

And I came home and delivered that message to our president and delivered the painting, and he was clearly touched by it. So this is the kind of connection that we’ve been able to reestablish through, by the way, a simple word called communication, which many people would say, you know, I shouldn’t have had, because Putin is a bad guy. 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. You know, it’s never just one person, right? So I think we’re going to figure it out.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s like a marriage. I mean, you can blame the other person all you want, but you’re implicated in it, too. So that’s just a fact. That’s just human nature. So it does raise the question. Everything you’ve said, I don’t think any fair person—everything you’ve just said about Russia, Ukraine, any fair person would acknowledge. Yeah, that’s true. But there has to be some reason that none of this has been acknowledged for three and a half years. Why the effort to prevent Americans from hearing the other side from understanding the conflict in its totality, not just parts of it, but the whole thing. Why the censorship designed to keep us from knowing what’s actually happening?

STEVE WITKOFF: Because that’s what we’ve been enduring.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I know.

Leadership and Progress

STEVE WITKOFF: Censorship, yes. We’ve been enduring a media that, you know, they all march together. I mean, I told you this story. I give interviews about President Trump, and guess what, all the nice things I have to say about him, because I believe in that, that sort of gets excised out of my interviews. Not with you, I know, but because you’re a fan, too. I’m a great fan of his, you know, so you hear it.

But guess what? Trump Derangement syndrome still exists out there today. I don’t—you know, he said it at the State of the Union. If I came here and he was looking at the Democrats. “If I came here, I had the cure for cancer and I had a magic pill that would cure all conflicts all over the world. Nobody would cheer for me on your side.” And it really is true, by the way.

Look at how all the different things he’s involved in now. I mean, we are out there curing and solving conflicts all over the world. It’s unbelievable. No one’s ever seen this sort of progress before. And the Russians want to engage with us once again because we have a real decision maker. Iran is now responding to the letter. Hopefully we can solve that. Gaza, Turkey, we’ve got real leadership, and the world needed leadership, and we were bereft of that leadership. We didn’t have it. And the Trump administration is moving forward with strong leadership. It’s a big deal.

Ukraine Situation

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think Zelensky, the question of Zelensky. I think there are good things to say about Zelensky. I think he’s got a kind of bravery which I admire. I think the Ukrainian military is legit, brave, doomed because they’re just fighting a much bigger country. He’s not going to win. But I think they’ve behaved with valiance. But the Russian position is he’s not elected and so we can’t sign any kind of treaty with him. Do you think there will be elections in Ukraine?

STEVE WITKOFF: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: You do?

STEVE WITKOFF: There will be.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: They’ve agreed to it. There will be elections in Ukraine and I agree with you. I think Zelensky is trying his best. I think he’s in a very, very difficult position. But he’s up against the nuclear nation.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: And he’s also up against a nation that has four times the population that he has. And so he’s got to know that he’s going to get ground down. Now is the best time for him to get a deal done. President Trump can deliver him the best possible deal he’s ever going to get.

TUCKER CARLSON: Who’s giving him like the, I mean, you know, I blame Zelensky, the man for his behavior in Washington a few weeks ago, but I also blame whoever briefed him before he went into the Oval with the president and vice president, whoever told him to act that way. And it’s clear people did. Whether it was Samantha Power or whoever it was, those people, that was criminally bad advice. Do you think he’s speaking to realistic, clear eyed people who can, you know, who have the welfare of Ukraine in mind?

STEVE WITKOFF: So without getting into names—

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

STEVE WITKOFF: I’ve talked to multiple European leaders and I’ve said to them the more you encourage him not to be proactive in the peace table, the more you suggest that aid will continue without any conditions attached to it. No one says that we shouldn’t aid Ukraine today and in the reconstruction later on. But it’s got to come with certain conditions.

If we’re going to give a lot of money to Ukraine, we want to hear the business plan of how this is going to get resolved because it’s an unsustainable business plan. If they don’t have a plan for how it gets resolved, we just can’t forever give money because they’ll get ground down. And ultimately, and this is, you know me, we’ve discussed this in the administration. Ultimately what you can’t have here is risk of any kind of nuclear action, even the tactical nuclear action. I mean, even if it’s not a big bomb explosion, doesn’t matter. Just a tactical nuke would take stock markets down all over the world.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, they haven’t been used in 80 years. They’ve been used exactly twice in human history.

STEVE WITKOFF: You can’t allow it to happen.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s not a precedent you want at all.

STEVE WITKOFF: And while I think we have to get a fair deal for Ukraine, we cannot allow that country to drag us into World War Three. And that’s not what I’m—that’s not my policy. That’s President Trump’s policy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Then what is? If I can just say, like, what the hell is going on with European League Keir Starmer saying, we’re going to send British troops. Their entire military is smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps. The country is dying economically. All those countries are dying economically. Like, what are they thinking? What is that? Is that a posture? Is it a pose?

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic. I think there’s this, you know, this sort of notion of we’ve all got to be like Winston Churchill, the Russians are gonna march across Europe. I think that’s preposterous. By the way, we have something called NATO that we did not have in World War II.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think the Russians want to march across Europe?

STEVE WITKOFF: 100% not.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why would they want that? I wouldn’t want those countries. Like, why would they.

STEVE WITKOFF: First of all, why would they want to absorb Ukraine? For what purpose, exactly? They don’t need to absorb Ukraine. That would be like occupying Gaza. Why do the Israelis really want to occupy Gaza for the rest of their lives? They don’t. They want stability there they don’t want to deal with. But the Russians also have what they want. They’ve gotten—they’ve reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea, and they’ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?

He said, Putin’s a very smart guy. You know, someone said to me that someone—I was talking to someone in the administration. They said, well, you got to watch it, because he’s an ex-KGB guy. So I said, okay, what’s the inference? Well, he’s an ex-KGB guy. He could be looking to manipulate you.

TUCKER CARLSON: Says the ex-CIA guy to you.

The Pursuit of Peace: Trump’s Diplomatic Approach

STEVE WITKOFF: This was not an ex-CIA guy. Well, they all are, quite effectively. And I said, look, here’s how I see it. In the old days, the only people who went into the KGB were the smartest people in the nation. That’s who went into the KGB. He’s a super smart guy. Okay. You don’t want to give him the credit for it. That’s okay. I give him the credit for it.

TUCKER CARLSON: They must hate you for saying stuff like that.

STEVE WITKOFF: But he is.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know. I’m very aware.

STEVE WITKOFF: So should we ignore it? I mean, this is what I talk about with level setting the facts. Like, are we now, like, Trump was elected? We’re now allowed to speak freely. We were not, you know, we were muzzled, Tucker. No one was allowed to say what they really wanted to say.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I’m very aware.

STEVE WITKOFF: I mean, we just came out of a world where a judge who was not even an elected judge could tell a man that he was going to spend 10 years in prison. You know, and he had 80 million votes in this country. Guess what? That’s gone. Okay. So, you know, listen, we can breathe again.

Russia-Ukraine Negotiations

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. That’s amazing. So there is the negotiation that’s going on in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, which you’re obviously at the center of, but there’s also an informal negotiation going on back in Washington where you have a lot of people with economic interests in this war. I mean, let’s just be honest. Certainly ideological interests. And all of Washington has been mobilized to fight Russia. We are at war with Russia through our proxy Ukraine. And President Trump shows up and is like, oh, you know, applies the brakes, like it stands on the brakes. But is that going to get resolved?

STEVE WITKOFF: I think so.

TUCKER CARLSON: You do?

STEVE WITKOFF: I think so, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s one thing to deal with the Russians, but to deal with the permanent bureaucracy, that’s really tough.

STEVE WITKOFF: But who doesn’t want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing collaboratively good things together.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

STEVE WITKOFF: Thinking about how to integrate their energy policies in the Arctic.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

STEVE WITKOFF: Share sea lanes, maybe send LNG gas into Europe together, maybe collaborate on AI together. If we can get past technology migration. Who doesn’t want to see a world like that? What about being able – the presidents being able to talk to one another about Iran, where Russia has some degree of influence? I mean, who doesn’t want to see a world like that? To me, it’s so logical.

TUCKER CARLSON: I passionately want to see a world like that. Not for any weird agenda other than that sounds great. Why wouldn’t you want that?

STEVE WITKOFF: Exactly.

TUCKER CARLSON: But nobody wants that in Washington.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think this is the thing. People get wedded, you know, to a prescription because that was what they endorsed before. And it’s hard for them to back off of it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, it is. But you seem confident that the entire permanent establishment in D.C. and they’re not all stupid, by the way. Some of them are very smart and highly motivated. They can be brought around to that view.

Progress in Negotiations

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, look at the progress that we’ve made in Russia. We’ve made tremendous progress. It’s nothing short of enormous. How in the world is that Putin looking to manipulate people like me or other people who may be negotiating with him? That’s Putin actually reaching across the table and saying to President Trump, I’m prepared to do these things. And now the President is accepting that, and he’s saying, let me tell you what I’m prepared to do. And he’s prepared to bring Zelensky into the conversation. And he talks to Macron and he talks to Starmer and he talks to the Norwegians and the Finnish. I think none of these people have been talking together before. Can you imagine a war that’s been going on for three and a half years? No one was talking. This is what went on.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s insanity.

STEVE WITKOFF: I know.

TUCKER CARLSON: And by the way, it was inexorably marching toward nuclear conflict.

STEVE WITKOFF: Had to be.

TUCKER CARLSON: Had to be. That’s exactly right.

STEVE WITKOFF: Or the Russians would have just ground them down conventionally. Either way is a bad outcome for Ukraine. That makes no sense. Either the Russians outstripped them 4 to 1 in population. They either would have ground them down over time, or, God forbid, you could have had some kind of tactical nuclear issue.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

STEVE WITKOFF: Which would have been a disaster for the world because, as you say, we haven’t had one for 80 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s so. I can’t tell you, I’m not sucking up. I mean this. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see someone, hear someone tell the truth, obvious truths. And I do think it makes a huge difference to say the truth out loud.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I think it’s important to say the truth out loud. That’s what we weren’t allowed to say.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

Speaking Truth About Complex Conflicts

STEVE WITKOFF: When I went to court with the President, I went to his criminal trial quite often. I would walk out of the criminal trial. You would see all the reporters from MSNBC, CNN, sort of like, glaring at me, Tucker, almost as if to say, why would you come here? I mean, can you just imagine? We were living in a society of, you’re innocent until proven guilty. But the President had been convicted already.

Well, you know what? That wasn’t good enough for me. I spoke about the president, how I felt about him, my friendship with him, how I thought that trial was unfair. I testified for him in the AG trial. I led an amicus curiae brief. Nobody was doing it in those days. Everybody was afraid.

I just think we need to level set the facts and understand what the true conditions are out there. The true conditions in Russia is that it’s complicated. And Ukraine, it’s a complicated conflict. They’ve been at each other since World War II. There’s a sensibility in Russia that Ukraine is a false country, that they just patch together in this sort of mosaic, these regions. And that’s the root cause, in my opinion, of this war, that Russia regards those five regions as rightfully theirs since World War II. And that’s something that nobody wants to talk about. Well, I say it out loud. How are we going to solve this thing unless we solve the central issue that underpins the conflict?

TUCKER CARLSON: The Khrushchev kind of just made those part of Ukraine.

STEVE WITKOFF: Correct.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I think Khrushchev was Ukrainian. Amazing. I just have to ask you this, just so you were at the. With the then candidate Trump at the trials. Then you’re on the road with him. I saw you. You’re traveling with him everywhere during the campaign, and you’re a very old friend of his, and he trusts and he also likes you. So at that point, you can kind of have any job you want. That’s the way it works. But you didn’t want any job.

Service Over Self-Interest

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, it would be arrogant for me to say that I could have any job I wanted.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, but okay, but you’re better positioned than anyone else I’m aware of to get a job at the administration. But you weren’t there scrambling to get one.

STEVE WITKOFF: Well, I wanted. If I, you know, the president, there’s a lot of people who did good things for him during the campaign, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that doing those good things transfers over to you being able to be a part of an administration and govern. So I never wanted to presume that I could have any job that I wanted. I think that would almost be disrespectful to my friendship.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, that’s my outside assessment.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Listen, I know you’re a very good friend of the president’s, too, so you understand.

TUCKER CARLSON: You didn’t seem anxious to be secretary of whatever. I guess that’s my point.

STEVE WITKOFF: No, I didn’t want to do those jobs, actually. I wanted to do something that felt worthy to me, that felt like I was going to help either save lives, solve a crisis. I talked to Jared at great length, you know, about what it was like for him to work in the Mid East. I just began to feel that that would be something very worthy for me to do now.

I underestimated the complications in the job, that’s for sure. I think I was a little bit quixotic in the way that I thought about it. Like, I’m going to roll in there on a white horse. And no, it was anything but that, you know. But I’m so glad he gave me this opportunity. Yeah, I think I tell him. I think he’s sort of like, he gets embarrassed when I tell him this, Tucker. I say to him all the time, you blessed me when you gave me this job. He did. I think he blessed me. I get to feel like my life has consequence now. I get to do things on behalf of other people. Something bigger than just doing something on behalf of myself.

TUCKER CARLSON: That chance over 60. That’s pretty unusual.

STEVE WITKOFF: I don’t know if many people get that chance at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, you’re right.

STEVE WITKOFF: And I’m so lucky, you know, so before the end of my life to be able to do this. I’m so grateful to him.

The Iran Question

TUCKER CARLSON: So one last question. Area, which is Iran, which unfortunately I sidetracked around it. But you said, when I asked what is the government of Israel’s plan for the region, what are the borders it hopes to solidify at some point, like what are the boundaries of the country, et cetera, et cetera, you said your first response was, it’s we need to solve for Iran. Like, that’s the issue that overhangs everything. There’s enormous pressure on the US on the Trump administration from within and from outside to have a military conflict with Iran. Like, I know that the president doesn’t seem. That’s not his first. This is my reading. If he wanted that, we’d already have it. He seems to want a diplomatic solution first. He wants to try that first. Yes, that’s fair.

STEVE WITKOFF: That’s fair.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think that that’s achievable?

STEVE WITKOFF: Yes, I do. I do. Look, he sent a letter to the Iranians. Usually it would be the Iranians sending a letter to him. Remember the Iranians air defenses have been eviscerated in that attack from Israel. They’re open to attack today. Yeah, they’re a small country compared to ours. We could. I think we would. If we used overwhelming force, it would be very, very bad for them. And so you would. And this is not a threat. I’m not threatening. That’s. So if the Iranians ever listen to this broadcast, this is not me issuing a threat. It’s the president who has that authority. He would issue a threat.

TUCKER CARLSON: But you’re describing the reality as you understand it, correct?

STEVE WITKOFF: So under those circumstances, it would be natural for the Iranians to reach out to the President to say, I want to diplomatically solve this. Instead, it’s him doing that. Now, I can tell you that he’s not reaching out because he’s weak, because he is not a weak man. He is a strong man. Maybe one of the strongest men I’ve ever met in my life. Maybe the strongest man I’ve ever met in my life. Actually, I think.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think at that point, I think.

STEVE WITKOFF: He is that person.

TUCKER CARLSON: He. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, even Trump haters would have to acknowledge that’s kind of indisputable at this point.

STEVE WITKOFF: Yeah, he is a strong man. And I’m going to say this, the strongest man I’ve ever met. So with that all said, he wrote that letter. And why did he write that letter?

TUCKER CARLSON: For people who aren’t aware of the letter, can you roughly describe what it said?

Trump’s Peace Initiative with Iran

STEVE WITKOFF: It roughly said, I’m a president of peace. That’s what I want. There’s no reason for us to do this militarily. We should talk. We should clear up the misconceptions. We should create a verification program so that nobody worries about weaponization of your nuclear material. And I’d like to get us to that place because the alternative is not a very good alternative. That’s a rough encapsulation of what was said roughly.

And the President has said that. He’s said that. So I’m not telling you anything that’s top secret or anything of that sort. The Iranians have reached back out, and I’m not at liberty to talk about specifics, but clearly, through back channels, through multiple countries and multiple conduits, they’ve reached back out.

I think that it has a real possibility of being solved diplomatically, not because I’ve talked to anybody in Iran, but just because I think logically it makes sense that it ought to be solved diplomatically. It should be.

I think the President has acknowledged that he’s open to an opportunity to clean it all up with Iran, where they come back to the world and be a great nation once again and not have to be sanctioned and being able to grow their economy. Their economy—I mean, these are very smart people. Their economy was once a wonderful economy. They’re being strangled and suffocated today. There’s no need for that to happen.

They can join the League of Nations and we can have a better relationship and grow that relationship. And that’s what he’s presenting. That’s the alternative he’s presenting. I think he wants to deal with Iran with respect. He wants to build trust with them if it’s possible. And that’s his directive to his administration. And hopefully that will be met positively by the Iranians.

And I’m certainly hopeful for it. I think anything can be solved with dialogue by clearing up misconception and miscommunication and disconnects between people. I believe that, by the way. And the president is a president who doesn’t want to go to war, and he’ll use military action to stop a war. That’s when he actually wants to use military action. In this particular case, hopefully it won’t be necessary. Hopefully, we can do it at the negotiating table.

TUCKER CARLSON: I hope for our sake you wind up in Tehran.

STEVE WITKOFF: I hope I do, too. Or someone else from the administration. This is a little bit more complicated, this one, because it’s nuclear and we’re going to need some real technical expertise. It’s just a little bit more complicated. But I think it’ll begin with the president, with someone from the president’s team. It could be me. It could be me and other people. It could not be me and somebody else. But I am going to welcome that opportunity if I’m involved.

TUCKER CARLSON: Amazing. Steve Witkoff. Godspeed. Thank you.

STEVE WITKOFF: Thank you, Tucker. Thanks for having me.

A Note to Viewers

TUCKER CARLSON: So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show. On one level, it’s not surprising. That’s what they do. But on another level, it’s shocking. With everything that’s going on in the world right now, all the change taking place in our economy and our politics, with the wars we’re on the cusp of fighting right now, Google has decided you should have less information rather than more. And that is totally wrong. It’s immoral.

What can you do about it? Well, we could whine about it. That’s a waste of time. We’re not in charge of Google. Or we could find a way around it, a way that you could actually get information that is true, not intentionally deceptive. The way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel.

STEVE WITKOFF: Subscribe.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video. That way you’ll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information. So we hope that you’ll do that.