'Trump lost control': Ex-insider says foreign leader just 'humiliated' president

Donald Trump's team was just "humiliated" by a foreign leader, according to a former insider.

Author and former Trump associate Lev Parnas on Saturday published an article entitled, "Putin Humiliates Trump’s Envoy – Witkoff Told Not to Come."

In the piece, Parnas cites an incident in which the president's adviser was embarrassed in Russia.

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"Witkoff was supposed to travel to Moscow, handpicked by Trump as his envoy, a supposed negotiator for peace. But Putin shut the door before he even left. Witkoff canceled his trip, not because of scheduling conflicts, but because Putin rejected the 22-point ceasefire proposal crafted by the U.S., Ukraine, and European partners," Parnas wrote before underlining "the significance of this."

"For months, Trump and his administration paraded around these backchannel meetings as signs of progress. But Putin just sent a clear message: there’s no interest in negotiation—not on his terms," the ex-insider wrote. "This isn’t the action of a man seeking peace. This is Putin showing he holds the cards, and Trump, along with his envoys, are simply along for the ride."

Going even further, Parnas stressed a recent statement from Trump's administration, which seemed to play to Putin's "optics" more than anything else, according to the analysis.

"Marco Rubio, representing Trump’s administration, facilitated a prisoner exchange in Turkey and emphasized that only a Trump-Putin summit could break the deadlock. But I ask you, how many summits, how many backchannel meetings, how many envoys will it take before we recognize that these are not steps toward peace—they are stages for Putin’s optics?" Parnas asked. "This is the reality: Trump has lost control of the narrative. He’s posturing for a deal that Putin has no intention of honoring, while Ukrainian civilians are being bombed, displaced, and erased from their own land. And every time Trump picks up that phone, he legitimizes it."

Read more here.