Days before Donald Trump is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, there are more questions than answers as the American president floats multiple proposals — and his chief diplomat appears to be in over his head, experts said Monday.
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," international relations experts David Ignatius and Richard Haas, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, were baffled by the conduct of Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, whom former Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul accused of "deeply damaging incompetence" over the weekend.
Speaking with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, Ignatius, a longtime Washington Post columnist, shared the same concerns as McFaul about Witkoff, as well as with Trump's contributions.
Asked if he could "clarify" the messages coming out of the Trump administration, Ignatius replied, "I wish I could, Joe. "
"And the problem with Witkoff is this peripatetic ambassador jetting off to the Middle East, to Russia, is that he conducts his business in an ad hoc, improvised way," he continued. "He doesn't often take CIA briefers to prepare him, he often doesn't take his own translator. He doesn't take a note taker."
"I mean, we forget that successful peace negotiations — and Richard Haass was talking about his own role in them during his diplomatic career — requires a lot of work and follow-up," he added. "I mean, you don't just snap your fingers and say, 'Okay, boys, let's, let's end this.' It requires systematic negotiation, and Witkoff hasn't done that."
"The fact that there's so much confusion about what the heck Trump is talking about with land swaps — nobody can quite figure that out," he said.
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