JD Vance Blasts Politico for Smear on Trump’s Peace Envoy
It isn’t about truth. It’s about making sure Donald Trump fails, no matter the cost.
Politico’s newest “scoop” on Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s hand-picked peace envoy, reads less like journalism and more like an op-ed written by Trump’s enemies in the bureaucracy. The story relied almost entirely on unnamed voices attacking Witkoff while burying or outright omitting on-the-record quotes that show progress.
Vice President JD Vance immediately blasted the report on X/Twitter:
“This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.”
Politico leaned heavily on anonymous voices to portray Witkoff as unprepared. One unnamed U.S. official sneered:
“He’s kind of a rogue actor,” said a U.S. official familiar with Witkoff’s diplomatic style. “He talks to all these people, but no one knows what he says in any of these meetings. He will say things publicly but then he changes his mind. It’s hard to operationalize that.”
Another claimed:
“His inexperience shines through, he has the president’s ear, which is evident, but there has been some confusion about what has been said and agreed,” said a person familiar with the diplomatic effort.”
But as Vance pointed out, those shadowy quotes came at the expense of documented, on-the-record support.
“You know what this ‘reporter’ left out to make room for anonymous quotes?
The full quote from the sitting vice president, on the record.
A quote from the secretary of the state, on the record.
A quote from Jared Kushner, on the record.
The full quote from the UK’s Jonathan Powell, one of the most respected national security people in the Western World, who defended Steve vigorously from these malicious smears.”
Instead of presenting the full picture, Politico allowed itself to become a megaphone for the same entrenched officials who have failed for years to end the war. Vance called that a deliberate choice:
“They have an agenda to blow up the president’s efforts to make peace, and they saw her as a useful vessel to launder garbage into the conversation, truth be damned.”
He went further:
“There are two possible explanations: Felicia is just not very smart, and allowed herself to be used by deep state con men. Or she’s in on it, and used her position to willingly participate in a literal foreign influence operation. Either way, it’s disgraceful.”
And while the media insists on tearing down Trump’s peace push, Vance reminded Americans what’s actually happening:
To set the record straight: Steve Witkoff is an invaluable member of our team. He did not mislead anyone on what the Russians told him and what the Russians conceded. (Trust me, I’ve seen the intel.) The fruits of his negotiations are that we have narrowed the list of open issues in the Russia-Ukraine war to a set of clearly defined issues–specifically, security guarantees and territorial concessions.
Read his full post here:
This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it's more than that: it's a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.
Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it's two or three… https://t.co/LsPmTpZfqy
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 29, 2025
Politico may dress it up as reporting, but JD Vance’s blistering rebuttal shows what’s really going on: the media would rather twist facts, bury on-the-record statements, and prop up anonymous whispers than give this administration credit. It isn’t about truth. It’s about making sure Donald Trump fails, no matter the cost.
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Comments
its now or never at the local levels
communism must be taken out of the schools
Who are these deep-state bureaucrats and why haven’t they been fired!!
Felicia’s are not generally competent.
Thurber on “The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled” (Felicia Hemans):
The lady was clearly trying to say, “The boy stood on the burning deck after everybody else had left,”..
What causes all the trouble if the fact that the clumsy lady comes up with “but he had fled,” which is a fool-the-eye-and-ear because it diverts the mind from the prepositional “but he” to the conjunctive “but he had.”
If Fowler is right, then the lady meant to say, “The boy stood on the burning deck whence all had fled, but he had not.” I think Felicia was a simple “except him” girl, but she got into trouble with her unfortunate use of “whence.” She may have been the worst writer of English that ever lived….She did almost everything to make the sentence one of the greatest ramshackles of our language.
“Bye, Hardin,”
Lesson in how to disparage somebody without seeming to be a jerk, in this case a fellow Felicia. It’s the Vance infelicity again. Too young to know better.
The establishment Republicans would see a story like this and quietly organize a news conference with a one-page release, neither of which would ever see the light of day.
I much prefer this Republican party. I hope JD serves a full eight years after Trump and continues this kind of brutal takedown of the abjectly biased media.
Agreed. Aggressive push back v the prior milquetoast responses is a vast improvement in messaging, communication strategy and changes the dynamics of the ‘reporting’ when the activists posing as journalists get smacked around for lies of omission and commission.
These people are broken. They would rather people continue to die before accepting a situation where Trump has achieved peace!
I’m pretty sure that after smears and outright lies during the first Trump administration very few people are listening to “anonymous sources familiar with the thinking” or “anonymous sources in the administration”
Felicia Schwartz. Another product of the Ivy League.
https://www.politico.com/staff/felicia-schwartz
The vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crats and their media lapdogs/shills/trained seals/parrots/stenographers have turned the “anonymous source” hatchet job/hit piece into an art form, over decades.
Vance is right to call the execrable Politico propaganda rag out on this.