Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin prayed for President Donald Trump after he was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer.
In an appearance on political commentator Tucker Carlson’s podcast The Tucker Carlson Show, Witkoff, Trump’s top envoy and a key negotiator in talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war, said his second meeting with Putin “got personal” and included a story of how the Russian president went to his local church and prayed for his “friend” Trump after his first assassination attempt.
“When the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president,” Witkoff said.
He added that the moment of prayer from Putin was not because Trump was a presidential candidate at the time and could become the president of the United States that November, but because Putin “had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend.”
Witkoff said Trump was “clearly touched” by the story and a portrait Putin commissioned of Trump by a top Russian artist that was delivered upon Witkoff’s return to the U.S.
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The Middle East envoy also said he doesn’t think Putin is a “bad guy” and touted the relationship the Trump administration has sought to reestablish between the two countries.
Witkoff’s interview with Carlson follows his meetings with Putin as the U.S. continues to work to reach a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine. Top envoys of all three countries are set to meet to discuss the ceasefire proposal starting Sunday in Saudi Arabia.
