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Republican opposition continues to grow to the Trump administration\u2019s handling of the chaotic Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, with two senior House members heaping opprobrium on the lead U.S. envoy to the talks, Steve Witkoff, and slamming what they characterized as a lack of a professional and unified interagency process from the U.S. side.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Bloomberg<\/a> published a leaked transcript of an Oct. 14 call between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s top foreign-policy advisor, in which Witkoff suggested coming up with a 20-point peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war and offered advice on how Putin should pitch the idea to U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Republican opposition continues to grow to the Trump administration\u2019s handling of the chaotic Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, with two senior House members heaping opprobrium on the lead U.S. envoy to the talks, Steve Witkoff, and slamming what they characterized as a lack of a professional and unified interagency process from the U.S. side.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Bloomberg<\/a> published a leaked transcript of an Oct. 14 call between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s top foreign-policy advisor, in which Witkoff suggested coming up with a 20-point peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war and offered advice on how Putin should pitch the idea to U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n During the call, Witkoff also appeared to accept the Russian position on forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions. \u201cNow, me to you, I know what it\u2019s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,\u201d Witkoff said to Ushakov.<\/p>\n The revelation of the call\u2019s contents prompted ire from several pro-Ukraine Republican lawmakers. Rep. Don Bacon called for Witkoff to be fired, writing<\/a> on X that \u201cit is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick wrote<\/a> on X, \u201cThis is a major problem.\u00a0And one of the many reasons why these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n On a Zoom press call on Wednesday that was organized by Courage Action, a nonprofit that advocates for less partisanship in U.S. policymaking, Bacon and Fitzpatrick continued their criticism and warned that the widespread bipartisan dissatisfaction with the administration\u2019s handling of the Ukraine talks is likely to have significant short-order impacts. They predicted that when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break on Monday, there will be a rush of sign-ups to a House discharge petition from Fitzpatrick that would serve as the vehicle for legislation to impose tough new sanctions on Russia.<\/p>\n Bacon, a retired Air Force general, said that when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was briefly leading<\/a> the U.S. side of negotiations with the Ukrainians over the weekend, things appeared to be getting better, but now that Witkoff and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll once again have the lead in planned meetings<\/a> with Russia and Ukraine in the coming days, he is worried about where the U.S. side may end up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears that some people [in the Trump administration] have different agendas,\u201d Bacon said, adding that those associated with Witkoff tend to be \u201c90 percent\u201d aligned with Russian preferences. \u201cIt looks terrible for our country\u2014we should have a more unified approach,\u201d added Bacon, who is retiring from Congress at the end of next year.<\/p>\n Fitzpatrick, who is a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said it was bad judgment on the part of the administration not to have Rubio as well as CIA Director John Ratcliffe involved in \u201cevery single thing we engage\u201d with Russia on, given Moscow\u2019s track record of lying and disinformation.<\/p>\n Bacon attributed the lack of coordination to the White House\u2019s gutting<\/a> of the National Security Council, which under normal circumstances would be leading the interagency process for the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and ensuring that all branches of the U.S. government were \u201cplaying from the same music.\u201d<\/p>\n Fitzpatrick and Bacon drew a direct line between last week\u2019s leaking of the contents of the U.S.- and Russia-drafted 28-point peace plan\u2014which Ukrainian, European, and congressional critics have near-universally panned as being overly solicitous toward Moscow\u2014to the rising bipartisan clamor to sign the discharge petition in the House.<\/p>\n \u201cThe House and the Senate have to take the lead here and inject itself into the administration; otherwise, we\u2019re going to continue to see what we saw last Thursday,\u201d Bacon said, referring to the day last week when news emerged that the administration was pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the deal by Thanksgiving or risk losing U.S. battlefield intelligence and access to more U.S. weapons. \u201cCongress needs to be more active and firm in pushing the administration to do the right thing,\u201d Bacon added.<\/p>\n Fitzpatrick said the leaking of the \u201cutterly ridiculous\u201d 28-point plan amounted to the \u201ccrossing of the Rubicon\u201d for him. \u201cWe want to deliver a message to Russia and to Ukraine and to the world that Congress will be injecting itself into this debate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bacon also faulted Vice President J.D. Vance for criticizing<\/a> congressional Republicans, including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for panning the 28-point proposal. Bacon, a House Armed Services Committee member, compared the proposal to former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain\u2019s infamous (and unsuccessful) effort to appease Adolf Hitler with the signing of the Munich Agreement<\/a> during the buildup to World War II.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n This post is part of FP\u2019s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration<\/i>. <\/i>Follow along here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n