Putin said he prayed for ‘his friend’ Donald Trump after 2024 assassination attempt, U.S. envoy says
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he prayed for “his friend” Donald Trump after an assassin’s bullet grazed the then-presidential candidate’s ear last year, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he prayed for “his friend” Donald Trump after an assassin’s bullet grazed the then-presidential candidate’s ear last year, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview Friday.
Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Witkoff praised Putin’s willingness to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine and said it was “preposterous” to say that Russia had designs on eventually attacking other countries in Europe.
Witkoff, who has met with Putin twice, said during his second visit to Moscow the Russian president’s messages for Trump “got personal.” The Russian autocrat recounted his deep concern after Trump was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July of last year, Witkoff said.
Putin “told me a story ... about how when the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president,” Witkoff said. Putin did it “not because ... he could become the president of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him, and he was praying for his friend.”
During the same visit, the Russian president presented a painting of Trump that he commissioned from a Russian artist as a gift to the American president, Witkoff said.
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