While President Donald Trump said this week that he doesn’t like a portrait of himself hanging up in Colorado, he apparently is fond of another portrait. One commissioned by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.
United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff discussed the portrait last week on “The Tucker Carlson Show” streaming on the X social media platform. He told Carlson that the painting was presented to him the second time he met with the Russian leader.
“In the second visit that I had, you know, it got personal,” said Witkoff. “The president… President Putin had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trump from the leading Russian artist and actually gave it to me and asked me to take it home to President Trump.”
When Witkoff presented the U.S. president with the portrait – and told him a story Putin shared about praying for Trump at his local church after the president was shot while on the campaign trail over the summer – he said Trump was “clearly touched by it.”
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” said Trump of his stateside portrait. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.”
He added that he would prefer “not having a picture than having this one.”
According to the Associated Press, though members of the GOP have now have requested for the portrait to be taken down, Colorado Republicans actually raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting by artist Sarah Boardman. It noted that, before the portrait was installed in 2019, “a prankster placed a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin near the spot intended for Trump.”
Witkoff said during his interview with Carlson that Trump and Putin had a positive relationship during the president’s first term in office from 2017 through 2020. In 2022, when former President Joe Biden was in office, Russia began an invasion of neighboring Ukraine that the Center on Foreign Relations said violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
That invasion is ongoing and the casualty count has continuef to climb, including among civilians. According to a report released last week by the UN Human Rights Office, 669 children had been killed and 1,833 injured due to the invasion as of last December.
“Vast areas of Ukraine are now littered with landmines and explosive remnants of war, posing long-term risks to children’s lives and safety,” said the UN. Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” per the International Criminal Court.
Even after the invasion began, Trump has continued to say positive things about Putin. For example, shortly after it began, he said that there was a “lot of love” behind Putin’s attempts to make his country larger. Last February, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized Trump for comments against the organization, which was established to counter the former Soviet Union.
“Putin’s got a huge respect for the president,” Witkoff told Carlson during their interview.
He compared the Russian ruler to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had a difficult meeting with Trump at the Oval Office this year.
“I liked him,” said Witkoff of Putin. “I thought he was straight up with me.”
Now, in the fourth year of the Russian invasion, Witkoff also stressed the need to work with Russia to end the war. He said that the Trump administration has been able to have useful discussions about a potential ceasefire and an energy infrastructure ceasefire.
“How would we settle a conflict with a guy – with someone who is head of a major nuclear power – unless we establish trust and good feelings with one another?” Witkoff said.
Witkoff was reportedly part of the Signal group chat (along with a journalist) that received texts of sensitive plans for a military strike against Yemen’s Houthis. Audacy station WCCO reported Tuesday that Witkoff was in the Kremlin when the messages were sent, citing Colonel David Hunt, U.S. Army (Ret.)
The Independent reported that Putin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed the portrait was given to Witkoff as a gift for Trump during a meeting in Moscow earlier this month.
“It was an absolutely personal gift that the president gave to his American counterpart,” Peskov told the state-run Tass news agency, per a report from Axios. That report also said that artist Nikas Safronov, who painted Putin and has the honorary title of People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, told the Moscow-based outlet AIF that though Russian artists generally never publicly confirm their works nor comment on for whom they’re created, the Trump portrait was “most likely priceless.”