President Donald Trump is reportedly considering naming billionaire real estate mogul Steve Witkoff—his de facto envoy to Moscow—as the next National Security Advisor. Witkoff, who has no diplomatic or national security experience but does reportedly have ties to a Russian oligarch, has come under fire for his apparent closeness to Vladimir Putin. Among the concerns are that Witkoff has repeatedly been meeting the Russian leader alone, without any senior U.S. officials or policy experts present, to allegedly discuss ending Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine.

Thursday afternoon President Trump named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as interim National Security Advisor, and announced that Mike Waltz, now his former NSA, will be his nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, according to ABC News.

Regardless of President Trump’s intentions for Witkoff, serious concerns continue to swirl around him.

Anders Åslund, an economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, has described Witkoff as “pro-Putin.” The former head of the UK’s MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has described Witkoff’s comments as “pro-Putin,” according to Sky News.

“Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy, has a serious and unreported conflict of interest in Russia-Ukraine negotiations: his relationship with Ukraine-sanctioned businessman Len Blavatnik,” reported The Counteroffensive‘s Tim Mak, a former NPR investigative reporter.

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Witkoff’s “fortune is largely made up of the Witkoff Group, the New York-based real estate developer he founded in 1997,” Forbes reported in November. “He also owns homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons and south Florida, where he’s developing projects including the Dutchman’s Pipe Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed course with a luxury hotel, in partnership with Soviet-born billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries.”

Critics have been blasting Witkoff for meeting alone with President Putin — even his translator is reportedly provided by the Kremlin.

The New York Post calls the solo act “a break with longstanding diplomatic procedure,” and notes that “Russian media have picked up on a pattern of Witkoff parroting Putin, with state television announcers recently commenting that the American easily accepts Moscow’s narratives — even when Russians don’t.”

Witkoff’s actions are so upsetting to national security experts that one, Republican former U.S. Congressman Adam Kinzinger, last week called Witkoff’s decision to meet with Putin without any other U.S. representation, “pure, unadulterated, evil.”

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented, “I believe Mr. Witkoff has adopted the strategy of the Russian side.”

“Consciously or not, he is spreading Russian narratives. Either way, it does not help,” Zelenskyy warned.

The Post also reports that Witkoff has been labeled a “bumbling f—— idiot,” by a former official in Trump’s first administration.

The Financial Times last week reported that Ukraine has “long suspected Witkoff of pro-Russian sympathies.”

Last week, Fox News’ Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin blasted the Trump administration:

“Where are the subject matter experts with Witkoff? Putin, the KGB officer, is laughing,” Griffin noted. “Meanwhile the instability at the Pentagon is not helping project strength during these delicate negotiations. There is still no confirmed NSA [National Security Agency] (Cyber Command) director after Defense Secretary Hegseth fired Gen Hauck and his deputy for no reason, not even a nominee yet for the person overseeing the crown jewel of US intelligence and SIGINT, which might come into handy when you are negotiating with Putin and Xi.”

Among those reporting Witkoff is being considered for the vital role as National Security Adviser are Mark Halpern, Politico’s Jake Traylor, and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak.

Politico adds that in addition to Witkoff, other possible candidates to replace Mike Waltz include “Trump’s top policy chief Stephen Miller, NSC senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka and Trump’s special envoy for special missions Richard Grenell.”

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Image via Reuters

Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor and a central figure in the SignalGate scandal, is reportedly on his way out—and may have already been removed—according to multiple reports. His deputy, Alex Wong, is also departing, though it remains unclear whether they are resigning or have been dismissed. Additional departures are expected. President Trump reportedly is expected to discuss the situation.

Waltz would be the first top official of the second Trump administration to exit under a cloud.

“Trump is planning to oust national security adviser Mike Waltz,” Politico’s Pentagon and national security reporter Paul McLeary wrote late Thursday morning, stating that he “has lost the confidence of other administration officials, according to three people familiar with the decision.”

“Names for a replacement,” Politico reported, “have been discussed around the West Wing for weeks, but the plans to remove Waltz potentially as soon as this week gained steam in recent days, according to two of the people and another person close to the White House.”

But Fox News‘ Haris Faulkner on-air has reported that Waltz is “out,” and Fox News chief national security reporter Jennifer Griffin added that “it’s been confirmed” that Waltz and Wong “have been pushed out of that position by the President.”

Griffin also reported that “what we have seen, we’ve seen a vacuum created here, surrounding Defense Secretary Hegseth.”

READ MORE: ‘Absolutely No Clue’: Trump Roasted Over Unique Declaration of Independence Interpretation

“So there has been incredible instability at the top of the National Security team for the President,” Griffin said, noting that Fox News’ Jackie Heinrich “is reporting that there could be more shoes to drop.”

Griffin stated that U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, “believes that that more shoes could drop, is suggesting that there are more firings to come.”

Kaine also talked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Griffin said, and “had expressed extreme concern about a late night tweet by defense Secretary Hegseth, in which he threatened Iran with potential military action, if they don’t control the Houthies.”

Online, Fox News reported that its sources “said additional staffers removed from the office will likely be announced, and President Donald Trump is expected to speak publicly about the matter.”

“Just yesterday,” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins added, “officials insisted his job was safe. But he’s been fighting for it all week after it was made clear earlier that he couldn’t stay on.”

Semafor reports that its sources “stressed that nothing is final until Trump announces it.”

Waltz had accidentally added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to an insecure Signal group chat that national security experts say should never have been used to discuss battle plans, and later, specific details of an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

Calling him “sometimes ideologically out of step with Trump,” The Wall Street Journal suggested that Waltz’s SignalGate scandal was not the only challenge he was facing.

“Trump and senior administration officials, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, had been frustrated with Waltz even before the Signal debacle. Waltz hired aides that his critics said didn’t appeal to Trump’s MAGA base and struggled to relay the president’s national security priorities on television—once seen as the former Florida congressman’s strength, according to administration officials.”

And CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted, “I suspect this has less to do with Signalgate than it does with Russia. Waltz has diminished for a bit. This was not a surprise.”

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U.S. foreign policy expert Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also noted Waltz’s exit is “Not surprising,” but for different reasons:

“Trump had something like 6 DHS Sec; 4 SecDefs; 4 DNI; 4 AGs; 2 SecStates; 4 NSAs in Trump 1.0. Loyalty and no screwups are currency of the realm in 2.0.”

Waltz was a Republican U.S. Congressman from Florida who was first elected in 2018, and resigned to work in the Trump administration. He graduated with honors from the Virginia Military Institute and served in the U.S. Army Special Forces during the war in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, during Trump’s Cabinet meeting, Waltz said, “Mr. President, over the last four years, the world experienced a total lack of zero leadership under Biden, and then we’ve had 100 days of your leadership with respect, with strength, starting with they’ll be all hell to pay if you don’t let our people go.”

And just hours ago, Waltz was praising the Commander-in-Chief and the Defense Secretary on Fox News.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Mike Waltz was on Fox & Friends just hours before his firing slathering praise on Trump and Pete Hegseth pic.twitter.com/D1Pe1172h0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2025

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On Constitution Day in September 2020—less than two months before his re-election defeat—President Donald Trump staged a White House Conference on American History at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

He called the National Archives, an institution he would later battle over classified and top-secret documents he would remove from the White House months later and refuse to return, “the sacred home of our national memory.”

“In this great chamber,” Trump said, “we preserve our glorious inheritance: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.”

Trump used the occasion to attack “the left” multiple times, and his political opponent, Joe Biden.

After winning a second term four years later, President Trump ordered the Declaration of Independence to be displayed in the Oval Office—the same revered space where he also chose to hang the police booking mug shot from his criminal arrest.

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“The Nationals Archives [sic] delivered the Declaration of Independence to the White House at the President’s request,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. “It is displayed in the Oval Office where it will be carefully protected and preserved.”

The AP suggested the version hanging in the Oval Office may not be an original copy (there are about 25), since its words are “clear and legible,” while the original, centuries-old document, is faded.

Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that it has “been in the vaults for many, many decades.”

“Think Joe Biden would do this? I don’t think so,” Trump asked the Fox News host. “Do you think he knows what it is?”

Last month, President Trump told reporters, “See the Declaration of Independence? You should all read that before you leave. That’s the real deal.”

This week, during Trump’s first 100 days interview with ABC News, senior national correspondent Terry Moran asked the President of the United States what the Declaration of Independence means to him.

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But the President appears to have forgotten that the Declaration of Independence, an actual act of high treason against Britain and King George III, is a literal declaration of the 13 colonies’ independence. Detailing the founders’ grievances against the Crown, it led to the Revolutionary War. It has been said it contains “the most potent and consequential words in American history.”

Instead, Trump told Moran, “Well, it means, exactly what it says. It’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot, and it’s something very special to our country.”

HuffPost reported that “‘Daily Show’ correspondent Desi Lydic mocked President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he revealed what the Declaration of Independence means to him.”

“But what makes Trump’s remarks ‘even more sad,’ Lydic said, is that the document is about the 13 colonies “filing for divorce” from Britain,” HuffPost added. “’It’s the one thing Trump should absolutely recognize,’ Lydic joked in a nod to the president divorcing Ivana Trump and Marla Maples prior to marrying first lady Melania Trump in 2005.”

Others also mocked the President of the United States for appearing to not know what the Declaration of Independence is.

“Laughing through my tears,” wrote former U.S. Congressman John Yarmuth (D-KY). “The President of the United States has obviously never read the Declaration of Independence. He’s obviously never read the Constitution either.”

“Trump has absolutely no clue what the Declaration of Independence is or what it says,” charged Ron Filipkowski, an attorney and the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch News.

“If the Democrats were better at this game, they would take Trump’s ‘explanation’ of the Declaration of Independence and run it as a 30-second ad, without comment, on every station they could find,” said journalist and columnist Jay Bookman.

The White House apparently took no issue with the President’s apparent lack of understanding of one of America’s most important founding documents. The official White House Rapid Response team posted the video from his ABC News interview that includes Trump’s unique explanation of the Declaration of Independence.

Watch the video below or at this link.

WATCH: @POTUS shows off his redecorating of the Oval Office, including portraits of great American presidents and the Declaration of Independence 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/hxK6SVWjuQ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 30, 2025

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