Simon Marks: 'My worries about US bargaining with Russia'

If you can cast your mind back to the halcyon moments of earlier this week, you will have heard here on LBC about the shameful and disgraceful comments that were made at the Kremlin by Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy. If you missed it, or if you just want to hear it again because you still can't quite believe it, here's a quick reprise. Mr Witkoff sat in the Kremlin and, without any hint of irony, paid fulsome tribute to the brutal Russian dictator Vladimir Putin because President Putin had just agreed to allow an American prisoner to go free. A 74-year-old man, Stephen Hubbard, who spent the last four years in the Putin gulag after being convicted at an entirely closed trial of being a mercenary for Ukraine. So here's what Mr. Witkoff thought it was appropriate to say on Wednesday. You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being an humanitarian. you are a humanitarian also sir and I salute that I commend you and I thank you again ah yes Vladimir Putin the great humanitarian who of course when he's not been in the mood to be a paragon of humanitarian virtue has overseen the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Ukraine in Chechnya in Syria in parts of Africa on the streets of Salisbury even and in his own backyard at home in Russia When Mr. Witkoff spoke on Wednesday, he did not appear to be under any duress. The comments were made voluntarily. And why not? Because after all, President Trump on social media had claimed, and I quote, The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return for Mr. Hubbard's release. It was, he claimed, an unprecedented situation for Russia. There was no swap necessary for this release. except it turns out that is a blatant lie first as we observed on lbc earlier in the week there had already been trebles all round at the kremlin over trump's betrayal of ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky over the past 10 days his suspension of some intelligent sharing with kiev his slowdown of weapons procurement and the still unexplained problems the ukrainians suddenly started having with Elon Musk's Starlink and Starshield communication systems that control their weapons. But when President Trump posted that message on his social media account claiming again there was no swap necessary for this release, he knew that not to be true. As became clear on Wednesday night when he was questioned on his way to a campaign rally in South Carolina by CNN's caitlyn collins she wondered if the candidate he was heading out to support the sister of the late senator lindsey graham the man who literally wrote the russia sanctions legislation that trump recently refused to enforce had she made any representations on her late brother's behalf to america's commander-in-chief here's what happened what has she said to you about lifting those sanctions on russia that her brother fought so hard for well i'll tell you the interesting thing, as you know. We have a gentleman coming home from Russia that they've been after for years. He was captured or taken during the Biden administration. It wouldn't have happened if I were president, but he was taken. And he's a highly respected man, Mr. Hubbard, Stephen Hubbard. And we were in the midst of negotiating, and a lot of stupid people said, and people that don't know how life works they said why aren't you putting russia's sanctions on all this in the midst of a negotiation to try and get a long-term hostage back from but you said you didn't give russia anything in exchange for his release you would not have mr hubbard coming so you did give him something in exchange for the release let's just pause him there because old fake news cnn had just stumbled across a major exclusive the president talking himself into trouble by making it clear that there absolutely had been a quid pro quo with vladimir putin i'll release mr hubbard from my gulag provided you don't impose those pesky new sanctions on me even though they were overwhelmingly backed by your fellow republicans in congress there was more i had a very good and very fast negotiation with president putin if you were to put those sanctions on or whatever you want to call him you could forget about him you'd never see him again he'd be back in jail for 25 years. The other thing, very important, we're negotiating with Russia right now on Ukraine. We are maybe close to a deal for the first time in a long time. We're maybe close to a deal. When you're close to a deal and you have very delicate negotiations, you don't put sanctions on. And the other thing, we have decimated Iran. Russia has had very little input into Iran. they have, certainly they could have done a lot more, but I'm not sure they did almost anything. That's something that you have to take into consideration also. So we've beaten Iran, we continue to beat Iran, and Russia and China, frankly, have not been certainly much of a player, and we appreciate that. So the people that say that, oh, let's put sanctions on, you know, I have the right to do them at any day. But you're saying you lifted the sanctions in exchange for his release, right, Mr. President? You don't know what you're talking about. She might work for CNN, but she ain't no dummy, because as Caitlin Collins observed, the president was absolutely saying he had swerved the sanctions as part of a very good and very fast negotiation with Vladimir Putin. And look, I'm delighted Mr Hubbard is back on US soil. I do worry, though, that Vladimir Putin will soon replenish his gulag with a couple of fresh Americans on Russian soil who may end up at some point becoming very useful to him as future bargaining chips because he has certainly done that before. I want to leave the last word not with men who call Vladimir Putin a humanitarian or a president who lied to his own countrymen about the nature of Mr Hubbard's release but instead with Senator Lindsey Graham who died less than 48 hours after making this final public appearance at the end of a visit to Kiev in July. he went to his grave thinking that he had finally talked Donald Trump into taking a tough line with Vladimir Putin. I'm pleased to announce, as of about 30 minutes ago, we've reached agreement with the White House on a version of the Russian sanctions bill that they will support. It means it's going to become law. So when I get back to Washington, I'm going to go with Senator Blumenthal to the Republican and Democratic leader to see if we can find time to move this Russian sanctions package that would give tools to President Trump to help end this war. So when Defense Secretary Wes Streeting talks, as he did in his Thursday interview with LBC's Natasha Clark, about the UK's determination to bring Trump and Zelensky back together, he really should have those words of Senator Graham ringing in his ears. And he should recognize that in America, the UK is now dealing with a country that is propping up Putin. There is no way back from that, and the Prime Minister would be kidding himself to think differently.