The global diplomatic goals of the U.S. used to be handled by a vast corps of skilled professionals, but under Trump, virtually all overseas goals are in the hands of one "witless" envoy, as James Ball wrote for The i Paper, possibly because he has a background "almost identical" to the president's.

Ball broke down Steve Witkoff's unlikely and alarming ascent in a scathing analysis from Wednesday. Initially chosen to oversee an Israeli ceasefire deal in Gaza, he was later upgraded to overseeing all missions in the Middle East, including brokering a deal to defuse tensions with Iran.

Now, he is also handling talks to end the years-long war between Russia and Ukraine. This high-stakes job has seen him make many alarming breaks from standard diplomatic procedures, such as meeting solo with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insisting that he trusts the Kremlin's English interpreters. These decisions overwhelmingly give Russia an upper hand, something Witkoff might not mind, Ball noted, as he has previously praised Putin and said that he does not "regard him as a bad guy."

"Is he amoral, or just incompetent?" Ball asked. "Usually, sensitive diplomatic negotiations are left to people with huge experience of the areas in which they operate. Typically, the lead negotiator has lived and worked in the region for decades, speaks the relevant languages, and has relationships with key power brokers in the various factions involved. They know the history, the resentments, the red lines. The hope is they can leverage that into the patient drudgework of diplomacy, dragging often reluctant parties over the line to a deal none of them will love, but that they can all live with."

Witkoff cannot meet that standard for all the missions he has been tasked with, Ball argued, because "No one on the planet has intimate experience of Israel, Gaza, Iran, Russia and Ukraine." That matter is made by the fact that the billionaire has had no diplomatic experience at all prior to his appointment as Trump's "Special Envoy for Peace Missions." The president, Ball suggested, seemed to pick him because of their strikingly similar professional backgrounds.

"His background is almost identical to Trump’s – Witkoff is a billionaire who made his money through real estate deals," Ball explained. "His portfolio is even more U.S.-focused than the President’s, and the handful of major deals his company closed outside the U.S. were in London. Witkoff knows the world of US real estate, and little else."

With "the witless Witkoff" now handling the Russia-Ukraine peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Ball wrote that Trump has made him all of Europe's problem, with no regard for the consequences of his failure.

"It is Ukrainians first, and then Europeans, who will pay with their lives if Witkoff screws up," Ball wrote. "Americans will sit a continent away and pretend it’s not their problem if it blows up in their faces."

A bombshell Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly backed a massive $500 million investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture months before the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology.

According to the Journal’s sources, lieutenants of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a deal in early 2025 to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Documents reviewed by the Journal showed that the buyers in the deal agreed to “pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities,” while “at least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with” the Witkoff family.

Weeks after green lighting the investment into the Trump crypto venture, Tahnoon met directly with President Donald Trump and Witkoff in the White House, where he reportedly expressed interest in working with the US on AI-related technology.

Two months after this, the Journal noted, “the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.”

Tahnoon in the past had tried to get US officials to give the UAE access to the chips, but was rebuffed on concerns that the cutting-edge technology could be passed along to top US geopolitical rival China, wrote the Journal.

Many observers expressed shock at the Journal’s report, with some critics saying that it showed Trump and his associates were engaging in a criminal bribery scheme.

“This was a bribe,” wrote Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, in a social media post. “UAE royals gave the Trump family $500 million, and Trump, in his presidential capacity, gave them access to tightly guarded American AI chips. The most powerful person on the planet, also happens to be the most shamelessly corrupt.”

Jesse Eisinger, reporter and editor at ProPublica, argued that the Abu Dhabi investment into the Trump cypto firm “should rank among the greatest US scandals ever.”

Democratic strategist David Axelrod also said that the scope of the Trump crypto investment scandal was historic in nature.

“In any other time or presidency, this story... would be an earthquake of a scandal,” he wrote. “The size, scope and implications of it are unprecedented and mind-boggling.”

Tommy Vietor, co-host of “Pod Save America,” struggled to wrap his head around the scale of corruption on display.

“How do you add up the cost of corruption this massive?” he wondered. “It’s not just that Trump is selling advanced AI tech to the highest bidder, national security be damned. Its that he’s tapped that doofus Steve Witkoff as an international emissary so his son Zach Witkoff can mop up bribes.”

Former Rep. Tom Malinkowski (D-NJ) warned the Trump and his associates that they could wind up paying a severe price for their deal with the UAE.

“If a future administration finds that such payments to the Trump family were acts of corruption,” he wrote, “these people could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, and the assets in the US could potentially be frozen.”

As his much-touted peace deals begin to look more and more "fragile," Donald Trump is set to host major world leaders at two "desperate" high-stakes meetings at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a report from The Daily Beast.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit the president at his Florida resort on Sunday to discuss the proposed peace plan blueprint for the ongoing war with Russia, which invaded neighboring Ukraine nearly four years ago. Trump boasted on the 2024 campaign trail that he would be able to end the conflict on "day one" if reelected, but an actual peace deal has proved elusive and complicated during his first year back.

Ukraine has largely balked at recent deals that would have required it to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia. The terms of one proposed deal were so favorable to Russia, in fact, that some GOP lawmakers wondered if the plan had been entirely written by the Kremlin. Despite those issues, allies close to Zelensky believe that negotiations for a peace deal "have entered a critical phase," as Trump previously said he would not meet with the Ukrainian president until a deal was close.

The following day, on Monday, Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the "sprawling" proposed peace plan for ending Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Among its 20 points, the Daily Beast explained, the plan will include introducing "a new Palestinian technocratic government, and an international stabilization force on the ground." Trump is reportedly looking to "lock in Netanyahu’s support for the proposed "Board of Peace," which the administration hopes to unveil at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

Netanyahu has reportedly taken issue with various aspects of the proposal, largely brokered by Trump official Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. This includes issues with "demilitarization ideas, the structure of the technocratic cabinet, the makeup of the stabilization force, and the prominent roles proposed for Qatar and Turkey." One source close to the prime minister believes this meeting will see him attempt to convince Trump to pull away from Kushner and Witkoff's ideas. A White House source stated that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Kushner, Witkoff, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles have all recently begun to sour on Netanyahu, making an appeal to Trump one of the last hands he has left to play.

“It’s JD, Marco, Jared, Steve, Susie. He has lost them," the White House source said. "The only one he has left is the president."

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” On Wednesday, the White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

On Friday, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

Both Trump’s absurd renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the equally absurd FIFA award are parts of Trump’s campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted since Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009 (anything Obama got credited with, Trump wants to discredit or match).

Too late for this year. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado of Venezuela “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” (The prize is awarded annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, in a formal ceremony at the Oslo City Hall. Trump has his eye on the 2026 prize.)

Ironically, Trump has declared war on Venezuela, without congressional authorization — causing the death so far of at least 87 people bombed by American military jets targeting vessels allegedly carrying drugs into the United States.

Those 87 include two people who barely survived a first bombing, only to be bombed again. (Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who saw a video of the second strike in a closed-door briefing, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday that the two survivors “were barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities,” when the follow-up strike took place.)

Trump has designated a Venezuelan criminal group — Cartel de los Soles — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization led by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Yet analysts have pointed out that the Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but an umbrella term used to describe corrupt Venezuelan officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through the country.

Could it be that Trump wants access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves?

He doesn’t seem to be particularly upset about cocaine trafficking. While he’s bombing small vessels in the Caribbean allegedly for smuggling fentanyl into the United States, Trump is pardoning Honduras’ former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of trafficking large amounts of cocaine into the United States.

Trump is also in the process of giving eastern Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf pal and itinerant diplomat, has offered Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, a plan for carving up disputed territory in a way likely to appeal to Putin.

As revealed in a transcript of a recent meeting, Witkoff told Ushakov, “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere.”

Witkoff also advised Ushakov on how Putin can get the best deal for Russia — by having Putin flatter America’s narcissist-in-chief:

”Make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement [in Gaza], that you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen.”

Ushakov responded:

“Hey Steve, I agree with you that he will congratulate, he will say that Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so-and-so. That he will say.”

While Witkoff has been seeking a “peace” deal in Ukraine by giving Putin much of what Putin wants, Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner have been seeking billions of dollars in business deals with Russia. It’s a brazen conflict of interest.

Witkoff spoke on the record to The Wall Street Journal, characterizing the talks with Russia over oil, gas, and rare-earth minerals as “a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

Everyone’s thriving, that is, except Ukrainians and those conscripted into the Russian army.

Other potential beneficiaries of the deal include ExxonMobil, along with a Trump donor and college pal of Donald Trump Jr. with the improbable name Gentry Beach. Beach hopes to acquire a 9.9 percent stake in a Russian Arctic gas project.

Meanwhile, Trump has allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to continue bombing Gaza, even after declaring a ceasefire there.

Peace prize? Please.

Trump is taking credit for achieving “peace” between nations that weren’t even at war.

He’s also trying to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.

And he’s conjuring up “enemies within” the United States as pretexts for prosecuting political opponents, attacking American universities, and attempting to stifle media criticism of himself and his administration.

According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Prize is awarded to the person who in the preceding year “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Nobel’s will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.

Memo to the Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel committee: No president in American history deserves the Nobel Peace Prize less than does Donald J. Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

President Donald Trump’s top adviser Steve Bannon is ensnared in a cryptocurrency scandal — although in Bannon’s case, the controversy comes with a literally profane twist.

A Missouri investor named Andrew Barr is suing Bannon over a failed cryptocoin called “F—— Joe Biden” (FJB), according to The Bulwark. Barr alleges that he lost almost $59,000 investing in the FJB coin and is seeking to sue Bannon in a class action suit that would also include MAGA bigwigs like political operative Boris Epshteyn. Barr also claims that Bannon and the other FJB executives demanded an unusually high 8 percent fee on transactions on the grounds that 5 percent would go to charitable donations like veterans’ care, but has not lived up to that promise.

The FJB coin, which was supposedly going to one day power an “uncancelable” economy under Trump, plummeted in value under Bannon’s and Epshteyn’s management. The lawsuit also alleges that $2.7 million in value intended to go to charity or marketing has instead vanished unaccounted for. Despite enlisting top MAGA figures like Benny Johnson and Jack Posobiec to promote the coin, the FJB coin never became a lucrative venture. Finally the lawsuit points to public discussions among FJB executives which suggest they were aware something was amiss with their financial product.

“Top coin administrator Sarah Abdul and programmer Chase Bailey offered their lament over an alleged $120,000 payment from FJB to Epshteyn’s friends for lackluster services,” The Bulwark reported regarding a Discord conversation among FJB executives. “But, they concluded, it was ‘drops in the bucket’ compared to more serious financial mismanagement, which they didn’t spell out. Abdul told Bailey the management of the coin’s money was ‘worse than I ever imagined,’ according to the lawsuit.”

The Bulwark quoted Bailey as replying, “This looks sooooo neglegent [sic].”

This is not the first time Trump and his administration’s figures have gotten involved in cryptocurrency scandals. The Abu Dhabi royal family invested $500 million in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency coin; later, after Trump became president, the United Arab Emirates received access to highly sensitive AI technology. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal involved “pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities” and at the same time “at least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with” the family of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Democratic strategist David Axelrod described this as “an earthquake of a scandal” while Protect Democracy director Ian Bassin commented “amazingly, this has all but fallen out of the news."

In addition to Trump himself, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche was accused by the ethics watchdog Campaign Legal Center of owning at least $159,000 in cryptocurrency assets when he ordered an end to all investigations into cryptocurrency companies. Blanche had previously signed an ethics agreement promising to dump his cryptocurrency holdings within 90 days of being confirmed, but instead did not divest until more than a month after his cryptocurrency memo. Even then he did so transferring them to his adult children and a grandchild, which though legal skirts the spirit of the law.

Despite the Trump administration’s abundant promises that cryptocurrency would lead to immense profits, the market has fallen more than 50 percent since its October peak with no end in sight.

“I’ve never seen people so dispirited about the crypto industry before, even at the lowest lows," Nic Carter, founding partner of the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures, told Politico. "Psychologically, this feels really hard for people to handle.”

Carter later added, “The rapture didn’t happen, we’re just stuck here on Earth and it sucks.”

In September 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed an intergovernmental organized that would be called the Board of Peace and led by the United States. And its stated goal was to "promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict" — including Gaza.

Around 60 countries were invited to join, and Trump announced its formation on his Truth Social platform on January 15. But according to Bloomberg News reporters Alex Wickham and Alberto Nardelli, the Board of Peace is "off to a rough start" — as it is being "questioned by Europe, criticized by Israel and celebrated by friends of the Kremlin."

"Trump wants the full constitution and remit of the committee signed in Davos on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter," Wickham and Nardelli report in an article published on January 19. "But some elements of the small print have left invitees wondering whether to accept."

Trump is demanding that countries pay $1 billion in U.S. currency in order to join — a demand that, according to Wickham and Nardelli "blindsided world leaders and left many bewildered."

"Potential members of the board — conceived last year as a Trump-headed body to oversee the redevelopment of post-war Gaza — began to filter out over the weekend," the Bloomberg News reporters explain. "Invitees include world leaders from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Much of the concern centers on the wording of the peace board's charter, seen by Bloomberg, which appears to place its ultimate decision-making power with Trump."

Wickham and Nardelli continue, "That raises many questions — not least over where the payments for long-term membership would go, the people said…. Argentina's Javier Milei confirmed he'll become a founding member and Italy's Giorgia Meloni has pitched herself as a mediator who is 'ready to do our part.' Former British premier Tony Blair, who was appointed as an executive to the board, is playing a key role behind the scenes along with Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the people familiar with the situation added."

Read the full Bloomberg News article at this link (subscription required).