U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a swift end to the war in Ukraine. In the process, he’s often bashed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—including in a raucous Oval Office meeting—and his administration temporarily froze aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv. By contrast, Trump and his advisors have frequently echoed the Kremlin’s talking points on the war, leading critics to accuse the White House of siding with Moscow.

That pattern appeared to shift in recent days, as Trump expressed anger with Russian President Vladimir Putin and threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil amid a lack of progress in reaching a peace deal.

But Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, one of the president’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, told Foreign Policy in an interview that Trump is only “feigning indignation” with Putin. He said that “Putin has Trump’s number” and views him as “a child who can be easily controlled and manipulated.”

Schiff is a California Democrat who served as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, which was tied to the president’s handling of relations with Ukraine. He said the Trump administration has “taken exactly the wrong approach if we wanted a responsible end to the war.”

Schiff also discussed what happens next with Signalgate and why he believes Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, whom he refers to as the “real secretary of state,” is dangerous.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Foreign Policy: What’s your take on Trump’s approach to reaching a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia so far?

Adam Schiff: Well, first of all, it began with the utter betrayal of Ukraine.

It’s the most shameful exhibition in American foreign policy in decades: the horrendous treatment he’s given Zelensky and our Ukrainian allies, the suspension of military and intelligence aid—and who knows what state that’s in now. Vis-à-vis Russia, his sycophantic fondness for the Kremlin dictator. The easy degree to which the Kremlin manipulates both Trump and Witkoff.

Watching Witkoff gush about Putin giving Trump a portrait of himself or praying for Trump—it’s obscene, and it’s so dangerously naive.

The president is feigning indignation with Russia right now. He has no credibility. His threats of tariffs on Russia—given his inconsistent application of tariffs and the on-again, off-again nature of them—don’t make them a potent threat.

Putin has Trump’s number. Even if Trump were momentarily inclined to punish Russia, all Putin has to do is say a few things that are nice about Trump and he can get Trump to back up.

I don’t think we can have any confidence in the president’s willingness or ability to stand up to Putin. He admires him too much. He’s afraid of him for reasons we don’t fully understand. Maybe it’s just the nature of his love of dictatorship or Trump’s fondness for money and the hope to have a Moscow Trump Tower one day.

FP: So, is it safe to say Putin is playing games with Trump right now?

AS: Putin views Trump as a child who can be easily controlled and manipulated, and sadly he is right in that analysis.

FP: But Trump’s approach aside, is it time to end the war in Ukraine, and under what terms?

AS: We all want an end to the fighting, but the terms matter a great deal. We don’t want the war to end with Ukraine surrendering its sovereignty or its territorial integrity.

The way to have achieved a meaningful peace that deters further Russian aggression was not by attacking Ukraine and withholding military, diplomatic, and intelligence support, it was by providing stronger support and letting Russia know that they were fighting a losing struggle that was going to become more burdensome to them the longer it went on.

We’ve taken exactly the wrong approach if we wanted a responsible end to the war and made it much more likely that Russia can succeed with its objectives.

The administration says, and the worldwide threats analysis underscores this, that China is our top national threat and we need to do more to strengthen Taiwan and increase deterrence. But everything they’re doing to undermine Ukraine has undermined deterrence vis-à-vis China. China has to understand now that with Trump as president, the U.S. is nothing more than a transactional nation. And we’ll look at Taiwan through the prism Trump looks at Ukraine, which is do they have anything of value economically that we can extort? Otherwise you’re on your own.

FP: You recently posted a video about Witkoff being the “real secretary of state.” Can you expand on why you think he’s dangerous?

AS: Most principally because if you take his own statements at face value, Witkoff has been completely duped by Putin into believing that Putin could be trusted, that Putin is a man of his word, that Putin wants peace, and that Putin’s view of Trump is anything but that of puppet master and puppet.

At a time when they’re trying to encourage negotiations, he’s undermining Ukraine by blaming it for the initiation of the war and by suggesting that phony referenda were somehow meaningful. What he’s doing is disastrous for our foreign policy, and he’s clearly having a far greater role in both the Middle East and Russia than the secretary of state is.

FP: The White House says it’s time to move forward from Signalgate and that the case is closed, but this is obviously still a major concern in Washington amid bipartisan calls for investigations. Who should be investigating this?

AS: Congress should certainly be conducting an investigation, and we ought to have an independent inspector general doing an investigation. I don’t know if that exists anymore in the Trump administration, though. It certainly shouldn’t be investigated by [National Security Advisor Mike] Waltz or anyone else that was involved in the improper conduct. But there are any number of unanswered questions, and the most significant of which is how many other chats like this have been going on in an unsecured commercial app?

I think we have to assume that some of these conversations may have been accessed by adversaries. So, what work do we now have to do to protect the sources that might have been exposed? And none of that background can be done by the people who are implicated in this chat.

FP: What are your biggest concerns surrounding Signalgate?

AS: I would start with the most proximate concern, which is that whatever sources we had in Yemen, whether they were human or signals, may have been compromised by these disclosures. The Houthis are undoubtedly trying to figure out whether there was a human source in the girlfriend’s building, or whether it was the girlfriend, or whether there was a technical source. My most immediate concern is whether we may have lost sources in Yemen, and therefore compromised future operations in Yemen.

But more broadly, our allies have to look at this and think, once again, the Trump administration cannot be trusted with sensitive intelligence because they’re going to be reckless in its handling.

I also worry that it is extremely unlikely this was the first time they set up a Signal chat like this. And if some of the public reporting is correct, that there were other Signal chats talking about the war in Ukraine, and the Russians were able to penetrate those phones, then the Russians know what our thinking is, how we hope to negotiate a cease-fire, what pressure we’re willing to put on Ukraine or on Russia, what is real and what is bluster or bluff. So, they may have just impeded their own efforts to get to a cease-fire in that conflict.

FP: You were chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for years. Have you spoken with members of the intelligence community who are alarmed by what happened?

AS: I’ve certainly talked to folks who are in contact with the IC [intelligence community], and there’s so much concern right now over a whole range of things, and not the least of which is the purging of the workforce, the fact that they’re trying to ferret out people who are not full-on MAGA, that people are leaving of their own volition, and the people that you most want to stay are leaving—and they tend to be the people that can lead because they’re in demand.

You’re seeing a potential hollowing out of the IC, of the career professionals, and you may just see a long-lasting impact in the politicization of the IC.

There’s probably never been a more challenging time for people in the intelligence community.