He May Be Donald Trump’s Only Real Friend. He’s Quietly Transforming the World.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File, and Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Politics The Player In the first Trump administration, he was barely there. Now he’s transforming the president’s world. Who is Steve Witkoff, really? July 22, 20265:45 AM I remember first seeing Steve Witkoff in person in May 2024, when he was spending a disproportionate amount of time in a criminal courtroom in Lower Manhattan that had seen better days. Like many of us, he was there to watch then-former President Donald Trump stand trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in the so-called hush money trial. Witkoff sat in a row of hard wooden benches often occupied by people aiming to make public displays of support for Trump—J.D. Vance, Douglas Burgum,