President Donald Trump promised to stop the Ukraine-Russia war shortly after taking office, but it’s been almost a year since he was sworn in, and the war rages on.
There have been several starts and stops in this latest round of peace talks, including allegations that special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was pro-Russia and coached his Russian counterpart on how to woo Trump.
Enter: Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The former Russia hawk has been in peace talks, which both sides say have been productive, with Ukrainian officials in Geneva and Miami. The new deal is reportedly more favorable to Ukraine than the original 28-point plan that was introduced.
So, can Marco Rubio bring about an end to this war? Today, Explained co-host Astead Herndon asked Washington Post reporter John Hudson just what kind of role Rubio is playing here.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What has been Rubio’s role in this, and how should we see his lane in these Ukraine peace talks versus people like Witkoff or Kushner?
He’s taken an increasingly prominent role, at the moment when things were looking probably the messiest earlier last month.
Essentially, when Witkoff had his discussions with his Russian counterparts and some of his plan leaked – this 28-point plan, which a lot of Republicans and Democrats balked at as being too favorable towards Russia — that’s when Trump tapped Rubio, and Rubio came in. He met with the Ukrainians in Geneva, and he inched the deal slightly more in favor of the Ukrainians.
Some important things were taken out of the 28-point plan. For instance, there was a ban on Ukraine ever entering NATO. There were different restrictions on Ukraine’s military that were included in that deal. Those were watered-down and taken away after Rubio met with the Ukrainians.
And so, in general, what his role has been is trying to make what Witkoff started negotiating with the Russians into a more palatable form.
It seems as if Rubio was brought in after the blowback from some of that Witkoff plan leaking. Also, Rubio seems to have a more traditional Republican foreign policy view, and one that seems to incorporate more Ukrainian desires.
That’s exactly right.
Rubio is your traditional foreign policy hawk. His natural predisposition is to be extremely suspicious of Russia, hawkish towards Russia — never really trusting its motives — and to be extremely supportive of traditional US allies, which the Ukrainians would be considered in this respect.
How should we think about this Rubio view of the world, and how does that fit in with this administration, which has embraced so much situational isolation?
I think that,going into the formation of this administration, that was the question everybody had. It used to be difficult to find a war that Rubio was not interested in the United States getting involved in.; that was his stock and trade.
What I’ll say is he’s still that man, and those are still his perspectives, but he has had to suppress a lot of those urges in taking this job. And, in many ways, he has suppressed that while looking at the world as an entire global chess board.
So, yes, he would like an extremely hawkish policy on Venezuela. He’d like it in the Middle East, and he’d like it in Europe. But where does it matter more? I think, for him, Latin America is more important. But, on Russia and Europe issues in general, I can tell you that he — immediately upon coming into office — started engaging with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. And from all of the readouts that I’ve gotten from those conversations, it has been pragmatic.
This evolution of Marco Rubio happened very early on, and he’s been quite amenable to Trump’s priorities and trying to be a helpful facilitator and not push Trump where he is uncomfortable being pushed on.
Last week, a bipartisan group of senators came out and said that Rubio told them that a 28-point piece plan that the US was pushing Ukraine to accept was actually written by Russia. What happened there?
What I attribute it to is just having all of these cooks in the kitchen.
And when he was brought in, it was at a sort of peak moment when the Trump administration, and Steve Witkoff, in particular, were criticized for putting together a deal that was very pro-Russian.
And, piling on all of this, there was a security conference happening in Canada, and some lawmakers on-record during panels said that, in fact, Rubio himself told them that this was a straight-up Russian wishlist. Rubio has since denied that; he got on the phone with those senators after they said it and said, “no, you misinterpreted what I said.”
It was a very ugly look for the administration, and nobody really had a lot of confidence in the process at that point. And these questions continue to dog the administration to this day.
What should we expect from the talks this week?
The smart money is on the Russians having a pretty negative reaction to what they’re seeing, but possibly not negative enough to make Trump angry. They have tried to really walk the fence when it comes to that.
What we need to understand is: How much has Marco Rubio shifted this deal in the favor of the Ukrainians? If he shifted it too far in favor of Kyiv, we’re expected to see a negative reaction from the Russians.
At the same time, Ukraine is embroiled in a corruption scandal. It’s possible that they may have softened their position significantly out of fear that the Trump administration might cut them off completely in terms of military and intelligence support.
