Secretary of State Marco Rubio broke with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Friday in an extraordinary attack on the White House, which has stalled in its peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
Frustrated at the lack of progress in ceasefire negotiations, Rubio said that the United States could “move on” from efforts to reach a ceasefire in “a matter of days.”
In pointed criticism of the way the president has conducted his public talks, the secretary of State said that “when you start negotiating these things through the media, they fall apart” during a meeting in Paris.
Although Rubio didn’t explain what he meant, America’s attempts to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine have stumbled after Trump and Vance’s televised Oval Office tirade against Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28. The impetus in the negotiations has never recovered.
The split has led to speculation that Rubio, who swapped insults with Trump when he challenged him for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, could be the first victim of a Cabinet reshuffle.
The state Secretary is a traditional Republican who has courted the party’s MAGA loyalists since being brought into the administration, but he is increasingly seen as out of step with Trump’s hard-line agenda. MAGA leaders have criticized him for trying to retain some programs at the United States Agency for International Development, and outspoken Trump supporter (and conspiracy theorist) Laura Loomer has taken sides against him on social media.
Hours after Rubio’s remarks, Vance contradicted the secretary of State after arriving in Rome to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, telling reporters: “We do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this brutal war to a close.”
Speaking at the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said he was still “hopeful of getting it done.”
“I think we have a good chance of solving the problem,” he said, adding that he agreed with Rubio and wanted to strike a deal “quickly” but didn’t have a “specific matter of days” in mind.
Trump vowed to end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House. Weeks into his presidency, a phone conversation between the president and Russian President Vladimir Putin was heralded as a major breakthrough. But after the Zelensky pile-on in the White House, the talks hit an impasse.
Negotiations with Ukraine and European officials broke off on Friday, with an agreement to meet again in London next week. Rubio hinted that it may be the last chance saloon for a negotiated peace.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” Rubio said. “It’s not our war. We have other priorities to focus on.”
Critics claim that Trump had made Ukraine his war by bringing Putin back into the fold and making achieving peace a priority, discussing the progress of talks at every opportunity.
Back in Washington, Rubio’s decision to axe Peter Marocco, the Trump official who first dismantled USAID, caused a meltdown in MAGA circles and consternation among White House advisers.
According to Politico, Rubio ordered Marocco’s abrupt termination because of his “bulldozer operating style” and disagreements between the two men.
MAGA supporters view Rubio’s actions as disruptive to the president’s government-slashing agenda at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“He’s really not a MAGA guy, he’s a neocon,“ a Trump ally told Politico, adding that Rubio’s move “is gonna bite him.”
During the 2016 primaries, Trump repeatedly referred to Rubio’s profuse sweating.
There was one famous exchange in which Rubio hit back, saying: “He’s always calling me ‘Little Marco,’ and I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s, like, 6’2′‘, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’2.
“And you know what they say about men with small hands?” he told a rally in Virginia. “You can’t trust them.”
At the next debate involving the two men, Trump insisted there was no correlation between his hands and any other body part. “I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee it,” he said.
Nine years later, Trump picked Rubio as his top diplomat, perhaps impressed by his ability to navigate their relationship.
But now Rubio is sweating again over his job.
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