As recently as Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Fox News Radio about the diplomatic efforts surrounding the war in Ukraine, and while the Florida Republican insisted the Trump administration had made progress, the nation’s chief diplomat sounded a candid note about the road ahead.
“We’re not close to peace,” Rubio said.
A day later, as The Associated Press noted, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said largely the opposite.
‘I can say we are on the 10th yard line of peace,’ Leavitt said. ‘And we’ve never been closer to a peace deal than we are in this moment. And the president, as you know, is determined to get one done.’
Last week, something similar happened. Rubio spoke to reporters at a G7 summit and said categorically, in reference to Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies, “There’s not a trade war.” The comment was obviously in conflict with the White House’s Kevin Hassett, who said that the president had, in fact, launched a trade war.
Unfortunately, the list doesn’t end there. Last month, after the administration brought home Marc Fogel to the United States after years of imprisonment in Russia, Rubio boasted, in reference to Fogel’s release, “I think it’s also important to note it was not in return for anything.”
That was soon contradicted by — you guessed it — his colleagues at the White House, who conceded that U.S. officials had to make concessions to make the deal happen.
The lack of message discipline is an obvious problem, but just as notable is the apparent fact that the secretary of state, roughly two months into his beleaguered tenure, is struggling to remain on the same page as Team Trump.
I’m reminded anew of a recent Vanity Fair report, which noted, “Rubio is privately frustrated that Trump has effectively sidelined him. According to four prominent Republicans close to the White House, Rubio … has told people he is upset by his lack of foreign policy influence despite being, on paper at least, the administration’s top diplomat.”
The article from Gabriel Sherman added that Rubio “is often the last to know when foreign policy decisions are made in the White House.” While the report hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, it’s very easy to believe — not just because Rubio appears to disagree with Trump on a great many key issues, but also because the secretary of state keeps saying things in public that conflict with the White House’s stated positions. It dovetails with a recent Politico report that noted members of Congress who believe Rubio “does not have the president’s ear.” The week before Inauguration Day, Politico published an analysis that predicted Rubio wasn’t “likely to last long” in his position. Two months later, its relevance lingers.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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