SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It has been a little more than a week since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Vice President JD Vance was in the meeting, too, and so was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The nation's top diplomat was sitting on an Oval Office couch, mostly silent, as Trump and Vance berated the Ukrainian leader, and in the process, made it clear just how much of the established global order they are ready to upend – an order that for most of his career, Rubio has defended and worked to help hold up.
So what changed and what do those changes mean? To answer these questions, we're going to talk to professor of international politics at Tufts University's Fletcher School, Daniel Drezner. Welcome to the show.
DANIEL DREZNER: Thank you.
DETROW: Let's start by rewinding just a little bit. You wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about Rubio's political evolution back in December before he took office. And you asked which Marco Rubio is going to show up for the job – the democracy-promoting optimist or more inward-looking, antiglobal pessimist. A month in, do you feel like you have a verdict?
DREZNER: Oh, yeah, it seems pretty obvious. The Rubio that's shown up is the one that will defer to Trump's America First image, the one that will close embassies and consulates, the one that, according to widespread reports, has yet to really push back on any of Trump's foreign policy instincts.
DETROW: Does that surprise you?
DREZNER: Not really. You know, Marco Rubio did articulate a more democracy-promoting, human rights-promoting foreign policy vision when he ran for president in 2016, and he lost. And he not only lost, but Donald Trump humiliated him in a lot of ways on the campaign stage. Rubio is a lot of things, but one thing is a political survivor, and he survived Trump's first term and has managed to get into the good graces of Trump over the last 10 years.
And the way he survived is by altering his world view. He has demonstrated tremendous ideological flexibility, and by doing so, was, you know, considered for vice president and eventually was given the secretary of state position. And I'm sure Rubio thought of this as potentially a stepping stone to run for president again or certainly, you know, an action that would give him the prestige of traditional secretaries of state.
DETROW: You know, Marco Rubio is not the only Republican, by far, to change big positions and align them with what President Trump is promoting. But I think this particular issue of Ukraine – and you have that visual that rocketed around the internet…
DREZNER: Yeah.
DETROW: …Of Rubio kind of slumped into the couch, almost like, absorbing into the couch, like the Homer Simpson meme, you know?
DREZNER: Yes, yes (laughter).
DETROW: Like, this particular issue of Ukraine – Rubio and so many other Republicans were so out there in terms of defending this country, standing up for this country, making sure the United States was continuing to fund this country. Then you see how he tweets about what happened in the Oval Office afterwards, saying President Trump was standing up for the United States. That particular issue, I feel like, is a hard one to square. How do you feel about it?
DREZNER: I think there are two things about Rubio that make it particularly noticeable for him. The first is that, as that Oval Office meeting demonstrated, he has the world's worst poker face. It was obvious that this was not something he wanted to see happen. Anyone looking at the body language could tell why that is – and because Rubio's smart enough to know what the implications were of Trump berating Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. You know, to be fair, Rubio did vote against Ukraine aid back in 2024 because of claims that you wanted to prioritize, focus on the Southern border.
DETROW: There's this long line of various high-profile cabinet secretaries who more traditional Republicans hope can be a moderating influence. I think the first secretary of state under Trump, Rex Tillerson, is a good example of that. And he…
DREZNER: Yeah.
DETROW: …Ended up being humiliated when he was fired…
DREZNER: Yep.
DETROW: …And then mocked by President Trump and others in the administration. How much influence can you have over foreign policy when you're a secretary of state who is not seemingly one of the key decision-makers in the presidency?
DREZNER: Not much. It doesn't end well. Secretaries of state, in some ways, whether they are considered influential or not is, in part, a function of the relationship and trust they have with the president. This is how James Baker was considered an outstanding secretary of state under George H. W. Bush, for example, or George Shultz, to some extent, under Ronald Reagan.
On the other hand, secretaries of state who have been considered on the outside looking in – like, let's say, Colin Powell during George W. Bush's first term – generally are not given high marks by historians. And so the problem that Rubio has is not just that he has little influence, it's that if he tried to exercise any influence, Trump would probably tweet just a long list of scorn headed towards Rubio or fire him.
DETROW: So what does that mean for policy?
DREZNER: What it means for policy is that – don't look to Marco Rubio as an indicator for what foreign policy is going to look like. Marco Rubio will be the endorser. He will try to, perhaps, you know, offer a patina of rationality for why Trump is doing what he's doing. But the truth is, is that in this administration, foreign policy is being run from the White House and, in particular, the Oval Office.
DETROW: That's Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University. Thank you so much.
DREZNER: Thank you.
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