Nihal Toosi

I'm not apologetic about it. I'm still Sean Ramos from and I'm now here with Josh Keating, a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and national security. Josh, candidate Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one of his second term. How's that going for President Trump?

Typically, this would be the work of the Secretary of State, but there's this third elephant in the room in Steve Witkoff. Tell us what exactly his role is here.

Well, tell us how it's gone so far, be it Trump, be it Rubio, be it Witkoff at the table. How have negotiations gone in the hundred plus days since Donald Trump reentered the White House?

No one knows why President Trump says the things he says, but one could potentially assume that he thought he could get a deal in this war because of his... Significantly cozier relationship with Vladimir Putin compared to, say, his predecessor, Joe Biden. But but now he's posting stuff like I am not happy with the Russian strikes on Kiev. Not necessary and very bad timing. Vladimir, stop.

Five thousand soldiers a week are dying. Let's get the peace deal done. A post that had, as far as we can tell, not much of an effect on Putin or the Russian effort. What happened to the previously cozy relationship between these two?

Is the rockiness with Putin helping the previously obviously very rocky relationship with Zelensky?

So where do we see this going in the coming weeks and months? Is this going to work in Russia's favor that we can't reach a conclusion here? Is it going to work in Ukraine's favor? Do we have no idea?

Is part of the problem here that there just isn't the sufficient amount of focus on this conflict? You're talking about, you know, you got the president, who knows what it is, du jour, you know, trying to start a war with California over tariffs on film. You've got Secretary Rubio wearing four hats. You've got Witkoff charged with solving the Middle East, but also Ukraine, Russia.

I mean, is there a general lack of seriousness from this administration?

Josh Keating, he goes by Joshua at Vox.com. Devin Schwartz made our show today. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristen's daughter mixed. It's Today Explained.

That's what's so interesting here, I think, right? Because Marco Rubio's been around a long time. When you hear... candidate Donald Trump talking about draining the Washington swamp. It's like people like Marco Rubio, who you could almost picture as representing the swamp.

There were reports that he was asking President Biden for more funding for USAID before he became one of the faces of the elimination of USAID. He is not exactly... MAGA. And are you saying that there hasn't been much tension there between Rubio and Trump?

Also, Marco's the acting head of USAID, which you might recall from early February when USAID was disappearing. The fourth one's the toughest, though. Marco Rubio somehow managed to become our nation's chief archivist. Our biggest question today explained is, does he make forced salaries?

And I imagine much of that acceleration has happened via his initial job, secretary of state.

But wasn't Rubio maybe one of the only cabinet members in that meeting who looked sort of uncomfortable? Wasn't that the vibe?

All right, but we still have a bunch of other lingering questions, like, how? Why? What? Answers ahead on the show.

Yeah, so this is the job he most recently acquired, Donald Trump's chief national security advisor. What exactly does that entail?

Is there any conflict there? Does being Trump's chief national security advisor come at the expense of his other roles, especially secretary of state?

What do you think he's excited about accomplishing as our Secretary of State, if not our National Security Advisor, our Chief Archivist, and the head of USAID?

Read Nahal Tusi at politico.com. President Trump said he'd solve Russia-Ukraine on day one. How Trump, Marko, and Witkow are doing there on day 107 when we return on Today Explained. Support for today explained comes from Shopify. Entrepreneurs know that when you're building a business, you have to wear too many hats.

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Nihal Toosi wrote about how Marco Rubio became so important at work for Politico.