The wedding ceremony was scheduled to kick off at 3 p.m. at a lavish 56-acre estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Seated in the audience on that November afternoon was a high-profile guest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who may have had other things on his mind.
Over the past 48 hours, Rubio had been grappling with a snowballing diplomatic crisis after the leak of a U.S.-backed peace plan spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, that was seen as tilting heavily in favor of Russia over Ukraine.
Now Rubio, among the crowd at the black-tie affair where his two daughters were bridesmaids, was dealing with a different headache caused by the same man, according to a U.S. official.
Rubio was scheduled to attend peace talks with Ukrainian officials in Switzerland, but Witkoff had set off early in what some officials saw as a bid to beat him to the punch, according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the episode. Witkoff did not communicate his travel plans to Rubio and other State Department officials, the three sources said, in what they perceived as a move to allow Witkoff to negotiate with Ukraine in a way he saw fit.
Rubio ultimately made it to Geneva, ensuring that Witkoff would not be meeting the Ukrainian officials without him, according to the three sources.
It was not the first time U.S. officials had seen Witkoff’s actions as an attempt to make an end-run around Rubio. The episode, which has not been previously reported, was the latest example of a long-running rift between the two senior figures in the Trump administration with sharply different views about how to end the war in Ukraine and how much the U.S. should trust Russia’s promises.
“They seem to be singing off of a different sheet of music,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former career diplomat who was ambassador to NATO. “And if you don’t have a common understanding of the problems and of your adversary in a negotiation, it can’t be good.”
Eager to strike a quick deal as ordered by Trump, Witkoff has pushed for proposals that put the onus on Ukraine to make concessions, give up territory and accept risks to its future security. Rubio and some other officials in the administration favor imposing more economic and military pressure on Russia to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to make concessions and allow a secure future for Ukraine, a view shared by America’s European allies.
This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and European officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive events.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott pushed back on the suggestion that Rubio and Witkoff were not in tune.
“There is no rift between the two and has never been,” Pigott said in a statement. “Secretary Rubio and Special Envoy Witkoff have a close working relationship and are personal friends. They are both fully aligned on the president’s goals and each is carrying out President Trump’s vision on how to end the war and achieving peace in complete cooperation.”
Rubio himself offered a similar assessment at a news conference Friday.
“No one is out there doing independent action,” he said. “All of it is strongly coordinated.”
He described Witkoff as a “phenomenal person, very smart, very talented,” who “doesn’t get paid to do this job.”
But some current and former U.S. officials have concerns about Witkoff that go beyond his handling of negotiations to end the war. He is seen as having a lax approach to security, according to five current and former U.S. officials, raising fears that he may be using insecure communications that could make him vulnerable to a foreign actor eavesdropping on his conversations.
Witkoff referred questions from NBC News to the White House.
“Special Envoy Witkoff takes multiple secure calls throughout the week in coordination with the National Security Council and the White House," spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. His phone, residence, and vehicles are regularly swept” by diplomatic security.
How the divide between Rubio and Witkoff plays out could determine how the war in Ukraine ends and how America is perceived by its allies and adversaries.
Witkoff, 69, a billionaire real estate mogul, has broken with convention in his role as freewheeling diplomat and fixer, jetting to Russia to meet with Putin and senior Arab figures in the Middle East aboard his own plane.
Witkoff now has another key player on his side — Trump’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner, who accompanied him on a recent trip to Moscow. Although he holds no official government position, Kushner carries weight with Trump and had a significant role in clinching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, according to current and former officials.
For Trump, Witkoff is a personal friend and a skilled negotiator with a “great personality” who can tackle any dispute. In remarks Tuesday, Trump praised Witkoff’s role in helping secure the ceasefire deal in Gaza.
“Steve’s a great dealmaker,” he said.
But for critics in Congress and in Europe, as well as skeptics inside the administration, Witkoff is an amateur in the diplomatic arena too willing to accept Russia’s assertions at face value.
“He’s a gift to the Russians,” said a congressional official.
Meeting with Macron
Competing factions and power plays are common in presidential administrations. But the extent to which the secretary of state is taking a back seat to a diplomatic neophyte on what is one of the most complicated and vexing foreign policy challenges facing the U.S. is highly unusual and concerning, current and former officials say.
An episode in France is illustrative.
In April, Rubio was scheduled to fly to Paris for Ukraine talks. But before he left, his team learned that Witkoff had arranged a one-on-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to a senior administration official, a U.S. official and a former French official.
Rubio asked to join the meeting, but the French foreign ministry said Witkoff needed to sign off on the change. It was a humiliating turn of events for Rubio, whose aides struggled to reach Witkoff for some time. In the end, Rubio finally tracked down Witkoff, who agreed to allow Rubio to join him in the meeting, according to the U.S. official and the senior administration official.
Rubio did ultimately meet one-on-one with Macron on the trip, according to his public schedule.
Pigott, the State Department spokesman, said “any insinuation that Special Envoy Witkoff was blocking the Secretary from attending a meeting in Paris is absurd.”
“The Secretary’s multiple meetings in Paris, both with and without the Special Envoy, and their close cooperation before, during, and since then, speak for themselves,” Pigott added.
Late last month, days after the Geneva talks, Witkoff arranged a meeting with Ukrainian officials in Florida. Rubio became aware of the planned session only when the Ukrainians asked his team about it, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the incident.
A senior administration official said: “It is so clear that Rubio has been cut out of this. He should be the guy leading all of this.”
John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said, “Witkoff understands that Rubio’s understanding of Russia is very different from his own, and since he’s a competitive guy who’s always been close to Trump, he figures he can have his way.”
Security concerns
Apart from disagreements about peace efforts in Ukraine, Witkoff has been at loggerheads with Rubio and State Department officials about the way he handles security — especially on his trips to Russia.
From the beginning of the administration, Witkoff and State Department officials have clashed over how to ensure secure communications on his private plane and security guards for the aircraft, according to two U.S. officials and a senior administration official.
Some administration officials have privately questioned the wisdom of Witkoff’s using his own jet when there is a government fleet available for diplomats traveling on foreign assignments, according to three U.S. officials.
Witkoff’s lack of secure communications aboard his plane prompted alarm at the State Department that culminated in a high-level review in May, leading to a concerted effort to provide Witkoff with additional security, according to a senior administration official, a U.S. official and two former senior administration officials.
As a result, those sources say, the State Department provided a secure mobile communications system for Witkoff to be used on his plane.
But there are still concerns that Witkoff is not consistently using the secure government communications system, according to a U.S. official and a source with knowledge.
Scott Stewart, who was a special agent with the State Department for 10 years and is now vice president of intelligence of the security firm TorchStone Global, said a host of foreign actors would be interested in gaining access to Witkoff’s communications.
“He’s a huge target for the Russians specifically, but certainly almost anyone else in the world that’s interested in finding out what’s going on with this negotiation, and there are a lot of people that are interested,” Stewart said.
Kelly, the White House spokesperson, said Witkoff “follows all guidelines provided by Diplomatic Security and White House Information Technology.”
“He has had secure communications on his plane since the beginning,” she added.
Peace plan fallout
Questions about the security of Witkoff’s electronic communications were reinforced by the recent leak of a transcript of a phone call between him and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov.
In the October phone conversation, reported by Bloomberg, Witkoff offers advice about how to choreograph a conversation between Trump and Putin, suggesting they speak just before a scheduled visit to the White House by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It’s not clear who was behind the leak or how they got access to a phone call between Witkoff and Russian officials.
In an interview with Russia’s Kommersant newspaper late last month, Putin’s aide, Ushakov, said that he regularly contacted Witkoff “via secure communication” and via WhatsApp, a commercial application that experts say is vulnerable to hacking.
The U.S. peace plan originally drawn up by Witkoff has been heavily revised after Rubio’s intervention and a series of discussions with the Ukrainians. The most alarming provisions for Ukraine and European governments have been removed or altered, including prohibiting U.S. fighter jets from deploying to Poland or forcing a major reduction in the size of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Three weeks since Rubio and Witkoff flew to Geneva, the peace proposal remains under discussion, though Russia has sharply criticized the changes and demanded that negotiations return to the original plan shaped by Witkoff.
Over the weekend, a U.S. delegation met with Ukrainian officials in Miami. “The American delegation included Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and White House staff member Josh Gruenbaum,” Witkoff posted on social media Sunday.
There was no mention of Rubio.
