In a fiery appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the Biden administration to task, accusing it of dropping the diplomatic ball by letting direct communication with Russia all but collapse during its tenure.
Rubio didn’t mince words. “You’re talking about the two biggest nuclear powers on Earth,” he told lawmakers Wednesday. “It’s downright reckless not to keep a line open.” Citing Russia’s massive arsenal — the largest stockpile of strategic weapons and a significant cache of tactical nukes — he stressed that dialogue isn’t about friendship, it’s about survival.
According to Rubio, the Biden White House allowed communications between Washington and Moscow to fall silent for three years — a move he blasted as “irresponsible.” He argued that talking doesn’t mean siding with Russia, but failing to engage could lead to catastrophic misunderstandings or worse, outright war.
“Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we kept talking,” Rubio noted, pointing out that cutting ties doesn’t make the threat go away. “Whether we like it or not, Russia’s a global power. Ignoring that reality is a dangerous gamble.”
When pressed by Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, Rubio sidestepped the label. His rationale? “You can’t negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine without speaking to the man running it.” That doesn’t mean giving in, he clarified — it means being realistic.
Earlier this year, in a March interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Rubio labeled the Ukraine war a “proxy conflict between nuclear states — the U.S. backing Kyiv, and Russia on the other side.” The Kremlin, for its part, has long echoed that sentiment.
In another interview just a month prior, Rubio once again drew Cold War parallels, insisting that diplomacy — even with adversaries — is vital to avoiding disastrous missteps. “Silence isn’t strength,” he warned, “it’s a setup for miscalculation.”
Adding fuel to the fire, former President Donald Trump chimed in recently, claiming that another year under Biden would’ve pushed the world into a third world war — a fate, Trump said, has now been dodged.
With global tensions simmering and nuclear risks looming, Rubio’s message was clear: keeping adversaries at arm’s length doesn’t mean turning a deaf ear.
