In prepared testimony for a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio says the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela and that its interim leaders are cooperating, but he notes that the Trump administration would not rule out using additional force if needed following a raid to capture then-President Nicolás Maduro early this month.

“We are prepared to use force to ensure maximum cooperation if other methods fail,” Rubio will say, according to his prepared opening statement released Tuesday by the State Department. ”It is our hope that this will not prove necessary, but we will never shy away from our duty to the American people and our mission in this hemisphere.”

As he often is called to do, Rubio, a former Florida senator, will aim to sell one of President Donald Trump’s more contentious priorities to former colleagues in Congress. With the Republican administration’s foreign policy gyrating among the Western Hemisphere, Europe and the Middle East, Rubio also may be called to smooth alarm that has emerged in his own party lately about efforts like Trump’s demand to annex Greenland.

In the hearing focused on Venezuela, Rubio will defend Trump’s decisions to remove Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., continue deadly military strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs and seize sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, according to the prepared remarks. He will again reject allegations that Trump is violating the Constitution by taking such actions.

“There is no war against Venezuela, and we did not occupy a country,” he will say, according to the prepared remarks. “There are no U.S. troops on the ground. This was an operation to aid law enforcement.”

Maduro, who has pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. court, has defiantly declared himself “the president of my country” and protested his capture.

Congress has not curtailed Trump on Venezuela

Congressional Democrats have condemned Trump’s moves as exceeding the authority of the executive branch, while most Republicans have supported them as a legitimate exercise of presidential power.

Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch, the chairman of the committee, planned to open the hearing by lauding Trump and Rubio for making Americans safer with the military actions in and around Venezuela and saying they were legal.

“These actions were limited in scope, short in duration, and done to protect U.S. interests and citizens,” Risch will say, according to his prepared remarks released by the committee. “What President Trump has done in Venezuela is the definition of the president’s Article II constitutional authorities as commander-in-chief.”

New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the committee, was taking the opposite tack, questioning whether the operation to remove Maduro was worth it considering most of his former top aides and lieutenants are still running the country.

“The U.S. naval blockade around Venezuela and the raid have already cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars … and yet the Maduro regime is still in power,” she plans to say, according to her prepared opening statement.

The House narrowly defeated a war powers act resolution that would have directed Trump to remove U.S. troops from Venezuela. As Rubio will argue, the administration says there are no U.S. troops on the ground in the South American nation despite a large military buildup in the region.

Democrats had argued that the resolution was necessary after the U.S. raid to capture Maduro and because Trump has stated plans to control the country’s oil industry for years to come.

The pushback has begun in the courts, too, as the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump administration boat strike filed what is thought to be the first wrongful-death case arising from the campaign. Three dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean have killed at least 126 people since September.

The US takes steps to normalize ties while still issuing warnings

While keeping pressure on those the Trump administration dubs “narcotraffickers” without providing evidence, U.S. officials also are working to normalize ties with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez. Nonetheless, Rubio will make clear in his testimony that she has little choice but to comply with Trump’s demands.

“Rodríguez is well aware of the fate of Maduro; it is our belief that her own self-interest aligns with advancing our key objectives,” Rubio will say, noting that they include opening Venezuela’s energy sector to U.S. companies, providing preferential access to production, using oil revenue to purchase American goods, and ending subsidized oil exports to Cuba.

Rodríguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, on Tuesday said her government and the Trump administration “have established respectful and courteous channels of communication.” During televised remarks, Rodríguez said she is working with Trump and Rubio to set “a working agenda.”

So far, she has appeared to acquiesce to Trump’s demands and to release prisoners jailed by the government under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. On Monday, the head of a Venezuelan human rights group said 266 political prisoners had been freed since Jan. 8.

Trump had praised the releases, saying on social media that he would “like to thank the leadership of Venezuela for agreeing to this powerful humanitarian gesture!”

In a key step to the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the State Department notified Congress just this week that it intends to begin sending additional diplomatic and support personnel to Caracas to prepare for the possible reopening of the U.S. Embassy there.

It was the first formal notice of the administration’s intent to reopen the embassy, which shuttered in 2019. Fully normalizing ties, however, would require the U.S. to revoke its decision recognizing the Venezuelan parliament elected in 2015 as the country’s legitimate government.

Rubio also planned to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado later Wednesday at the State Department.

Machado went into hiding after Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. She reemerged in December to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. After Maduro was ousted, she traveled to Washington. In a meeting with Trump, she presented him with her Peace Prize medal, an extraordinary gesture given that Trump has effectively sidelined her.

Trump posted on social media soon after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote. ”With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”

The strengthened support from Trump, if it sticks, is a huge win for Zelenskyy, who has urged the American president to keep up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war. It was a departure from Trump’s previous suggestions that Ukraine would never be able to reclaim all the territory that Russia has occupied since seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

That had disheartened Zelenskyy, Europeans and Ukrainians and called into question the U.S. commitment to U.N. principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. But now, Trump’s view of the battlefield coincides more with Ukraine’s, Zelenskyy said.

“Trump is a game changer by himself,” Zelenskyy told reporters after their meeting.

Trump needles Russia about war in Ukraine

Trump, going back to his 2024 campaign, insisted he would quickly end the war, but his peace efforts appear to have stalled following a diplomatic blitz last month, when he held a summit with Putin and a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and European allies.

Trump has acknowledged, including in his U.N. speech to world leaders, that he thought a resolution to this conflict would be “the easiest” because he has had a good relationship with Putin. Trump said he is open to imposing more sanctions on Russia and urged Europe to join in.

“Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote on social media. “This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger.’”

In his speech to the General Assembly, Trump said the war in Ukraine was making Russia “look bad” because it was “supposed to be a quick little skirmish.”

“It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country,” he said. “The only question now is how many lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.”

Before meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump said the “biggest progress” toward ending the conflict “is that the Russian economy is terrible right now.” Zelenskyy said he agreed with Trump’s call for European nations to further halt imports of Russian oil and natural gas.

“We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up,” Trump told Zelenskyy, who replied that he had “good news” from the battlefield.

How Trump’s stance has shifted on Ukraine

Before his Alaska summit with Putin last month, Trump repeated that any resolution to the war would require “some land swapping.”

In talks with Zelenskyy and Europeans just afterward, Trump said Putin reiterated that he wants the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, according to European officials. Days later, Zelenskyy and prominent European leaders came to the White House.

Following those meetings, Trump announced he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.

European leaders as well as American lawmakers, including some Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia.

“In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly,” Trump told the General Assembly.

However, he repeated his calls for Europe to “step it up” and stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin’s war machine.

Push for sanctions and cutting off Russian oil

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said before meeting with Trump that Europe would be imposing more sanctions and tariffs on Russia and that the bloc would be further reducing its imports of Russian energy.

Zelenskyy, speaking at a special U.N. Security Council session on Ukraine, also appealed for stronger U.S. pressure on Russia.

“Moscow fears America and always pays attention to it,” said Zelenskyy, who has had strained ties with Trump in previous sitdowns and has previously faced White House accusations that he was partly to blame for Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Russia denigrated the Security Council meeting as just the New York stop in the world tour of a “former actor,” a reference to Zelenskyy.

“There is no added value for the establishment of peace in Ukraine generated from today’s meeting,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. “This will merely become yet another shameful episode in the market of hypocrisy.”

European leaders have supported Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts, with some alarmed by the possibility that the war could spread beyond Ukraine as they are facing what they have called Russian provocations.

“I welcome the fact that the president of the United States believes in Ukraine’s ability not only to hold the course” but to prevail, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

NATO allies will hold formal consultations at Estonia’s request on Tuesday, after the Baltic country said three Russian fighter jets entered its airspace last week without authorization.

Trump said he would back NATO countries that choose to shoot down intruding Russian planes, but said direct U.S. involvement would depend on the circumstances.

New strikes in Ukraine as toll of war grows

The full-scale war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, is taking a heavy toll on Ukrainian civilians. Russia said it shot down three dozen Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow, while Ukraine said Russian missiles, drones and bombs killed at least two civilians.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also said this month that Ukrainian civilian casualties increased by 40% in the first eight months of this year compared with 2024, as Russia escalated its long-range missile and localized drone strikes.

A U.N. Human Rights Office report released Tuesday described the dire situation of thousands of civilians detained by Russia in areas of Ukraine it has captured.

“Russian authorities have subjected Ukrainian civilian detainees in occupied territory to torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, in a widespread and systematic manner,” the report said.

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. AP reporters Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.

It includes a $3.8 billion sale for 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters, nearly doubling Israel’s current stocks, and a $1.9 billion sale for 3,200 infantry assault vehicles for the Israeli army, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been made public.

The weapons would not be delivered for two to three years or longer.

The huge sales come as U.S. plans to broker an end to the nearly two-year war between Israel and Hamas have stalled and after Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, drew widespread condemnation among U.S. allies in the Middle East.

The U.S. has kept up its support despite growing international pressure on Israel and attempts from a growing number of U.S. Senate Democrats to block the sale of offensive weapons to Israel.

The State Department declined to comment on the sales, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Israel has launched a new offensive, pressing forward with plans to take over Gaza City, as a professional organization of scholars studying genocide has said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The U.K, which last year said it was suspending exports of some weapons to Israel out of concerns they could be used to violate international humanitarian laws, recently barred Israeli government officials from attending the country’s biggest arms fair.

Turkey also said it was closing its airspace to Israeli government planes and any cargo of arms for the Israeli military, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a speech condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza as disproportionate.

Trump said Friday that he plans to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington next week, with plans to discuss the purchases of Boeing aircraft and a deal for F-16 fighter jets.

The Biden administration paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns about civilian casualties, but Trump lifted that hold when he took office in January.

The Trump administration has already approved about $12 billion in major military assistance to Israel this year. Most recently, the U.S. in June approved a half-billion-dollar arms sale to Israel to resupply its military with bomb guidance kits for precision.

This latest request from the Trump administration was sent to Congress about a month ago.

The amount of the $6 billion package was confirmed by two other people familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it because the plans were not public.

Congress routinely conducts informal reviews of such arms sales at the committee level, sending the requests back to the State Department for the more formal process.

These sales are part of a 10-year agreement between the U.S. and Israel that is nearing its end.

Price reported from Porto, Portugal. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the U.S.

“There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the White House. He added, “Obviously, they won’t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this.’”

Tuesday’s strike was an astonishing departure from typical U.S. drug interdiction efforts at a time when Trump has ordered a major Navy buildup in the waters near Venezuela.

Later Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that such operations “will happen again.”

Rubio said previous U.S. interdiction efforts in Latin America have not worked in stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and beyond.

“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said on a visit to Mexico.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on “Fox & Friends” that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was running his country “as a kingpin of a drug narco-state.”

Hegseth said officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.” But the Republican administration has not presented any evidence supporting Trump’s claim that operators of the vessel were from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and were trying to smuggle in drugs.

“President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not seen,” said Hegseth, who declined to detail how the strike was carried out.

Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some American cities.

The president on Tuesday repeated his claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua is operating under Maduro’s control.

In announcing the strike, Trump said the operation, which he said killed 11, was carried out in international waters. He also noted that the gang is designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization.

Unlike its counterparts from Colombia, Brazil and Central America, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, which last month published a 64-page report on the gang based on two years of research.

“We’ve found no direct participation of TdA in the transnational drug trade, although there are cases of them acting as subcontractors for other drug trafficking organizations,” said Jeremy McDermott, a Colombia-based co-founder of InSight Crime, referring to the Venezuelan gang by its initials.

Still, with affiliated cells spread across Latin America, it would not be a huge leap for Tren de Aragua to one day delve deeper into the drug trade, he said. Meanwhile, the rhetoric from officials in Washington who would blame TdA as a proxy for all Venezuelan drug traffickers assures it will remain a target of intense U.S. government focus.

“It is almost impossible today to determine who is TdA and who is not,” said McDermott. “Deportations and statements from the United States suggest that TdA is now being used as a catch-all description for Venezuelan criminals acting abroad.”

Some international warfare experts are questioning the legality of the strike.

“Intentional killing outside armed conflict hostilities is unlawful unless it is to save a life immediately,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, an expert on international law and the use of force at the University of Notre Dame Law School. “No hostilities were occurring in the Caribbean.”

Hegseth was opaque in his comments on Fox about whether Trump was looking to press for “regime change” in Venezuela.

“Well, that’s a presidential decision,” Hegseth said. He added that “anyone would prefer that” Maduro “would just give himself up. But that’s a presidential-level decision.”

The U.S. announced plans last month to boost its maritime force in the waters off Venezuela to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels.

Maduro’s government has responded by deploying troops along Venezuela’s coast and border with neighboring Colombia, as well as by urging Venezuelans to enlist in a civilian militia.

Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday’s strike clearly shows governments in the region, not only Maduro, the paradigm shift brought on by the U.S. decision to declare Tren de Aragua and Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

“This is a United States that sees security differently,” Berg said. “They’ve just demonstrated the ability to use deadly force in the Western Hemisphere, and they’ve already told Mexico that they’re going to do the same thing on Mexican territory if they don’t get the level of cooperation that they want.”

AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City and Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed reporting.

After about 2 1/2 hours of talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the two men appeared before reporters for what had been billed as a joint news conference — but they took no questions.

“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to, there are just a very few that are left,” Trump said. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

Putin, welcomed into the U.S. after being shunned by Western allies since early 2022 for ordering the invasion of Ukraine, thanked Trump for hosting the meeting and suggested with a chuckle that the next time the two sit down it could be in Moscow.

Here are key takeaways from the summit:

A warm welcome underscoring the friendly Trump-Putin relationship

Putin got a red carpet welcome and even rode in Trump’s presidential limousine from the tarmac to the summit venue. There, the pair were joined by two of their top aides: Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff for Trump and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and national security adviser Yuri Ushakov for Putin.

Putin, who spoke first after the meeting concluded, lauded the historical relationship between the United States, Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalling joint missions conducted by the two countries during World War II.

He said the U.S. and Russia share values, a standard talking point for Russian officials when trying to woo Trump and his aides. Putin also noted that Trump has frequently said the Ukraine war wouldn’t have happened had he won the 2020 election.

“I think that would have been the case,” the Russian leader said, a comment sure to please Trump.

However, there is no indication and no way to prove that Moscow would have acted differently toward Ukraine had Democrat Joe Biden not been elected.

Trump touts progress but concedes there was no deal

Trump had gone into the meeting hoping to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine — or at least a commitment from Russia to enter into negotiations to reach one.

Instead, Trump conceded that “we haven’t quite got there” and said he would be conferring with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO leaders about next steps.

Trump said he and Putin had made some significant progress toward the goal of ending the conflict but gave no details on what that entailed and had to acknowledge that they had been unable to bridge substantial gaps.

“I believe we had a very productive meeting,” Trump said. “We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve made some headway. So, there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

In a subsequent conversation with Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel, Trump again offered no details on his discussions with Putin.

With diplomatic progress creeping along, time is on Putin’s side

Amid drawn-out diplomatic moves to end the war, time is appears to be on Putin’s side. That gives a leg up to Russian forces, who have used their larger numbers to slowly grind down defenses in eastern Ukraine 3 1/2 years into the conflict.

Putin got a pleasant reception from the leader of the free world on U.S. soil and walked away hours later without either providing details on what they discussed, whether a ceasefire was any closer to reality or what the next steps would be.

Putin praised Trump for the “friendly” tone of the talks — Trump said nothing publicly about the killing of Ukrainian civilians in Moscow’s attacks — and for “understanding that Russia has its own national interests.”

Putin said Moscow and Washington should “turn the page,” with relations having sunk to the lowest point since the Cold War.

Putin appearing in the U.S. for the first time in 10 years was celebrated as a sign that Moscow was no longer a pariah on the global stage. In a social media post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told followers that the Western press would be on the verge of “losing their minds.”

“For three years, they talked about Russia’s isolation, and today they saw the red carpet being rolled out to greet the Russian president in the United States,” she said.

There were no details and no questions

Both men said the talks were “productive” but the lack of any announcement of solid achievements was revealing.

The news conference ended up being less than 15 minutes of rather standard diplomatic comments — and gave no indication that any concrete results were achieved — and offered little departure from their previous comments on the war in Ukraine.

Trump has made it a feature of his second term to parry questions from reporters in front of world leaders, but in the clearest sign of his disappointment, the president abruptly cut short his plans to take questions.

Trump had gone into the summit saying here was a 25% chance that the summit would fail and that it was meant to be a “feel-out meeting,” but he had also floated the idea of bringing Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting if things went well. It’s unclear what comes next.

Associated Press writers Katie Marie Davies, Dasha Litvinova and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

Trump on Monday sent notice to several countries about higher tariffs if they don’t make trade deals with the U.S., including to a number of Asian countries. The move came just a day before Secretary of State Marco Rubio departed for a Southeast Asian regional security conference in Malaysia.

Top diplomats and senior officials from at least eight countries that Trump has targeted for the new tariffs, which would go into effect on Aug. 1, will be represented at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in Kuala Lumpur that Rubio will attend on Thursday and Friday.

State Department officials say tariffs and trade will not be Rubio’s focus during the meetings, which Trump’s Republican administration hopes will prioritize maritime safety and security in the South China Sea, where China has become increasingly aggressive toward its small neighbors, as well as combating transnational crime.

However, Rubio may be hard-pressed to avoid the tariff issue that has vexed some of America’s closest allies and partners in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, which Trump says would face 25% tariffs absent a deal. Neither of those countries is a member of ASEAN, but both will be represented at the meetings in Kuala Lumpur.

Rubio’s “talking points on the China threat will not resonate with officials whose industries are being battered by 30-40% tariffs,” said Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific during the Obama administration.

“In fact, when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last week said ASEAN will approach challenges ‘as a united bloc’ — he wasn’t talking about Chinese coercion but about U.S. tariffs,” Russel said.

Among ASEAN states, Trump has so far announced up to 40% tariffs on at least six of the 10 members of the bloc, including the meeting host Malaysia, which would face a 25% tariff mainly on electronics and electrical product imports to the United States.

Southeast Asian countries not yet targeted by the U.S. include Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, which recently agreed to a trade deal with Trump. The Trump administration has courted most Southeast Asian nations in a bid to blunt or at least temper China’s push to dominate the region.

In Kuala Lumpur, Rubio also will likely come face-to-face with the foreign ministers of two of America’s biggest adversaries: China and Russia. U.S. officials could not say if meetings with either are planned for the short time — about 36 hours — that Rubio will be in Malaysia.

Russel noted that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is a veteran of such gatherings and “fluent in ASEAN principles and conventions,” while Rubio “is a rookie trying to sell an ‘America First’ message to a deeply skeptical audience.”

Issues with both countries remain substantial, particularly over Ukraine.

Trump on Tuesday expressed his exasperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, “I’m not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now” as Moscow ramps up attacks in Ukraine amid the American leader’s push for a peace deal.

Trump also announced that the U.S. would resume providing Ukraine with defensive weapons after the Pentagon announced a surprise pause in some deliveries last week.

U.S. officials continue to accuse China of resupplying and revamping Russia’s military industrial sector, allowing it to produce additional weapons with which it can attack Ukraine.

Trump downplayed Loomer’s influence on the firings. But Loomer during her Oval Office conversation with Trump urged the president to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently loyal to his “Make America Great Again” agenda, according to several people familiar with the matter. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner.

“Always we’re letting go of people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. “People that we don’t like or people that we don’t think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.”

Loomer appeared to take credit for the firings in a post late Thursday on X, writing, “You know how you know the NSC officials I reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in sabotaging Donald Trump?” She then noted that “the fired officials” were being defended by Trump critics on CNN and MSNBC.

The firings by Trump of NSC staff come at a tumultuous moment for Trump and his national security team. His national security adviser Mike Waltz, continues to fight back calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for the sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.

Trump has said he stands by Waltz, who traveled to Florida with the president on Thursday for a dinner event ahead of the LIV Golf tournament in Miami.

Meanwhile, The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced Thursday that he would review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to convey plans on the Houthi operations. The review will also look at other defense officials’ use of the publicly available encrypted app.

Trump grew frustrated when asked about the review.

“You’re bringing that up again,” Trump scoffed at a reporter. “Don’t bring that up again. Your editor’s probably—that’s such a wasted story.”

Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, Waltz and Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, also took part in the meeting with Loomer, the people said.

The Presidential Personnel Office has fired at least three senior NSC officials and multiple lower-ranking aides since Wednesday’s meeting with Loomer, according to the people familiar with the situation.

The NSC officials fired include Brian Walsh, a director for intelligence; Thomas Boodry, a senior director for legislative affairs; and David Feith, a senior director for technology and national security, according two people familiar with the matter.

“Laura Loomer is a very good patriot. She is a very strong person,” said Trump, who described his talks with the far-right activist as “constructive.”

Trump acknowledged that Loomer “recommended certain people for jobs.”

“Sometimes I listen to those recommendations like I do with everybody,” Trump said. “I listen to everybody than I make a decision.”

Loomer, who has promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories, was a frequent presence on the campaign trail during Trump’s 2024 successful White House run. More recently, she’s been speaking out on social media about members of Trump’s national security team that she insists can’t be trusted.

“It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my research findings,” Loomer said in a Thursday posting on X. “I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of, and the necessity of STRONG VETTING, for the sake of protecting the President of the United States of America, and our national security.”

Trump has a long history of elevating and associating with people who trade in falsehoods and conspiracy theories, and he regularly amplifies posts on his social media site shared by those like Loomer, who promotes QAnon, an apocalyptic and convoluted conspiracy theory centered on the belief that Trump is fighting the “deep state.”

Trump’s national security team has been through a difficult stretch as officials struggle to answer questions about why they were using the Signal app to discuss planning for an operation targeting Houthi militants instead of using far more secure communication means.

The use of Signal for operation planning came to light because a journalist, The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, was mistakenly added to the chain and revealed that Trump’s team used it to discuss precise timing of the operation, aircraft used to carry out the strikes and more.

Waltz has taken responsibility for building the text chain but has said he does not know how Goldberg ended up being included.

The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced Thursday that he would review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to convey plans on the Houthi operations. The review will also look at other defense officials’ use of the publicly available encrypted app.

Loomer, in the leadup to Wednesday’s meeting with Trump, had complained to sympathetic administration officials that she had been excluded from the NSC vetting process as Waltz built his staff, according to one person familiar with the matter. She believes Waltz was too reliant in the process on “neocons” — shorthand for the more hawkish neoconservatives within the Republican Party — as well as what she perceived as “not-MAGA-enough” types, the person said.

Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican who sits on Senate committees overseeing the military and national intelligence, said it “raises eyebrows” when “there is a firing of people on the National Security Council or their staff, particularly people that we have respect for, who were part of the Intel community to begin with here in the Senate.”

Waltz, in the first days of Trump’s return to Washington, sent about 160 nonpolitical detailees assigned to the NSC back to their home agencies to ensure those at the White House were committed to implementing Trump’s America First agenda.

The move sidelined nonpolitical experts on topics that range from counterterrorism to global climate policy at a time when the United States is dealing with a disparate set of complicated foreign policy matters, including conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Last week, Adam Schleifer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, was fired without explanation in a terse email from the White House personnel office shortly after Loomer posted about him on social media, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed reporting.

The talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah come after President Donald Trump paused U.S. military aid to Ukraine last week, along with some intelligence sharing, in an attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in negotiations to end the war against Russia.

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel later this week to Moscow, where he could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. The person cautioned that scheduling could change.

The mood across the room

Journalists were briefly allowed in a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who smiled at the cameras and when asked about his expectations for the meeting, gave a thumbs-up and replied, “Good.”

Across the table, Ukrainian officials, including the country’s top diplomat and defense chief, showed no facial expressions as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. However, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak told reporters that the most important thing was “how to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” He said security guarantees were important to prevent Russia from invading again in the future.

It was the first meeting between the two sides since the Oval Office blowup between Trump and Zelenskyy last month.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was also on hand as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags could be seen in the background. Officials did not answer any of the journalists’ shouted questions.

The delegations met for about three hours in the morning before taking a break, and officials said the talks continued in the afternoon.

There was also no immediate comment from Ukrainian or U.S. officials on the massive attack in which 343 drones targeted 10 Russian regions, leaving three people dead and 18 wounded, including three children, officials said.

Meanwhile, Russia launched 126 drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, as part of Moscow’s relentless pounding of civilian areas during the war.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the United States will inform Russia about the results of the Jeddah talks, which he described as “normal practice.”

Talks bring a chance to mend US-Ukraine relations

The meeting in Jeddah offered an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with the Trump administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House.

Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the U.S. suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing after the blowout. U.S. officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean that the pause is short.

Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well as long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.

The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that Trump is keen to secure.

While traveling to Jeddah, Rubio said the U.S. delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what they would be willing to consider.

“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”

Rubio said the rare earth and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting, but he stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.

He said it may make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.

The Kremlin is sticking to its conditions for peace

The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armor, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine’s understrength and weary army.

Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.

Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.

The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.

Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Trump, in broad-ranging comments on the state of the conflict, said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine to keep the peace. He also expressed hope that the conflict could end within weeks and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would soon come to the U.S. to sign a deal to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s critical minerals to help repay some of the $180 billion in American aid that’s been sent to Kyiv since the start of the war.

“It looks like we’re getting very close,” Trump told reporters at the start of his bilateral meeting with Macron. He added that Zelenskyy could potentially visit Washington this week or next to sign the deal.

Trump and Macron earlier on Monday participated in a virtual meeting with fellow Group of Seven leaders to discuss the war.

The talks come at a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, with Trump transforming American foreign policy and effectively tuning out European leadership as he looks to quickly end the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine is also looking for future security guarantees as part of any agreement. Trump, however, did not say whether the emerging deal would include American security guarantees.

“Europe is going to make sure nothing happens,” Trump said.

The anniversary — and talks — come at an unnerving moment for much of Europe witnessing a dramatic shift in American foreign policy with Trump’s return to power.

Trump also has made demands for territory — Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal — as well as precious rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Just over a month into his second term, the “America First” president has cast an enormous shadow over what veteran U.S. diplomats and former government officials had regarded as America’s calming presence of global stability and continuity.

Macron at a joint press conference with Trump following their meeting said their talks were productive and acknowledged that European nations must do more to bolster defense on the continent. But Macron also warned against capitulating to Russia.

″This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine,” Macron said. “It must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty.”

Trump said he believed Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end Russia’s war there.

“Yeah, he will accept it,” Trump said. “I have asked him that question. Look, if we do this deal, he’s not looking for more war.”

Putin said Monday that he has not discussed resolving the conflict in Ukraine in detail with Trump and nor did Russian and American negotiating teams when they met in Saudi Arabia last week. Putin also said Russia does not rule out European countries participating in a peace settlement.

Despite some hiccups, the military, economic and moral power of the United States has dominated the post-World War II era, most notably after the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of that, some fear, may be lost if Trump gets his way and the U.S. abandons the principles under which the United Nations and numerous other international bodies were founded.

“The only conclusion you can draw is that 80 years of policy in standing up against aggressors has just been blown up without any sort of discussion or reflection,” said Ian Kelly, a U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administration and now a professor at Northwestern University.

Visits start on anniversary of war in Ukraine

Trump is set to hold a meeting Thursday with another key European leader, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The talks come after Trump shook Europe with repeated criticism of Zelenskyy for failing to negotiate an end to the war and rebuffing a push to sign off on a deal giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which could be used in the American aerospace, medical and tech industries.

European leaders also were dismayed by Trump’s decision to dispatch top aides for preliminary talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia without Ukrainian or European officials at the table.

Meanwhile, the United States on Monday failed to get the U.N. General Assembly to approve its resolution urging an end to the war without mentioning Moscow’s aggression. The assembly approved a dueling European-backed Ukrainian resolution demanding Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine.

On the minerals deal, Zelenskyy initially bristled, saying it was short on security guarantees for Ukraine. He said Sunday on X that “we are making great progress“ but noted that “we want a good economic deal that will be part of a true security guarantee system for Ukraine.”

The friction follows a public spat, with Trump calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely charging Kyiv with starting the war. Russia, in fact, invaded its smaller and lesser-equipped neighbor in February 2022.

Asked on Monday if he thought Putin was also a dictator, Trump demurred.

“I don’t use those words lightly,” Trump said.

Zelenskyy, who said Sunday in response to a question that he would trade his office for peace or to join NATO, then angered Trump by saying the U.S. president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.” Confronting Trump might not be the best approach, analysts say.

“The response to President Trump doing something to you is not to do something back right away. You tend to get this kind of reaction,” said retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

High-stakes talks between European and U.S. leaders

Macron said ahead of the meeting he intended to tell Trump it’s in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans not to show weakness to Putin during U.S.-led negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. He also suggested he’ll make the case that how Trump handles Putin could have enormous ramifications for U.S. dealings with China, the United States’ most significant economic and military competitor.

“You can’t be weak in the face of President Putin. It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest,” Macron said. “How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?’”

Yet, Trump has shown a considerable measure of respect for the Russian leader. Trump said this month he”d like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

“I really believe he wants to make a deal,” Trump said. “I may be wrong, but I believe he wants to make a deal.

AP writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Emma Burrows in London and Sagar Meghani, Chris Megerian and Will Weissert contributed reporting.

In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

He stressed, however, that the talks — which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials — marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done down the road.

Lavrov echoed Rubio’s remarks and told reporters that “the conversation was very useful.”

“We not only listened, but also heard each other,” he said.

No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country wouldn’t accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn’t take part — and postponed his own trip to the kingdom scheduled for Wednesday.

European allies have also expressed concerns they are being sidelined.

Improving Russian-US relations

Ties between Russia and the U.S. have fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years — a rift that has been widening ever since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and only worsened after Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

The U.S., along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia in an effort to damage its economy. And embassies in Washington and Moscow have been hit hard by expulsions of large numbers of diplomats, as well as other restrictions.

Rubio said Tuesday that ending the war in Ukraine could “unlock the door” for “incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically on issues of common interest and frankly, economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term.”

His comments were further evidence of the remarkable U.S. reversal on Russia after years in which Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, led international efforts to isolate Moscow.

Tuesday’s meeting was meant to pave the way for a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the talks wrapped, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told Russia’s Channel One that no date has been set yet for that summit but that it was “unlikely” to take place next week.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Lavrov mentioned the same three goals as Rubio and said that Washington and Moscow agreed to appoint representatives to carry out “regular consultations” on Ukraine.

“I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position” the Russian foreign minister said.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, who accompanied Rubio at the talks together with U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz, said the meeting was “positive, upbeat, constructive. Everybody was there to get to the right outcome.”

The meeting marked the most extensive contact between the two countries since Moscow’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, but tensions remained high.

Concerns from allies they are being sidelined

The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them.

Kyiv’s absence at Tuesday’s talks has rankled many Ukrainians, and France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to discuss the war. Kyiv’s participation in such talks was a bedrock of U.S. policy under Biden.

Rubio said Tuesday that ending the conflict would require concessions from all sides and that Europe would play a part — noting that they have also imposed sanctions on Russia. He said Washington “is not going to predetermine” would those concessions would be.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia — two key items on Putin’s wish list.

Waltz said “the practical reality is that there is going to be some discussion of territory, and there’s going to be a discussion of security guarantees.”

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Trump and Zelenskyy following Monday’s European meeting.

“We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on social media platform X. “To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,” he said and vowed to “work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.”

Saudi Arabia’s role

The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to be a major diplomatic player, burnishing a reputation severely tarnished by the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi state media described the talks as happening at the prince’s direction. Like the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.

Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023.

But Zelenskyy postponed his own trip to Saudi Arabia scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the talks since Ukrainian officials weren’t invited. He visit was rescheduled for March 10.

War continues

Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv’s military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.

One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.

Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writers Baraa Anwer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.