News that the Trump administration had agreed with Russia to try to negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine, without including Ukraine in the talks, was a revelation that many believed reversed years of efforts to isolate Moscow.
But prominent voices in the right-wing media world interpreted the development this week as cause for celebration.
“Every day has kind of felt like Christmas morning, hasn’t it?” Kari Lake, the former TV news anchor who is poised to run Voice of America, said during a podcast interview on Tuesday. “President Trump wants peace for every nation.”
Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA and podcast host who has more than 4.6 million followers on the social media platform X, praised the discussions as “a breath of fresh air.”
And Jack Posobiec, a die-hard Trump loyalist perhaps best known for spreading the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, invoked the title of Mr. Trump’s 1987 best-selling book. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said on his podcast, “it’s the art of the peace deal.”
They are among a growing pool of Trump-aligned media figures who have become among the harshest critics of American strategy in addressing Russia’s war in Ukraine, deeming the Biden administration’s efforts wasteful, detrimental to national interests and, ultimately, futile. They have opposed sending more aid to Ukraine, argued against including the country in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and suggested that it should relinquish at least some of the territory seized by Russia in the conflict.
Now that Mr. Trump is back in charge, many of those same right-wing voices have functioned as a supportive chorus, cheering the president’s unorthodox approach of directly engaging with Russian leadership and creating a media narrative that runs counter to the deep unease expressed by the foreign policy establishment.
That increasing numbers of Republicans are falling in line with this once-fringe view is a testament to Mr. Trump’s ability to bring his Republican Party to heel on nearly any issue, even one that upends its previously hawkish stance toward Russia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is representing the United States at the talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia, was once a champion of Ukraine, although last year as a senator he voted against a congressional aid package that Mr. Trump opposed.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to end the war in Ukraine, and over the past week he has pushed the matter to the top of his agenda. On Wednesday, he disclosed a surprise phone call with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, which Mr. Trump characterized as the beginning of peace negotiations.
A day after the call, Tucker Carlson dedicated large portions of a live interview with President Viktor Orban of Hungary — himself a darling of the American right — to the war and its potential resolution.
“Donald Trump already changed the mind-set of the whole Western world,” Mr. Orban told him.
Mr. Carlson, a former Fox News star who is now among the country’s most popular podcasters, had long promoted pro-Russian arguments on his Fox prime-time show, arguing that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was a dictator being used by the West to undermine Russia.
A year ago, Mr. Carlson flew to Moscow to conduct a two-hour interview with Mr. Putin, the Russian president’s first one-on-one session with a representative of a Western media outlet in several years. Mr. Carlson, who expressed sympathy for Mr. Putin’s viewpoint, has made criticism of U.S. and European aid to Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s own governance, a centerpiece of his messaging.
Throughout his political career, Mr. Trump has shown himself to be especially receptive to that kind of commentary, not only amplifying the viewpoints of his media supporters but often acting in direct response to them.
Last week, that dynamic appeared to reach new heights when Mr. Posobiec accompanied the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on his trip to Germany, Belgium and Poland for high-level security meetings. Mr. Posobiec occupied a front-row seat — if not an active role — in highly sensitive diplomacy.
Mr. Posobiec is not a government official and was not traveling as part of the press corps. Instead, he was invited by Pentagon officials and appeared to have seemingly unfettered access, allowing the influencer to provide running commentary on high-level conversations.
Mr. Posobiec then traveled with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine, where he met with Mr. Zelensky. Mr. Posobiec referred to the trip as “the Trump peace delegation.”
Critics, including many veterans of the diplomatic corps, have been alarmed by Mr. Trump’s apparent rapprochement with Russia. The talks in Saudi Arabia were a swerve from previous American efforts to isolate Russia and impose sanctions on its political and financial leaders as punishment for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which led to Europe’s most destructive war in decades. Opponents also labeled the talks as a potential peril for trans-Atlantic alliances like NATO.
Brit Hume, Fox News’s chief political analyst, sounded a note of caution about the negotiations. He speculated that the direct talks between the United States and Russia were a precursor to a more inclusive round of negotiations, which he thought may ultimately bring together the parties to find a solution.
“I don’t think he is going to sell out Ukraine,” Mr. Hume said of Mr. Trump. “I think these early talks in Saudi Arabia are just about the contours of the table, in all likelihood. And obviously you can’t make peace between two countries when you’re only negotiating with one.”
