Secretary of State Marco Rubio will appoint a critic of U.S. military funding for Ukraine and American foreign policy to a top State Department position, it has been reported, prompting speculation about what it means for Kyiv.

Darren Beattie will take up the role of acting under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, according to Semafor and other news outlets.

Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment.

Why It matters.

Beattie is an anti-establishment media figure who has led the right-wing news aggregator Revolver News. A critic of American foreign policy, including funding for Ukraine, his reported appointment has prompted social media users to voice concern about what it signifies for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.

What to know

Outlets have focused on Beattie’s past, which included being fired as a speech writer in 2018 after attending a conference with white nationalists, although he told the Washington Post that he was not racist.

ABC News referred to conspiracy theories he allegedly pushed related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, while other sources on X noted apparent sympathy for China’s claim on Taiwan and his criticism of Washington’s funding for Ukraine.

Days before Vladimir Putin‘s full-scale invasion, he wrote on February 21, 2022, that the “US gov’t has been supporting Ukranian neo-nazi groups in its obsessive proxy war against Russia.”

However, two months into the war, he posted on April 1, 2022, “I stand with Ukraine!” A month later, he compared the price tag of Washington aid for Ukraine with the cost of Trump’s proposed southern border wall, writing on May 13, 2022 “putting the 43 billion for Ukraine into context.”

On March 26, 2022, he posted: “Raytheon, Lockheed, and others make a ton of money if we send their military equipment to Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine. No one gets rich if less fentanyl comes across our southern border.”

After former President Joe Biden agreed to supply Kyiv with Abrams tanks, he wrote on January 26, 2023: “Biden’s latest Ukraine escalation is even more reckless than you thought..”

However, Beattie has been praised by right-wing figures, such as Steve Bannon who told Semafor that he was “smart, tough, relentless,” and former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, who told the outlet he was “decent and genuinely smart.”

What People Are Saying

Republicans against Trump on X: “Darren Beattie—a pro-Russia, pro-China MAGA ‘intellectual’ who was fired from the first Trump administration after he attended a white nationalist conference—was just appointed to a senior position at the State Department…Extremely concerning.”

Darren Beattie on X on August 2, 2021: “Remember when the U.S. allied with Ukranian neo-Nazis to destabilize Russian interests in Ukraine?”

What Happens Next

The role that Beattie is said to be filling oversees American public diplomacy abroad and the high-profile office of the department spokesperson in Washington.

Semafor said it was unclear whether Beattie will be nominated to fill the role on a permanent basis, and ABC News reported that he had declined to comment.