Rubio takes on dual national security roles after embracing Trump's
'America First' vision
[May 02, 2025]
By MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been thrown into
two top national security jobs at once as President Donald Trump presses
forward with his top-to-bottom revamp of U.S. foreign policy, upending
not only longstanding policies that the former Florida senator once
supported but also the configuration of the executive branch.
Trump's appointment of Rubio to temporarily replace Mike Waltz as
national security adviser is the first major leadership shake-up of the
nascent administration, but Waltz's removal had been rumored for weeks —
ever since he created a Signal group chat and accidentally added a
journalist to the conversation where top national security officials
shared sensitive military plans.
So, just over 100 days into his tenure as America’s top diplomat, Rubio
now becomes just the second person to hold both positions. He follows
only the late Henry Kissinger, who served as both secretary of state and
national security adviser for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford in the 1970s.
Rubio — a one-time Trump rival and hawkish conservative who was derided
by the president as “Little Marco” during the 2016 presidential campaign
— has proven adept at aligning himself with Trump’s “America First”
foreign policy positions. Rubio has largely eschewed his staunch
advocacy of providing foreign aid and promoting democracy overseas since
taking over the State Department, repeating a refrain that every policy
or program should make America safer, stronger or more prosperous.
Rubio leads during Trump's massive changes
Since being confirmed in a 99-0 Senate floor vote, Rubio has presided
over a radical reorganization of the State Department. That includes the
dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and plans
to cut U.S. jobs by 15% while closing or consolidating more than 100
bureaus worldwide. He has also begun a major cull of the visa system,
revoking hundreds, if not thousands, of visas issued to foreign
students.
He has overseen the negotiation of agreements to send immigrants accused
of crimes to third countries, most notably to El Salvador, in cases that
are now being challenged in federal courts.
“Marco Rubio, unbelievable," Trump said Thursday before announcing on
social media that Waltz would be nominated as ambassador to the United
Nations and Rubio would take over as national security adviser in the
interim. "When I have a problem, I call up Marco, he gets it solved.”
That's a far cry from 2016, when Rubio and Trump were competing for the
GOP presidential nomination and Rubio warned that Trump was a threat.
After Trump won, the relationship remained contentious, but eight years
later, Rubio was an enthusiastic Trump supporter who worked his Florida
bona fides to get into the president's inner circle.
Yet, even after Rubio was nominated to the top diplomatic job, doubts
remained. Many pundits suggested he would last only a short time in
office before Trump dismissed him in the same way he did his first-term
secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who was fired by tweet in 2018 just
18 months into the job.
Yet Rubio has been resilient. And as of Thursday, he oversees both the
State Department and the National Security Council, which is responsible
for coordinating all executive branch foreign policy functions, ranging
from diplomatic to military and intelligence operations.
Thomas Wright, an NSC official during the Biden administration who is
now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the national
security adviser post alone is “more than a full-time job.”
“It is just very hard to comprehend the idea that you can do this job
sort of part time,” Wright said.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a cabinet meeting at
the White House, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Washington, as
President Donald Trump look on. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
He said he watched national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his
deputy work 14-15 hour days, six to seven days a week: “I think they
felt that they had to do that to do the job properly.”
Rubio says little so far on his additional role
Appearing Thursday night on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity," Rubio was
not asked to weigh in on the president’s decision to tap him as
national security adviser but did joke that he was barred from
adding pope to his list of many jobs because he is married.
But as he marked the first 100 days of Trump's latest term, Rubio
applauded the president for his vision.
“I am honored by the trust President Trump placed in me and I am
proud of the work the Department of State has done over the past
hundred days to implement his agenda and put the American people
first,” he wrote Wednesday in a State Department Substack post.
One of Rubio’s former Florida statehouse colleagues, Dan Gelber, a
Democrat, said of Rubio's increasing responsibilities that "Marco is
probably, to a certain extent, one of the more reliable Cabinet
officers, if not the most reliable."
“And I can only believe those qualities are even more vital to his
current confluence of positions and growing portfolio,” Gelber said.
"He’s not a chaos guy, and I’ve always sort of wondered how he’s
going to do in an administration where there seems to be so much
chaos. And maybe that’s why he’s getting all these positions.”
Rubio's dual-hatted role comes on top of him serving as acting
administrator of the largely shut down USAID and as acting head of
the National Archives. It puts him in a similar position to that of
Trump's longtime personal friend and golfing buddy Steve Witkoff.
As a special envoy, Witkoff is the lead U.S. negotiator in the Iran
nuclear talks and in administration peace efforts for the
Israel-Hamas war and the Ukraine-Russia war.
In many ways, Rubio and Witkoff are following in the footsteps of
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had multiple roles in the
first administration, ranging from the Middle East to Latin America
and immigration.
How Rubio's expanded duties are seen at the State Department
State Department officials appeared taken aback by Trump's
appointment of Rubio as acting national security adviser.
Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said at a briefing Thursday that she learned
the news from a journalist who asked her a question about Trump's
post minutes after it appeared on social media.
Officials, however, have noted that Rubio in recent weeks has spent
an increasingly large amount of time at the White House away from
his posh seventh-floor State Department office in what is known as
“Mahogany Row,” a corridor known for its wood paneling.
At the same time, these officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss the personnel shift, said they did not expect
Rubio's duties as secretary of state to change significantly. He
still plans to travel on diplomatic missions abroad and likely will
delegate at least some of the NSC management to others, they said.
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Amiri reported from the United Nations.
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