A jolt of staff upheaval this week made Marco Rubio the first person in 50 years to hold the top two national security jobs in the US government, the culmination of a journey from his role as Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency to one of his most prominent aides.
Rubio’s ascent to both secretary of state and interim national security adviser coincided with the fall of Mike Waltz, whose hawkish foreign policy stances made Trump’s Maga base wary. Waltz was ousted from his West Wing job after inadvertently including a journalist on a Signal group chat about military actions and will be nominated to be Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
On the surface, the upheaval highlights the former Florida senator’s deft navigation around concerns about his late-to-hatch Trump-world bona fides and his emergence as an impassioned messenger for the president.
Yet the question of who won or lost Trump’s favour masks a reality for both men: neither Rubio nor Waltz has taken the lead on some of the foreign policy issues most important to the president, and their influence has never been truly tested.
Despite being the top US diplomat, Rubio takes a back seat on ending the Ukraine war and confronting Iran’s nuclear programme to Steve Witkoff, the long-time Trump friend and real estate developer. In Africa, Trump has named his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, to oversee talks related to the Democratic Republic of Congo and other matters.
Rubio’s rival for the secretary of state job, special envoy Richard Grenell, has run negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at times clashing with Rubio.
