President-elect Donald Trump (R) is expected to pick Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) to be his Secretary of State, according to three sources a part of the vetting process. This was first reported by the New York Times.
According to NBC News, a Trump ally said Sen. Rubio fits in the Secretary of State position because he's a good mixture of "MAGA" but a little more "hawkish" than the incoming presidential ticket.
“While Marco is a little more hawkish than the incoming president and vice president, he’s actually not as far away from them as many people might assume at first blush,” a Trump ally said. “He’s become far more aligned with the president on issues regarding tariffs. He has a similar stand on the China issue and he even voted against the last round of Ukraine funding.”
Moreover, Sen. Rubio appeared on “Hannity” last week to discuss President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) victory and the balance of power in the upper chamber. The former president has created a diverse coalition as he increased his voter share with nearly every demographic in the nation, especially Latinos. When asked about potentially joining the Trump administration, Sen. Rubio was a bit hesitant to provide a concrete answer.
"Well, look, first of all, I am in this long-term for the country, and it's not up to me to make those decisions, but I have a job to do now," said Sen. Rubio. "I'm in the Senate, I have an opportunity to serve there, and he's going to need people in the Senate to help carry that agenda because [it's] one thing is to win an election, but then you got to do something with it. There's a mandate here. They're telling us to go up there and fix these things. And we have to do that. If we don't do that, then all this is for naught."
Rubio also added that he was open to serving the Trump administration.
"So, [Trump] has to have people in the Senate to help. And maybe that's the place for me to serve. Maybe there's some other capacity, I really don't know, because we just came from that victory."
Should President-elect Trump select Rubio, it would grant Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) the authority to pick somebody to replace him in the upper chamber.
Rubio Says America Safer Under Trump
In an exclusive interview with The Floridian publisher Javier Manjarres, Rubio reiterated that under Trump, the U.S. was "safer" and the current border crisis was non-existent.
“Even people that don’t like what Trump says have to admit that the country was safer, more respected, we didn’t have a mass migration crisis, our economy was better, all these things when Trump was in office,” said Rubio. “I think there are a lot of people that are like, no matter what we may feel about what he said about this or that, our lives were better and the country was safer.”
Rubio, who helped frame Trump’s Western Hemisphere policies, added that under the Biden administration's foreign policy, the “unity in the region” has splintered and that many countries have now “flipped” from being Democratic to now being controlled by Socialist or Leftist presidents and governments.
“We went from having a unity in the region that aligned with our views, including the Caribbean, to now a bunch of countries that have flipped, and a bunch of countries that want to be friendly to the United States that feel like this administration treats their friend bad, and their enemies good,” he said.
