Few in Washington Think Marco Rubio Will Last More Than a Year or Two
Florida Senator Marco Rubio is unlikely to last longer than a year or two as Donald Trump’s top diplomat.
Rubio, whose confirmation hearing as Secretary of State is scheduled for Wednesday, is viewed suspiciously by a MAGA base that sees him as “too hawkish and interventionist,” a Politico report claims.
Trump has also appointed a number of special envoys whose jobs overlap with Rubio’s and are expected to set up shop in the White House, giving them better access to the president.
On top of that, Trump sees career diplomats in what he once called the “Deep State Department” as globalists who are resistant to his America First agenda.
Though Trump and Rubio have long dissolved their bitter rivalry, they may still differ on key foreign policy issues.
“Rubio will be fairly hamstrung and will feel sidelined and frustrated,” one foreign diplomat told Politico. “If he sucks it up, takes the humiliation and smiles through gritted teeth, he will survive until someone else whispers in Trump’s ear and angles for his job.”
But Rubio is unfazed, according to spokesperson Dan Holler: “President Trump has an ambitious foreign policy agenda that will put Americans first and correct the failures of the past four years. No one dedicated to carrying out the president’s historic mandate has time for silly games or gossip.”
Trumpworld sources told the Daily Beast that if he were to go, Rubio would likely be replaced by Rick Grenell, a hardcore ally of the president-elect who previously served as his former acting director of national intelligence.