For the Trump administration, Marco Rubio’s future in two senior roles and the shape of the Republican contest to succeed President Trump remain unsettled.
The uncertainty followed a Bloomberg News report on Thursday that Rubio had discussed the possibility of stepping down with White House officials and was considering future options with his advisers.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, was defeated by Trump in the 2016 presidential primary. He now serves as secretary of state and national security adviser, with an office next to Vice President JD Vance and a longstanding ally in chief of staff Susie Wiles, whom he has known since their rise in Florida Republican politics.
Trump brought Rubio onstage at a political rally in Kansas on 1 November, praising him and joking that he might have to fire him because he had become “too popular.” Rubio said Trump “deserves a tremendous amount of credit” for taking action he considered necessary even when it was unpopular with voters.
Republicans then suffered heavy losses in midterm elections held on Tuesday, giving Democrats full control of the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Vance subsequently used a social-media post on 4 November to distance himself from Trump and blame the war with Iran for the party’s disastrous result.
In his Thursday interview with The New York Times, Rubio disputed the reports of an exit. “I don't know where these things come from, to be honest with you,” he said. He said working for Trump until the end of his term had “always been my plan.”
“I love the work I'm doing,” Rubio said. “And plus I always laugh when they say he's going to leave his job. I go, Which one?”
He declined to address whether he might seek the presidency in 2028. “I literally will not talk about 2028 anymore. I just won't do it,” Rubio said.
The White House and State Department rejected the reports. Beni Rae Harmony, a White House spokesperson, said: “This fake news is nothing more than a fabricated hoax being peddled by anonymous sources with no factual information.” Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, called the Bloomberg article “totally made up.” He also described a report by The Independent that Rubio intended to launch a 2028 presidential bid as “completely baseless fake news.”
A senior administration official said Rubio had intended from the first day of the Trump administration to remain for all four years. GOP sources and UK government figures told The Independent that they saw Rubio as the leading candidate to succeed Trump.
Rubio has previously said he would support Vance if the vice president ran. In May, he told NBC News: “If JD runs for president, I think he'd be a phenomenal candidate. I've said publicly, and I'll say it again, I'll be the first person to sign up and support him.”
Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor, offered a different reading of the midterm result: “The midterms blew up Vance's [2028 prospects] and Rubio's stock is soaring.”
Rubio is scheduled to give his first major speech since the midterm elections next Friday at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington, DC.
Comments (0)