Rubio takes on dual national security roles after embracing Trump’s ‘America First’ vision

By MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON AP Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been thrown into two top national defense jobs at once as President Donald Trump presses forward with his top-to-bottom revamp of U S foreign procedures 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 guard 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 measure administrators shared sensitive military plans So just over 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 precaution adviser for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the s Rubio a one-time Trump rival and hawkish conservative who was derided by the president as Little Marco during the presidential campaign has proven adept at aligning himself with Trump s America First foreign program 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 procedures or project should make America safer stronger or more prosperous Rubio leads during Trump s massive changes Since being established in a - 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 Progress and plans to cut U S jobs by while closing or consolidating more than bureaus worldwide He has also begun a major cull of the visa system revoking hundreds if not thousands of visas issued to foreign students Related Articles Trump signs executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR Trump says it s Biden s commercial sector but businesses and economists beg to differ Trump administration asks Supreme Court to strip legal protections from Venezuelan transients Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans from South Texas under the Alien Enemies Act Trump nominates Mike Waltz for UN ambassador in major shake-up of national guard crew He has overseen the negotiation of agreements to send immigrants accused of crimes to third countries the majority notably to El Salvador in cases that are now being challenged in federal courts Marco Rubio unbelievable Trump revealed Thursday before announcing on social media that Waltz would be nominated as ambassador to the United Nations and Rubio would take over as national assurance adviser in the interim When I have a dilemma I call up Marco he gets it solved That s a far cry from 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 A large number of 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 just months into the job Yet Rubio has been resilient And as of Thursday he oversees both the State Department and the National Protection Council which is responsible for coordinating all executive branch foreign procedures 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 noted the national assurance 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 reported He revealed he watched national defense adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy work - 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 solicited to weigh in on the president s decision to tap him as national safety adviser but did joke that he was barred from adding pope to his list of plenty of jobs because he is married But as he marked the first days of Trump s latest term Rubio applauded the president for his vision President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral luncheon with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr St re in the Cabinet Room of the White House Thursday April in Washington With the President from left are National Guard Advisor Mike Waltz Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio AP Photo Mark Schiefelbein 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 explained of Rubio s increasing responsibilities that Marco is likely to a certain extent one of the more reliable Cabinet officers if not the majority reliable And I can only believe those qualities are even more vital to his current confluence of positions and growing portfolio Gelber disclosed He s not a chaos guy and I ve consistently 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 countless avenues 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 representatives appeared taken aback by Trump s appointment of Rubio as acting national guard adviser Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce commented at a briefing Thursday that she learned the news from a journalist who inquired her a question about Trump s post minutes after it appeared on social media Functionaries however have noted that Rubio in fresh 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 functionaries who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel shift declared they did not expect Rubio s duties as secretary of state to change significantly He still plans to movement on diplomatic missions abroad and likely will delegate at least certain of the NSC management to others they reported Amiri revealed from the United Nations