Marco Rubio, the chameleon in the war room

A DECADE AGO Marco Rubio described Donald Trump as “a con artist”. Both men were vying for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr Trump mocked Mr Rubio as “Little Marco”. Mr Rubio predicted that a government led by Mr Trump would be “chaos”.

These days, they are more polite. As Mr Trump’s secretary of state, Mr Rubio is studiously deferential to his boss. Mr Trump says Mr Rubio will “go down as the greatest secretary of state in history”.

Mr Rubio has emerged as one of the president’s most valued courtiers. Calm, articulate and competent, he does his best to lend coherence to Mr Trump’s foreign policy. He is also the most prominent backer of the hawkish turn it has taken this year. In January, when Mr Trump sent commandos to snatch Venezuela’s leader, and in February, when he ordered the bombing of Iran, Mr Rubio was at his side watching live feeds from Mar-a-Lago. The more isolationist vice-president, J.D. Vance, followed events from elsewhere.

If the current flurry of military adventurism ends well, Mr Rubio will be in a strong position to run again for president. In private, Mr Trump often asks donors and supporters who they think should be the Republican nominee in 2028: Mr Rubio or Mr Vance? Much will depend on Mr Trump’s endorsement, which will carry immense weight with primary voters. For Machiavellian reasons—to avoid dissipating his own power—he is likely to keep both men guessing for as long as possible.

Betting markets suggest Mr Rubio’s star is rising. At the start of the year, Polymarket put Mr Vance 44 percentage points ahead; now the gap is only ten points. However, an Economist/YouGov poll finds that Mr Vance still enjoys higher net favourability ratings than Mr Rubio among Republicans, by 68 points to 47.

Mr Rubio has beaten longer odds before. When he first ran for the Senate in 2010, he started 30 points behind his opponent, a sitting governor, but ended up winning easily. His pitch to voters was partly biographical. His Cuban parents had come to America with no English and no money. They worked hard for their children—his father as a bartender, his mother as a cashier. Thus, Mr Rubio, who at 38 was already speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, embodied the immigrant dream. Watching him on the stump, The Economist likened him to Barack Obama, another charismatic young campaigner who was “good at seeming to agree with people without actually doing so”.

Mr Rubio served for 14 years in the Senate, where he was well respected. His peers confirmed him as secretary of state by a 99-0 vote (though some Democrats now express regret). He is the first person since Henry Kissinger to serve simultaneously as national security adviser (he also runs USAID). “Rubio is a safe pair of hands,” says one person close to Mr Trump.

Yet Mr Rubio is less powerful than many of his predecessors. The institutions he runs are much reduced by Mr Trump’s cost-cutting and purges of diplomats deemed insufficiently MAGA. Some of the most sensitive matters—including negotiations with Israel, Arab states, Iran, Russia and Ukraine—have been entrusted mostly to Mr Trump’s golf buddy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

A courtier does not complain about slights. Nor does he expect to make policy, only to enact it. His most important task is to be by his liege, shuttling on Air Force One between Washington and Mar-a-Lago. This can be exhausting. On long trips, to avoid being woken at all hours by his boss, Mr Rubio says he sometimes shrouds himself in a blanket and pretends to be a sleeping staffer.

To rise and thrive in Trumpworld, Mr Rubio has had to be both ruthless and chameleon-like. As a senator he was a leading advocate of bipartisan immigration reform (to let some illicit migrants become legal) and of arming Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. Now he serves a master with a penchant for mass deportation and a soft spot for Vladimir Putin. Some doubt his sincerity. “He’s a MAGA drag queen,” mocks one Republican activist.

His defenders say he restrains Mr Trump’s excesses. European governments see him as one of the few administration officials they can deal with. Sometimes at odds with Mr Vance, he has helped to avert a full breakdown in transatlantic relations and the total abandonment of Ukraine. That Mr Trump has gone quiet about seizing Greenland is, some say, thanks to Mr Rubio’s influence.

At the Munich Security Conference last year, Mr Vance horrified European leaders with a culture-warrior speech denouncing their attempts to isolate populist-right parties. This year, at the same event, Mr Rubio delivered essentially the same message, but wrapped in the language of shared sacrifice in two world wars and love for Western civilisation. It got a standing ovation—and Mr Trump’s attention. The president later described Mr Vance as “a brilliant guy” who “gets a little bit tough on occasion” and needs restraining. In contrast, “Marco does it with a velvet glove. But it’s a kill, right? The result is the same.”

Mr Rubio has enjoyed a freer hand in the western hemisphere, fashioning Mr Trump’s “America First” instinct into a regional strategy. A fluent Spanish-speaker, he cuts a vice-regal figure in Latin America. His first trip abroad as secretary of state was to Central America and the Caribbean, to help stanch the flow of migrants and set the stage for confrontation with Venezuela. Before that, however, he had to see off another courtier, Richard Grenell, who sought accommodation with Venezuela. Mr Rubio favoured coercion and regime change. Mr Trump chose the second option, ousting Venezuela’s defiant dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and promoting the rise of his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who he hopes will be more pliant.

Next in Mr Rubio’s sights is Cuba. The communist regime there is all but broke, thanks to decades of misrule, an oil embargo and the loss of a generous ally in Venezuela. Desperate for relief, it is talking to the Trump administration. Mr Rubio has said the island needs not just new policies, but new leaders. Excitement among Cuban-Americans is rising. “Rubio is the embodiment of all the hopes and the dreams and the frustrations of the exiled Cuban-American community,” says Joe Garcia, a former congressman.

Yet Mr Rubio faces a delicate task. Many of his fellow Cuban-Americans want democracy in Havana and the return of property confiscated by the regime in the 1960s. Mr Trump may opt for something easier: a Venezuelan-style deal that leaves the old detested system in place but with better treatment for American businesses.

In the Middle East, the staunchly pro-Israel Mr Rubio was a stronger backer of war with Iran than Mr Vance was. That puts him at the centre of the action—and more exposed if things go wrong. The Iranian regime has survived three weeks of American and Israeli bombing and has expanded the war to the region, roiling global energy markets. Mr Trump is unlikely to blame himself for failing to predict this. As national security adviser, it was Mr Rubio’s job to oversee the “inter-agency” process—ie, the co-ordination between government bodies—to plan the war and prepare for its repercussions. He also made a gaffe by saying that America had to bomb Iran because Israel was about to do so, feeding accusations that America is fighting Israel’s war.

Success in Iran would boost Mr Rubio. However, another debacle in the Middle East could be “a career-ender”, says a source close to Mr Trump. For his part, Mr Rubio is playing down his ambitions. He says he will support Mr Vance if the vice-president runs in 2028.

This may not be wholly altruistic. Mr Trump is unpopular; voters could pick a Democrat to succeed him. Mr Rubio might think it shrewder to let Mr Vance lose in 2028 and try his own luck in 2032. By that time America’s mood may have shifted again. And Mr Rubio, a Catholic-turned-Mormon-turned-Catholic-turned-Baptist-turned-Catholic, will no doubt adapt.■