'Humiliation will escalate': Foreign diplomat says 'hamstrung' Rubio won’t last long as sec of state

14 January

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is one of the handful of high-profile appointments to President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet who has bipartisan support. But some foreign policy experts believe he won't last long as secretary of state.

Politico's Nahal Toosi reported Tuesday that the three-term Florida senator may not be the United States' top diplomat for long even if he's confirmed by a healthy margin. This is partially due to Trump's reputation of carving out his own path on foreign policy for the next four years, and also because the president-elect is watering down the role with numerous "special envoys" who report directly to Trump, rather than the secretary of state. One example is Richard Grenell — Trump's former acting director of national intelligence — who has since been given the vague title "presidential envoy for special missions."

"Rubio will be fairly hamstrung and will feel sidelined and frustrated," one unnamed foreign diplomat told the outlet. "If he is surly or complains, the humiliation will escalate and then he will be fired. 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."

Toosi wrote that Trump's MAGA base has already expressed reservations about the Florida Republican's appointment, noting that he holds "hawkish and interventionist" views out of step with Trump's public statements. But Rubio spokesperson Dan Holler pushed back on the notion that Rubio would divert from Trump's approach to foreign affiars, saying: "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," Holler said.

Additionally, Rubio has to walk a fine line between appeasing his boss — who has referred to the agency as the "Deep State Department" — while also standing up for the Foreign Service enough to where his own employees won't actively undermine him. Toosi wrote that former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who was Trump's first secretary of state, lasted barely a year in the role, and ultimately ended up calling Trump a "f—ing moron" after he was fired.

"I suspect Rubio will outlast Tillerson. After that, his odds get much worse," Toosi wrote.

Click here to read Politico's report in its entirety.

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