Rubio presidency would be an 'unmitigated disaster': conservative insider

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds a press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2026.

In recent months, there has been growing discussion of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s presidential aspirations for 2028, with many speculating that he may be better positioned for a run rather than Vice President JD Vance, who was widely assumed heir-apparent until his political stock began dwindling as of late. But while support for the former has grown, not everyone is so optimistic about Rubio, with one conservative insider saying his leadership would result in “unmitigated disaster.”

Speaking with the American Conservative, far-right commentator Ann Coulter explained why she’s in the “Never Rubio” camp. She began by acknowledging the buzz around him, saying, “You’ve seen it all over. For one thing, Trump was polling his donors. And as I mentioned briefly in the article, donors have the worst political judgment. And they’re all, ‘Oh, Rubio, Rubio, we love him!’”

As evidence of this, she cited a party she recently attended in Palm Beach — home to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort — where she said she was the “only non-billionaire at the table.” Talking over the political future with these people, she claimed, was so disillusioning that she went home and wrote a book chapter entitled “I wrote this chapter when I realized how stupid rich people are,” because, she said, they have “the worst political judgement.”

“I think the donors are smitten with anyone who goes around throwing around terms like ‘Sharia’ and ‘the Sunni’ and ‘the Caliphate’ and this and the other thing, because they are so separated from the concerns of ordinary people,” said Coulter. “And it makes both the half-wits like Rubio and his donors feel like big intellectual global strategists, striding the globe, rearranging things. But every time they rearrange things, it’s an unmitigated disaster.”

In the same talk, Coulter also delved into Trump’s fight with Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was just beaten in a primary by a MAGA-minded candidate backed by the president. Many have pointed out that this was a mistake that could end up losing the general election to the Democrats in November, and Coulter seemed to agree, admitting, “This Massie thing is the worst of Trump for various reasons.”

Should Ed Gallrein, the Trump-approved candidate who beat Massie, win in November, says Coulter, the district will have gone from having who she called “the smartest member of Congress” to “the dumbest.” This happened, she said, because of the “Trump cult.”

“There were tape recordings of these Massie rallies,” said Coulter, “and a guy stood up and said he opposed Massie. And Massie was magnificent. He talked to him for 15 minutes. He was cheerful. He was nice. But the guy’s main argument was, ‘Um, yeah, OK, I didn’t vote for war, but Trump knows more than any of us. He knows stuff you don’t know. He knows everything. Why don’t you just defer to him?’ This is a cult. This is absolutely a cult.”

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