Rubio’s Ascendance Masks Bigger Question of Who Has Trump’s Ear
This article is for subscribers only.
A jolt of staff upheaval this week made Marco Rubio the first person in 50 years to hold the top two national security jobs in the US government, the culmination of a journey from his role as Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency to one of his most prominent aides.
Rubio’s ascent to both secretary of state and interim national security adviser coincided with the fall of Mike Waltz, whose hawkish foreign policy stances made Trump’s MAGA base wary. Waltz was ousted from his West Wing job after inadvertently including a journalist on a Signal group chat about military actions and will be nominated to be Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.