Marco Rubio was just two weeks into his new job when he got a critical lesson in being President Donald Trump\u2019s secretary of state. In Latin America on his first trip outside the United States since he became America\u2019s top diplomat, three senior administration officials said, Rubio was caught off guard by two policy decisions made in Washington: drastic changes to foreign aid and Trump\u2019s publicly backing turning the Gaza Strip into a Middle East Riviera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio was similarly blindsided by foreign policy pronouncements from top administration officials two more times over the next 10 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, he has figured out a strategy to minimize such frustrations. First, he has adapted some of his foreign policy positions that, in the past, diverged from Trump\u2019s. Second, he has been on a MAGA charm offensive, recently dining at a Capitol Hill restaurant popular with Trump loyalists and appearing at an event hosted by a powerful pro-Trump activist organization. And he spends as much time as he can at the White House to be close to Trump, according to four senior administration officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLook, it\u2019s a water cooler,\u201d one of the senior administration officials said of the West Wing. \u201cIn any job, you want to be at the water cooler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, Rubio\u2019s position in the Trump administration has significantly expanded, and it is likely to draw him closer to Trump, who announced Thursday that he also will take on the role of national security adviser<\/a>. Trump said he would nominate his first national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rubio will hold both positions for now, according to an administration official, and Trump isn\u2019t ruling out keeping him in both indefinitely. No one has been secretary of state and national security adviser simultaneously since the influential Henry Kissinger 50 years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rubio also remains acting administrator of the diminished U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as acting archivist of the National Archives and Records Administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a remarkable shift in fortunes for a secretary of state who sparred sharply with Trump in the past and who was at risk of being overshadowed by special envoys he tapped to take the lead on major global challenges. It\u2019s also a transformation that is born out of a concerted effort by Rubio to assert himself in a sprawling national security team and to find his footing in Foggy Bottom, as well as his place in Trump\u2019s orbit of longtime close advisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This account of Rubio\u2019s first three months is based on interviews with more than a dozen senior current and former administration officials, congressional officials and other people who are close to Rubio or the White House and familiar with his tenure so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Thursday\u2019s announcement, people close to Rubio and the White House said, he had increasingly become someone Trump relies on, more than he did in the early days of the administration. Foreign diplomats, too, have noticed the change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A European official said that, even relative to a month ago, Rubio\u2019s influence had grown \u2014 although with an evergreen caveat that when it comes to foreign policy, \u201cno one speaks for Trump.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n People close to Rubio, a former member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, said secretary of state has effectively been a dream job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen him happier,\u201d the senior administration official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the position has come with certain confines. Rubio and his team have, at times, felt the White House personnel office was blocking him from hiring more of his own staff members at the State Department, while national security officials who are seen as more MAGA were tapped for key roles. There also have been instances when Rubio\u2019s team has conveyed to the National Security Council that he wasn\u2019t always being looped in on decisions as much as he wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senior administration official didn\u2019t directly address whether Rubio has been able to bring in the staff members he has wanted, saying, \u201cWe love the team that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power struggles between the National Security Council and the State Department have been a fixture of many past administrations \u2014 one that could be diminished with Rubio serving in both positions. The senior administration official said Rubio and Waltz had a good relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The official stressed that Rubio had no ideological disagreement with the decision to dismantle USAID. After Trump announced the idea of a Riviera in Gaza, which would involve displacing Palestinians, Rubio issued a full-throated public endorsement of the idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very well-coordinated national security team,\u201d the senior administration official said. \u201cWe\u2019re really satisfied with the communication flow and the decision-making that happens.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n A rocky start<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Senate voted 99-0 to confirm Rubio \u2014 by far the largest margin for any of Trump\u2019s Cabinet nominees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But his uneven history with Trump \u2014 stemming from their, at times, bawdy exchanges of insults<\/a> when they were both running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 \u2014 has led to a wariness from Trump\u2019s Republican base. It\u2019s also a different type of relationship from the ones Trump has with the other advisers he tapped for key diplomatic assignments. And in his White House, access to Trump is critical \u2014 and often pivotal when it comes to his decision-making process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rubio hasn\u2019t had a designated workspace in the West Wing \u2014 though Waltz had a prime corner office on the main floor. Rubio has been ducking into an unused office to make calls when he\u2019s at the White House, and he catches up with other officials there on the fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rubio, who has privately expressed the importance of regular face time with Trump, also has become a regular at Mar a Lago \u2014 the estate in Florida where Trump stays most weekends<\/a> \u2014 spending time there about every other week, according to a person close to Rubio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way that the president works is he solicits opinions from a whole lot of folks,\u201d this person said. \u201cBeing present, being at the table or in the Oval or the dinner table at Mar-a-Lago, is how these decisions are made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The presidential face time is designed to avoid scenarios like one in mid-February, when Rubio was in Europe holding meetings with his counterparts and wasn\u2019t aware that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would deliver a speech so bluntly taking the idea of Ukraine\u2019s joining NATO off the table. Hegseth\u2019s comments sent shock waves across Europe and were seen as the Trump administration\u2019s ceding leverage in negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine before they had even begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A couple of days later, Rubio was again unexpectedly fielding outrage from officials in Europe after Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech in Munich sharply criticizing the continent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People close to him said that while he was frustrated, he didn\u2019t disagree with the sentiments Vance and Hegseth delivered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about Vance\u2019s speech, the senior administration official said, \u201cI think that what the vice president said in Munich is very strongly held beliefs of everybody in the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the Hegseth speech, the official wouldn\u2019t get into specifics of Rubio\u2019s conversations but said Ukraine\u2019s not joining NATO was \u201ckind of an obvious reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A State Department spokesperson took issue with the characterizations that Rubio was caught off guard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMore fake news from people trying to derail President Trump\u2019s agenda,\u201d the official said. \u201cSecretary Rubio will never apologize or hesitate to put America and Americans first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winning over MAGA<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of Trump\u2019s core supporters know Rubio by the disparaging nickname Trump gave him in the 2016 campaign: \u201cLittle Marco.\u201d They\u2019ve viewed him as the kind of mainstream Republican who might seek to reshape rather than execute on Trump\u2019s foreign policy agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since he was nominated to be secretary of state, Rubio has tried to ingratiate himself with Trump\u2019s MAGA base and ease any suspicions about his loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week, Raheem Kassam, a Trump loyalist and close associate of former top White House strategist Steve Bannon, posted a photo on X of Rubio at a new MAGA haunt on Capitol Hill, the restaurant Butterworth\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you\u2019d have told me even a year ago that I\u2019d be running the best spot on Capitol Hill and that Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, would be a repeat guest, I\u2019d have enquired as to the strength of marijuana you were smoking,\u201d Kassam, an investor in Butterworth\u2019s, wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n