The scope of Marco Rubio’s professional responsibilities reached comedic levels months ago. The Florida Republican is, of course, the secretary of state, but thanks to Donald Trump and the president’s lack of personnel creativity, that’s just the start.
Trump has tasked Rubio with serving as the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the acting archivist for the National Archives and the chair of the administration’s World Expo 2035 preparations. The New York Times published a striking report in July noting that Rubio is also, for all intents and purposes, “running” Venezuela, serving as the country’s “de facto viceroy.”
When it comes to high-profile and powerful federal offices, Rubio is simultaneously wearing more hats than anyone in modern American history — he’s been nicknamed the “Secretary of Everything” — and I haven’t yet mentioned his other big job.
MS NOW reported earlier this week:
President Donald Trump has appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his national security adviser, according to a U.S. official who was granted anonymity to discuss staffing moves. The appointment makes permanent a position that Rubio has held in an acting capacity.
When Rubio succeeded Mike Waltz in May, it was widely assumed that it would be a temporary assignment, since the secretary still had all of his other jobs, including serving as the nation’s chief diplomat and running a giant international Cabinet agency.
Those assumptions were wrong. This week, the “acting” was removed from his “acting White House national security adviser” title.
The obvious question is how in the world one person could be expected to simultaneously do multiple full-time jobs, and the answer is that it’s impossible. But there’s a broader point to keep in mind: By all appearances, Trump doesn’t care — even though he should.
It’s not as if the president believes Rubio is somehow so amazing at multitasking and compartmentalization that he can excel as both secretary of state and the White House national security adviser. Rather, this appears to be a situation in which Trump doesn’t really expect much of Rubio because he doesn’t much care about diplomacy, and he doesn’t recognize the role of national security adviser as a serious position anyway
As far back as September 2019, The New York Times quoted Martin Indyk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a diplomat and National Security Council official during the Clinton administration, noting that in the wake of John Bolton’s exit from the White House, Trump “is going to be his own foreign policy adviser.”
Days later, the president told reporters that he saw the national security adviser job as “fun” and “easy,” adding, “You know why it’s easy? Because I make all the decisions.”
What’s unfolding, in other words, isn’t the overburdening of a busy Cabinet secretary; it’s the gradual demise of one of the most important positions in the White House.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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