Rubio the Reckoner: From Neocon Tool to Trump’s Sword-Wielding Warlord at State

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by David Strom:

J.D. Vance may be Vice President, but Marco Rubio is the Deputy President, currently holding FOUR JOBS in the administration, including the all-important Secretary of State position as well as the National Security Advisor.

Rubio has joked that the job he really wants to add to his portfolio is Librarian of Congress, but Trump doesn’t control the legislative branch, so that seems out of reach for now.

Rubio’s portfolio has expanded so much because he is just THAT good. Far from being the “squish” that so many MAGA folks feared he would be, Rubio has proven to be both brilliant at his job and a street fighter when it matters. For all the love that many people have for street fighters–everybody wants a gladiator to fight for them–the combination of competence and controlled aggression is pretty rare.

Rubio has always been associated with the neocon faction of the Republican Party, but MAGA has warmed up to him as they realize that he is more of a “Peace through Strength” Republican than a “let’s bomb some new country today” old-style neocon. His performance has fit well with Trump’s America First agenda, while still appealing to Republicans who find Trump’s rhetoric and seemingly mercurial nature unsettling.

Personally, I think that Trump’s confidence in Rubio shows that he isn’t so much mercurial as sly–playing the “bad cop” to great effect.

Rubio gives no quarter to the demagogues whose standard for allowing migrants in seems to be “the worst shall be first.”

Rubio’s take-no-prisoners approach has won him many MAGA converts, and I find it difficult to believe that he could be this effective in his role without really being the guy he appears to be. This can’t be faked–the passion is real, and his patience with political gamesmanship seems to be used up.

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by Olivia Rondeau

Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed with Democrats over the Trump administration’s recent acceptance of South African refugees, telling Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) that he does not “like the fact that they’re white” in a Tuesday exchange.

The heated conversation took place during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, with Kaine calling the State Department’s claims of “government-sponsored racial discrimination” against the minority Afrikaner population “specious.”

Implying that the U.S. government has given Afrikaners preferential treatment to become legal refugees due to their race, Kaine asked, “Can you have a different standard based upon the color of somebody’s skin? Would that be acceptable?”

“I’m not the one arguing that, apparently you are because you don’t like the fact that they’re white and that’s why they’re coming,” Rubio shot back:

“The United States has a right to pick and choose who they allow into the United States,” the secretary continued, before being interrupted by the senator.

“Based on the color of somebody’s skin?” Kaine again pressed.

Rubio replied, “You’re the one that’s talking about the color of their skin, not me. These are people whose farms were burned down and they were killed because of the color of their skin.”

The spat stemmed from less than 60 white South African refugees touching down in the United States on May 12, with President Donald Trump condemning the “genocide that’s taking place” against them.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed the group, which included families with young children, at Dulles International Airport, decrying the “unjust racial discrimination” and “violence” they faced in their home country.

“They were really subject to very serious, egregious, and targeted threats, and we wish them well in their journey in the United States,” Landau told Breitbart News at the time. “We underscored for them that the American people are a welcoming and generous people, and we underscore the importance of assimilation into the United States, which is one of the very important factors that we look to in refugee admissions and through this resettlement program for these folks who were vetted in South Africa.”

Kaine continued in his remarks on Tuesday, “Now we’re creating a special pathway for white Afrikaner farmers in a country governed by a unity government that includes the Afrikaner parties.”

“Would you agree, Mr. Secretary, that if we’re interpreting the phrase ‘a well-founded fear of persecution’, we should apply that standard evenhandedly?”

Rubio responded, “I think we should apply it in the national security interest of the United States.”

“The United States has the right to choose who it allows in and to prioritize that choice,” he added.

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by Matt Margolis

Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t just show up to Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; he came loaded for bear. Ostensibly there to discuss the FY26 State Department budget, Rubio instead delivered a scathing indictment of China’s global con game and exposed shocking failures in America’s foreign aid system. What unfolded wasn’t routine testimony; it was a political thunderclap and a long-overdue reckoning.

As I’m sure you recall, Democrats have been having hissy fits over USAID cuts. They claim that the Trump administration was axing vital humanitarian aid when in reality, it was targeting waste, fraud, and abuse.

Just how bad is the waste, fraud, and abuse? Rubio revealed that under the old USAID model, only 12 cents of every dollar made it to the intended recipients. “That means that in order for us to get, you know, aid to somebody, we had to spend all this other money supporting this foreign aid industrial complex,” he said. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were funding bloated overhead while struggling nations got table scraps.

Sweeping reforms are now targeting that waste. “We’re gonna find more efficient ways to deliver aid directly,” Rubio said, laying out a strategy that puts boots-on-the-ground regional bureaus in charge and aligns foreign aid with American strategic interests.

But the most jaw-dropping part of Rubio’s testimony was his takedown of China’s so-called aid efforts. “China doesn’t do humanitarian aid. China does predatory lending. That’s what the Belt and Road Initiative is,” he said. Unlike the U.S., which sends food, medicine, and disaster relief, “they have no, zero record of doing humanitarian aid in the world… they don’t know how, and they have no interest in doing it.”

Instead, Rubio described China’s “development assistance” as a debt trap. “They go into some country, make you a loan, and then hold that debt over your head,” he warned. “By the way, you have to hire a Chinese company to do it.” It’s colonization by contract, and countries around the globe are waking up to it.

And while critics accuse the U.S. of retreating from global leadership, Rubio scoffed at the idea. “I just hit 18 countries in 18 weeks. That doesn’t sound like much of a withdrawal,” he said, adding that he speaks with some foreign leaders more often than his own kids.

He also took a wrecking ball to the internal dysfunction at Foggy Bottom that had left the State Department lagging behind the pace of global events. “When I get a decision memo… there were 40 boxes on this piece of paper. That’s ridiculous. That takes too long.” Rubio noted that the bureaucracy had become so sluggish that “people said, ‘Don’t use State Department. They take too long.’”

His message was that the status quo had to die so that U.S. foreign policy could finally operate at what he called “the pace of relevance.” And for those worried about the motive behind the changes? Rubio dismissed that, too.

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Marco has had as dramatic a change as Kafka’s man. Marco’s was positive! Very different from p. Ryan who turned himself into a cockroach 11 years ago. May he burn in –

I like the new Marco!
Did not like the old.

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GO MARCO GO!

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