Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down for an interview with Lara Trump this past week at the State Department, and it aired on her Fox News show "My View with Lara Trump" on Saturday night. But it wasn't your typical interview. Rather than just focusing on the current issues, Rubio talked more about his life, his experience over the last six months in his new position(s), what it's like to work for Donald Trump, and, of course, what his plans are for 2028. What he said might surprise you.
First up, they talked about the State Department and what it looked like before he took over as secretary of State. Essentially, it was out of control. The Trump administration hasn't "gutted American diplomacy" as the mainstream media likes to assert. It's taken bloated bureaucracy and organized it in a way that makes sense for the country, for the world, and, most importantly, for our tax dollars.
"It took too long to get things done. We had too many bureaus, too many offices," Rubio said. "They were unaligned with each other. I get these decision memos, and these decision memos have to be cleared by these different desks, these different offices. Some of them had 30 or 40 boxes; 30 or 40 people had to clear it before it even got to me, and that’s why it takes the State Department so long to function."
They hit briefly on the usual topics — China, the war in Ukraine, Russia, Hamas — but one thing that really stood out to me was what he said about the way the Joe Biden administration handled Venezuela. As we all know by now, Venezuela refused to take back members of Tren de Aragua — its own citizens — and jailed American citizens to use as "bargaining chips." It's something Biden (or whoever was calling the shots) pretty much allowed to happen, but not Trump.
When Joe Biden was president, he made a deal with the Venezuelans on deportations. And in exchange, two convicted drug dealers – who happen to be the nephews of Nicolás Maduro – were returned. His bagman, his moneyman, his henchman, the guy that collected all his money from around the world, was also indicted, was in a prison in the United States. He was released. They gave him all these concessions. In the case of President Trump, he says, I’m not giving you any concessions. So, since Venezuela wouldn’t take them, we sent them to El Salvador, who housed them in their prisons.
Now, an opportunity presented itself for those people to be sent – those criminals, those gang members, to be sent back to where they belong, which is in Venezuela. It’s where they came from. Maduro, who’s not even the president of Venezuela – he’s a narco-trafficking leader – he is an indicted drug dealer by the Southern District of New York in the United States, and he desperately wants us to take that indictment off of him. That’s what he wants. He’s not going to get that, and he didn’t get that.
And that’s a big difference from what you saw in the past. If we had done that, within five days you would’ve seen 10 more Americans arrested. Because that’s what all these countries around the world are doing: They arrest Americans, knowing that they can use them as bargaining chips. But not with this administration.
Rubio talked about his parents, Cuban immigrants who worked as a bartender and maid, and how they taught their children that no matter what, they could be who they wanted to be in life, not just because they believed it, but because they also lived in the greatest country in the world where anything is possible.
But the one thing I did inherit from my parents was this unyielding belief that we weren’t limited because of who they were. In essence, my parents never made us feel like – because he was a bartender and she was a maid, and they came from Cuba – that there are things I couldn’t do, there are things their kids couldn’t do. I never felt that growing up. On the contrary, they instilled in us that, basically, you can be anything you want. If you have the ability to do it, you’ll have a real chance to do it because you’re in the one place on Earth where that’s possible.
So that’s the greatest gift my parents left me, and I think it speaks more broadly to what America has always been about. And I mean, it’s not just me. I mean, if you look across our government, if you look across our business class, if you look across – very little of the top leaders in American business inherited the companies they now run. Many of these are people that came from different backgrounds that achieved extraordinary things. And that’s what we always want to continue to be as a country. So yeah, it’s a testament to my parents, but I really think it’s a testament to America.
Beyond his parents' lesson and his belief in the American dream, Rubio, who is Catholic, said his faith is what keeps him grounded. It reminds him that there's something bigger than politics and government at the end of the day. He also said it reminds him that, even though he holds many important roles in the Trump administration, his biggest ones are at home: father and husband.
But, even so, he still seems to love and appreciate having those roles in the Trump administration. Trump and Rubio famously sparred in 2016 when both men were running for president, but the secretary says that behind the scenes, the two had a good working relationship. These days, he says working for President Trump is "fun" for two reasons.
The first is that he's a "man of action."
And I don’t mean that in a reckless way, but in a let’s get this thing done, and it isn’t like let’s wait six months to do it. It’s more like on a six to eight-hour time constraint. So I think the chance for someone like me that’s been around this for a little bit, coming from the Senate where it took forever just to get a bill passed, to be in a place and in a position where things that you’ve wanted to do – reorganizing the State Department, getting engaged in different parts of the world and doing some of the things we’ve done – to actually be able to execute and do and have the backing of the President to do things and get things done is incredibly rewarding. There is no point in being in this business, in this line of work, if you can’t get things done. So that makes it a lot of fun.
The other? Trump is just a fun person to be around, he says, and it's something most people don't see. "I mean, and he has extraordinary – in my view, uncanny – instincts," Rubio added. "And I’ve seen that play out time and time again, and I think that’s a very underappreciated part of his leadership skill set. He has incredible instincts for human behavior, human nature, and it translates to politics and global events."
Last but not least, Lara asked him what's been on the minds of many of us lately: What are his plans for 2028? His response? He thinks JD Vance should be the Republican nominee: "I think if he decides he wants to do that, and I think he’s doing a great job as vice president. He’s a close friend, and I hope he intends to do it. I know it’s kind of early."
Rubio added that as secretary of State, it's actually against the rules for him to get too involved in domestic politics, and it sounds like he wants to stay where he is for a while so he can continue making big changes that will, no doubt, impact the United States and the entire world for years to come. "I want to do this job as long as the President allows me to do it and stay in that job, which would keep me here all the way through January of 2028," he said, adding that things change quickly and you never know what the future holds.
He concluded:
But that said, I believe that if I am able to be here through the duration of this presidency and we get things done at the pace that we’ve been doing the last six months, I’ll be able to look back at my time in public service and say I made a difference, I had an impact, and I served my country in a very positive way. And I would be satisfied with that as the apex of my career, and so that’s what I’m focused on right now, because we’re doing some special things that I think are going to bear dividend and fruit for a generation.
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