The Rubio Perplex

Many Americans (and perhaps even more citizens of other countries) find themselves yearning for November 7th, 2028, the scheduled date of the next presidential election. That’s the day the Trump era effectively ends (the definitive date would be January 20th, 2027 – inauguration day for whomever the next president will be). Probably. That’s the day the Democrats will atone for Kamala Harris’s electoral 2024 failure. Possibly. That’s the day US democracy returns to greater predictability and consistency. Hopefully. The nature of second terms is that, almost as soon as the incumbent commander-in-chief is sworn in, succession talk tantalizes Washington. Gavin Newsom, California’s outgoing governor, has given clear signs that he’ll run and, glossing over past blunders, Harris reckons she deserves a second chance.

Yet most attention is focused on the Republicans, after Trump, 79, makes offhand threats about defying the constitution and seek a third term. “I would love to do it,” he has repeatedly said, though almost as often rowed back the statement later, with an albeit unconvincing “We’ll see what happens.” While he continues to seek attention from anyone he can, this undignified electoral fan dance will drag on interminably until the next GOP nominee is crowned in summer of 2027. Of greater practical interest are the two names Trump picked out as his most likely successors: JD Vance and Marco Rubio, respectively vice-president and secretary of state.

Trump has already moved to forestall a potentially divisive two-horse race for the 2028 Republican nomination by floating the possibility of a “dream ticket” headed by Vance (his most obvious heir) with Rubio as his vice-presidential pick. By doing so, the president not only wants to ensure a smooth transition (and avoid messy primary fights) to those he sees as most likely to carry on his MAGA movement (in whatever form or permutation), by essentially endorsing both men now he hopes any other challengers to the throne could be discouraged from entering the fight.

If the most recent national polling average is any measure, Vance has more than the upper hand in any political contest. He currently sits with 47.5% support among registered Republican voters as their preferred GOP nominee. Rubio, in contrast, sits at 10.2%, with Donald Trump Jr. coming in at 9.4%.

Rubio seems to acknowledge this present reality, at least on the surface. “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” he recently commented, a line repeated religiously by his closest staff.

That much being said, few political strategists from either party, however, are buying that line, and Rubio has changed his mind about running for office before. Take 2016 when, after losing the bruising primary fight with Trump, he announced his retirement from the Senate, only to reverse course and win an easy reelection.

Unlike the more vocal and obvious Vance (it’s partially the office’s fault for its expected in the post FDR era that every incumbent VP will seek their party’s nomination when the incumbent president enters a second term), Rubio is a quieter operator. He’s been building up political capital, using the Secretary of State role to maintain a high profile both internally and externally. Could Rubio actually enter the presidential race and be very competitive, even against the vice president? Possibly.

For one the media hate “coronations,” no matter the personalities and records of those involved. Conflict, clashes, debates sell papers and seize airtime attention. And a protracted contest, especially one they can frame as an incumbent VP battling a scrappy challenger, satiates the public’s metaphorical bloodlust. Modern politics has often been compared to a blood sport in its viciousness and presidential contests are our modern equivalent of the gladiator games. Besides, once bitten by the presidential bug, any candidate finds themselves invariably coming back for more in the vague hope that the grass crown could someday be theirs.

When Rubio ran against Trump for the presidency in 2016 he called Trump “a con artist” and much more) But since Trump won and effectively commandeered the Republican Party, dominating it to an almost cult-like degree, Rubio has adjusted many of his policy positions and his rhetoric. America First staffers and supporters on his team help push forward the Trump administration’s muscular foreign policy.

While Trump placed him on the shortlist for his running mate in 2024, Rubio eventually ended up at the State Department instead. To the surprise of many political observers, Rubio fell into lockstep with Trump on issues many thought would have once been a red line for him. Refugee pathways were shut down as well as funding for democracy and huan rights programs were shut down, despite being causes he once championed. Taking such steps helped him stay in Trump’s good graces, enough so that the president named him acting national security adviser as well, an accretion of power not seen since the days of Henry Kissinger.

This control over foreign policy has allowed Rubio to exert substantial influence in shaping the president’s externa focus. Rubio has spent much of his career railing against Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship, a close ally of the regime in Cuba, his parents’ homeland. The collective experience with communism, socialism and their excesses has become part of Rubio’s worldview.

Trump, an admirer of strongmen, has often cozied up to autocrats, but he has never made any effort to like Maduro. In recent days, he made it clear he sees Venezuela as a source of oil and other natural resources for the U.S. to exploit. For his part, Rubio has long painted Maduro as a thug who thwarted democracy. Indeed, for much of this year, both men pushed the idea that Maduro had to be dealt with, alleging he led a drug cartel killing Americans with its products. They got their wish: Maduro is now in U.S. custody in New York.

But the South American country’s fate is far from clear. Many of Maduro’s cronies remain in power, even though Trump insists that they will do what the U.S. demands. Indeed, he insists that the Americans will be there for years.

“I understand that in this cycle and society we now live in, everyone wants instant outcomes. They want it to happen overnight,” Rubio told reporters after a Senate briefing following the attack. For their part, members of Congress were not notified of the Maduro operation in advance, and many are fuming about what they say is a continued lack of transparency.

Venezuela seems unlikely to be a quick or easy fix. The country is roughly twice the size of California, with a shattered economy, a varied landscape, and many armed groups in a population of 30 million. The Maduro cronies left behind have their own internal rivalries, and some control military forces. Then again, despite Trump and Rubio’s warnings to the remaining members of the regime to fall in line and capitulate to U.S. demands, it’s possible the Venezuelan state could collapse, as riven as it is by corruption, military factionalism, and drug cartels.

And it may not end with Venezuela: Rubio and Trump are warning other countries to get in line with what the U.S. wants from them, including Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. And this is only in the southern hemisphere. Other areas like Greenland, Iran and Canada (there’s a combination of states most voters would probably never have expected to see in the same sentence) are also on the American watch list.

Any potential chaos ahead could leave Rubio on the outs with key GOP voting blocs. Those include anti-interventionist, isolationist conservatives, who remain wary of Rubio’s neoconservative instincts which smacks too much of Dick Cheney-like nation building, and Republican Latino, especially in Rubio’s native Florida, some who desperately want regime change in the nations their families fled and others who are frustrated by the region’s instability.

Then, of course, there’s the general public, a good chunk of whom want the U.S. to avoid another repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, surveys seem to indicate that 72% of Americans are concerned the U.S. will get “too involved” in Venezuela.

As Rubio has become the face of the effort, Vance, a potential rival in 2028, has largely kept away from it. He was not at the makeshift Mar-a-Lago situation room while the raid unfolded on Saturday, a fact team attributed his absence to the possibility that “a late-night motorcade movement … may tip off the Venezuelans.” Vance was “deeply integrated in the process and planning of the Venezuela strikes and Maduro’s arrest,” spokespersons said. To some, it’s as close to a Washington dodge as anything seen in the administration so far, allowing Vance to claim any glory from the effort or to ensure plausible deniability should the whole policy start to crumble.

Rubio also has to consider some practical matters: If he wants to run for president, he will need to raise money, build a campaign infrastructure and take all the other steps needed before the GOP primary season kicks into full gear.

This is especially difficult to do while being Secretary of State, a position that traditionally has stayed away from the partisan domestic scene and results in whomever holding the post accumulating the most airmiles on planet Earth. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been out of the Obama administration for more than a year before she publicly moved toward a presidential campaign.

For his part, Rubio would likely have to leave the administration after another year or so to have time to mount the logistics and raise funds, as jostling for the 2028 presidential campaign will kick off by early next year.

Most U.S. presidential elections don’t hinge on foreign policy, though candidates from John McCain back to Hubert Humphrey have been damaged by their party’s foreign adventurism. Still, the first year of Trump’s second term has been surprisingly heavy on foreign policy — and any Republican running in 2028 will likely have to grapple with the results of Trump’s bold, disruptive international moves.

And Rubio must take care of maintaining MAGA orthodoxy. The base is very loyal to Trump. It will keep a lookout for any sign of disrespect to the president, which they will reward with utter opprobrium and disdain. Ask Mike Pence.

There are also factions of the GOP — including members of the Cuban and Venezuelan diasporas — who will stand by hardline moves against the regimes there no matter what the cost. GOP strategists have said that they have heard from many Latino Republicans who are impressed by how much Trump relies on Rubio. Whenever Trump needs “an adult in the room,” he seems to look towards Rubio’s leadership.

But no one should start taking bets on the GOP primary yet. After all, the situation in Venezuela is just one of multiple Trump foreign policy adventures that could turn into quagmires, or conversely, unexpected successes.

For Marco Rubio in particular, who doubtlessly looks at himself in the mirror every day and thins “Why not me?” what may look like the president knighting him as a sort of competent successor may actually, in fact, be him carrying all the weight of the unpopular actions of the president in the next span of years.

Yet, should he be successful at walking the Trump tightrope, Marco Rubio could find himself as Vice President of the U.S. Not a bad place for a man who is only 54 and has aspirations to be more than a heartbeat away from the prize.