A top Cabinet official may be eyeing an early exit from the second Trump administration after the GOP’s midterm catastrophe.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio let White House officials know he is considering leaving but was asked to stick around, insiders told Bloomberg, citing internal deliberations.
Shortly after reports first broke that he may be the first to abandon ship, Rubio, 55, not only rejected the claims in comments to The New York Times, but also defended Donald Trump’s war on Iran, even as some Republicans blamed the conflict for their midterms wipeout.
Rubio told the Times the president “deserves a tremendous amount of credit” for doing what he thought was necessary.
“Ultimately, that is the price of leadership—is the willingness to do things that may not be politically popular or expedient but are necessary for your country and its long-term future,” he was quoted saying.
He said that working with Trump through his entire term has “always been my plan.”
“I don’t know where these things come from, to be honest with you,” he said. “I love the work I’m doing.”
His comments come after unnamed sources told Bloomberg the former Florida senator and his advisers had been weighing options for his future.
Insiders told the outlet that Rubio, Trump’s national security adviser, has not yet decided whether to leave his top roles in the Trump administration and that there is no timeline for when he would potentially leave.
“This is complete and total fake news based on the word of anonymous sources, befitting a tabloid,” Dylan Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs, told the Daily Beast in a statement. “The Secretary has not discussed leaving his role and he will continue to proudly serve in President Trump’s administration long after this fake news is revealed as yet another baseless hoax.”
Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Beni Rae Harmony told the Daily Beast in a statement: “This fake news is nothing more than a fabricated hoax being peddled by anonymous sources with no factual information. Secretary Rubio is a fearless fighter for President Trump and the MAGA movement.”
Rubio, who challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, also dismissed questions about a potential 2028 bid in his interview with the Times.
“I literally will not talk about 2028 anymore,” he said. “I just won’t do it.”
In May, he suggested he would support Vice President JD Vance if he launched a White House bid, despite rumors that the two had been duking it out for Trump’s endorsement.
“JD is a very good friend of mine,” he told NBC News at the time. “If JD runs for president, I think he’d be a phenomenal candidate. I’ve said publicly, and I’ll say it again, I’ll be the first person to sign up and support him.”
The two officials differ in their stances on Trump’s war in Iran, with Rubio boasting a more hawkish view than Vance.
In what was seen as a major break with Trump, the vice president, 42, released a lengthy statement on Wednesday citing the unpopular war as a major reason Democrats swept Tuesday’s midterm elections.
