Secretary of State. Interim Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. Interim archivist for the National Archive and Record administration. And now interim national security advisor to President Trump.
Like a Christmas tree adorned with bright ornaments in each form and size, Marco Rubio, 53, has accumulated four titles that begin with confirmation as Secretary of State on January 20, the same day Trump lent oath.
Very well it could be a record in the modern history of the United States government. And he adds to the success story of the immigrants who is fundamental for the narrative of Mr. Rubio, a former Florida senator whose father worked as a cantinero and mother worked as a housekeeper after they left Cuba for the United States.
But the proliferation of titles raises questions about whether Mr. Rubio can play some substantial role in the administration if he is juggling with all these positions, especially under a president that avoids the traditional functioning of the government and who has designated a business friend, Steve Witkoff, as a special environment.
Trump announced the newest position of Mr. Rubio in a publication on social networks on Thursday afternoon, a surprise turn in the first great jolt of this administration. The president had accompanied Michael Waltz of the National Security Advisor of the White House Job, as well as the deputy of Mr. Waltz, Alex Wong. In the same position, Trump said Waltz would now be his candidate to be an ambassador to the United Nations.
The appointment of Mr. Rubio for another job, as if he were cloned in a science fiction film of grade B, was so sudden that Tammy Bruce, the spokeswoman of the State Department, learned when a journalist read the publication of Mr. Trump’s social networks with its duration a regular television press conference.
“Yes, that is the miracle of modern technology and social networks,” Bruce said. “So that is an exciting moment here.”
Finding to try to explain the events that take place in real time, Bruce said: “We have seen him be in the White House several times a week, his close working relationship day by day with the president. They have clearly been in an environment where they know each other very well.”
The fact that Mr. Rubio now leads four bodies is a signal not only of confidence in him by Mr. Trump, but also of the close relationship he has with Susie Wiles, the political operative veteran who is the head of Trump’s cabinet.
Of course, having four works also poses more practical problems: Does Rubio get a salary increase? Will you have time to get into the world to dip? How will your duties delegate?
There are precedents – classification or. From 1973 to 75, Henry Kissinger held two jobs by Mr. Rubio, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, in an experiment that was consultant a failure. In the current Trump administration, two officials, Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, and Daniel Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, have been interim chief of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, while they serve in their most prominent positions.
But it could be more relevant to look for examples outside the United States. Xi Jinping, leader of China, is general secretary of the Communist Party, president of China and president of the Central Military Commission, who remains a job less than Mr. Rubios tells when telling his main titles (Mr. XI is also the head of several groups of parties).
The Senate unanimously confirmed Mr. Rubio as Secretary of State. But he entered the other works in controversial circumstances. Trump fired the main archivist, Colleen Shogan, in early February in an apparent act of remuneration against the National Archive and Registration Administration. The agency’s leaders had raised Conerns about Mr. Trump’s clinging in document boxes classified in his house in Florida after he left office in 2021, thought that Shogan was not involved in that episode.
Four days before the dismissal of Mrs. Shogan, Rubio announced that she was the interim administrator of USAID, since Elon Musk, the multimillion -dollar advisor of Mr. Trump, and Pete Marocco, a designated politician in the State Department, were destroying the agency. Mr. Marocco and the members of the workforce of the government of Mr. Musk, the daily work of reducing the agency to a shell, cutting contracts and fireing thousands of employees, but Mr. Rubio signed the movements.
Mr. Rubio is moving the remains of the agency to the State Department. Last week, the problem is a picture of the reorganization of its planned department that shows that it maintains the Usaid administrator title.
Even before Mr. Trump appointed the main diplomat/archivist of the United States/Administrator of the Aid Agency to be an interim national security advisor, some analysts pointed out the problems with Mr. Rubio occupying all the thesis positions.
“Occupy two (or in the case of Rubio, three) roles at the same time is never ideal: direct government agencies and programs is a significant task that requires attention and focus,” said a publication at the citizen’s site for responsibility and ethics in Wash. “But Rubio’s current positions are exclusively worrisome.”
The writer, Gabriella Cantor, said the obvious conflict of interest: the archivist is supposed to ensure that other federal agencies, including both, Mr. Rubio, also leaders, preserves records. Now, with the incorporation of the White House National Security Council, it becomes more thorn.
As for the question of Mr. Rubios’s salary (or salaries), the State Department did not answer when asked on Thursday.
That night, Vice President JD Vance launched an idea on social networks about how Mr. Rubio could go further as a unique window to assume new authorities.
“I think I could assume a little more,” wrote Mr. Vance, who visited Pope Francis in the Vatican last month only a few hours before the Pope died. “If there were only a job for a devout Catholic …”
Michael Crowley Contributed reports.
