She had so many men on her dating app, but none were as perfect as HIM.

Helga the Horrible's plans for world domination and conquest will be put on hold for hot fudge sunday.

First time in Internet History is me today blowing everything to bite sized food.

We can go out and have fun or get angry and do fancy talk?

If the Trump administration has done amazingly well you can either cheer for your country or get unhinged then double down?

America now seems to double down on everything including doubling down.

America's new favorite word!

Country of interest.

The spirit of Jihad should not animate the liberals.

I mean most of America's Arts infrastructure is in terrible shape and even our online options aren't doing so well. If nothing changes there it won't for a while. So we must adapt.

I want to explore new and better ways to relax and stay relaxed.

A leader seeks to lead, seeks to learn, and takes the best answers only.

People with an insensitivity to the holocaust are either uneducated or deeply unhinged.

Get to know an American Hero!

Nation of interest!

The better world is coming soon!

I have some uncanny powers, and they are helping the future.

Europe Pro E&E News Search WASHINGTON & POLITICS Congress White House 2024 Elections Supreme Court and Legal Issues Magazine Latest on POLITICO TRANSITION OF POWER Trump’s First 100 Days Tracking Trump’s Cabinet picks Inside Congress Live Trump Criminal Cases Trump Tariffs STATE POLITICS & POLICY California Florida New Jersey New York GLOBAL POLITICS & POLICY NATO Brussels Canada United Kingdom POLICY NEWS Food and Agriculture Cannabis Cybersecurity Defense Education Energy and Climate Tax, Finance and the Economy Health Care Labor Sustainability Tech Trade Transportation NEWSLETTERS Playbook Playbook PM West Wing Playbook Inside Congress POLITICO Nightly POLITICO Weekend The Recast All Newsletters COLUMNISTS Rachael Bade Alex Burns Victoria Guida John Harris Ankush Khardori Jonathan Martin Michael Schaffer Nahal Toosi All Columnists SERIES & MORE Breaking News Alerts Podcasts Video The Fifty Biden’s Billions Women Rule Matt Wuerker Cartoons Cartoon Carousel POLITICO Live Upcoming Events Previous Events Follow us X Instagram Facebook My Account Log In Marco Rubio’s esteem is rising in Trump world — at a cost With four hats, including national security adviser, the former Trump rival is defying predictions he’d be a weak player. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a National Day of Prayer event. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a National Day of Prayer event with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2025. | Yuri Gripas/Abaca By Nahal Toosi, Felicia Schwartz and Robbie Gramer 05/03/2025 07:01 AM EDT Marco Rubio is doing big things under President Donald Trump — way more than nearly anyone expected. The secretary of State was once thought of as one of the weakest players in the Trump orbit, a man who wouldn’t last long in the Cabinet because he faced many internal rivals and had major policy differences with Trump and the MAGA base. But Rubio has deftly earned the president’s trust, enough so that Trump this week gave him another powerful job as interim national security adviser, replacing the ousted Mike Waltz. Some Trump advisers are interested in making the arrangement permanent, as POLITICO first reported. Rubio’s esteem has risen in Trump’s eyes since the former senator has abandoned many of his past policy views, loudly defended some of Trump’s harshest policies and worked well with others who have the president’s ear. “He took this job knowing exactly what he was getting into,” said Sen. James Risch of Idaho, the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “When you take a job like this, you are no longer a free agent like you are when you’re a United States senator. … When you take the job, you commit to make happen what your boss wants to happen, and he has real ability to do that.” President Donald Trump participates in a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House. President Donald Trump participates in a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on May 1, 2025. House speaker Mike Johnson, front row left, and members of Trump's cabinet attend. | Yuri Gripas/Abaca Trump, who once derided Rubio, a presidential rival, as “Li’l Marco,” now appears to see the former Florida senator as a fixer who can tackle key challenges, enough so that he’s given Rubio four concurrent jobs. Speaking Thursday in the Rose Garden, Trump said: “When I have a problem, I call up Marco. He gets it solved.” Rubio’s rise offers a lesson to others trying to survive under Trump, whose first term was marked by constant staff turnover. Subordinate your ego and your views to the president’s; stay quiet when you need to, but be loud in defending Trump’s point of view; and outmaneuver rivals by doing just enough to make Trump unwilling to side against you. “It’s a snake pit, but Rubio just seemed to be a little better at navigating it,” a former Trump administration official said of the collection of officials and envoys that make up Trump’s top advisers. “You have to play well with all of these people.” The person, like others, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive topic. Detractors say Rubio is rising in prominence at great cost, by deserting policies he long backed. Some argue he’s become nothing more than a Trump vassal, with little power in his own right. “Once you let yourself get trampled on, you lose respect, you lose cache, you lose your future in Washington, and Rubio is a doormat,” said Adam Ereli, a former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Supporters argue that Rubio is a skillful politician who has achieved various heights — including serving as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives when just 35 years old, and as a U.S. senator with senior roles on the intelligence and foreign relations committees — by being flexible and receptive to voters’ views. That includes the voters who swept Trump to power. As a result, his role has expanded. He is now secretary of State, interim national security adviser, acting administrator for USAID and acting archivist of the United States. Asked for comment, the State Department offered the following statement: “Secretary Rubio is honored by the trust placed in him and is working every single day to execute the president’s agenda.” MOST READ supreme-court-jackson-99747.jpg Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply condemns Trump’s attacks on judges Trump sends a scorched-earth budget plan. GOP lawmakers hate it already. JD Vance’s Canadian pal tells him: Please don’t visit ‘He’s Trying to Colonize This Community’: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan to Take Over This Texas Town The Supreme Court Could Unleash Chaos on the Economy Secretary of State Marco Rubio boards his plane. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boards his plane at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, April 2, 2025, en route to NATO in Belgium. | Pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin Rubio has made inroads under Trump in part by not being too territorial. There are multiple foreign policy power players on the Trump team, including special envoy Steve Witkoff, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Vice President JD Vance and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, all of whom, according to a former Trump administration official, carry more weight than their titles suggest. But Rubio, the chief U.S. diplomat, has been able to work with the others. Rubio remains, for instance, a major voice on Iran policy, one U.S. official said, even though Witkoff leads that file. He’s also tight with Wiles, a fellow Floridian. The pair have remained in close contact as they’ve taken their respective roles in the administration, according to two people close to the White House. That said, Rubio is willing to knife people, too. He pushed out Pete Marocco, a MAGA favorite, who oversaw the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, amid policy differences and complaints over Marocco’s workplace actions. Rubio also successfully pushed back against demands from Trump adviser Elon Musk for radical, speedy cuts to the State Department — even drawing some support from Trump despite the president’s fondness for the billionaire. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team had spawned havoc as it imposed rapid cuts to USAID. The damage to the agency was well underway before Rubio took over as acting administrator, but he chose not to stop it. But Rubio did not want to repeat that chaos at State, according to a Trump administration official close to Rubio. So although Rubio has unveiled big cuts and restructuring plans for State, the moves are more methodical than what happened at USAID. Supporters hold signs of support for former USAID employees terminated after the Trump administration dismantled the agency. Supporters hold signs as former USAID employees terminated after the Trump administration dismantled the agency collect their personal belongings at the USAID headquarters on Feb. 27, 2025, in Washington. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Rubio also has endeared himself to Trump by aggressively adopting many of the president’s policies, even if they clashed with his past views. Rubio previously boosted human rights and democracy programs abroad. But Trump’s MAGA base sees such endeavors as “woke” liberal projects that are a waste of money. Now, Rubio is eliminating many programs that carry out such work. Rubio was once viewed as a hawkish Republican who backed everything from heavy sanctions on dictatorships to some U.S. military intervention abroad. He insisted the U.S. had to support Ukraine as it fought off a Russian invasion, and was a major voice challenging the rise of China. But since taking over as secretary of State, he has moderated such positions — pressuring Ukraine to come to a peace agreement with Russia, and suggesting casually that the U.S. needs to accept that the world is more multipolar in part because of China’s growing power. Rubio also has tried to woo the MAGA base, including by regularly appearing on talk shows hosted by favorites of that crowd. “He has fundamentally converted his own foreign policy views in order to serve,” said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who worked for both Republican and Democratic secretaries of State. Rubio’s backers in the Trump administration say his views were evolving before he joined the Cabinet, especially as he has traveled the U.S. and listened to voters who want the government to focus more on domestic challenges. He made it clear upon landing at Foggy Bottom that he would implement the president’s vision, not his own. “In our republic, the voters decide the course of our nation, both domestically and abroad, and they have elected Donald J. Trump as our president when it comes to foreign policy on a very clear mission,” Rubio said in his arrival speech. “That mission is to ensure that our foreign policy is centered on one thing and that is the advancement of our national interest.” Rubio, who in the past touted his family’s Cuban immigrant story, also has enthusiastically — even pugilistically — carried out Trump’s anti-immigration policies, including signing off on revoking many student visas and implementing efforts to send migrants to a prison in El Salvador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as President Donald Trump looks on during a cabinet meeting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as President Donald Trump looks on during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2025. | Ken Cedeno/UPI During a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Rubio was asked if he’d requested that El Salvador return a man the Justice Department has admitted was mistakenly deported. “I would never tell you that. And you know who else I’ll never tell? A judge,” Rubio replied. “The conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.” With Rubio expected to serve as both secretary of State and national security adviser for at least six months and likely longer, current and former State officials warned that it’s hard to do both jobs well. Some wondered if it meant both positions would be watered down. They also questioned how Rubio would balance the demands of travel for the secretary of State with the national security adviser’s tendency to stay by the president’s side while overseeing the National Security Council. “It’s hard to be in two places at once,” a former senior diplomat said. There’s a bit of cockiness in some corners at the State Department, which has seen its power eroded over the decades as the NSC and Pentagon have outmaneuvered it. “What’s the NSC? A new bureau of State?” one State official quipped. President Gerald Ford, flanked by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, and and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, right, holds his first post election cabinet meeting in the White House, 1976. President Gerald Ford, flanked by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, and and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, right, holds his first post election cabinet meeting in the White House in Washington, Nov. 5,1976. | AP Serving as secretary of State and national security adviser didn’t always go well for the only other person who’s done it, diplomat Henry Kissinger. During that 1970s stint, Kissinger faced questions about whether he manipulated decision-making to favor State and himself. “People at the Defense Department and other agencies that had roles in the national security process thought that it was unfair that everything was biased in Kissinger’s favor because he held two chairs,” said John Bolton, a first-term Trump national security adviser who has fallen out with the president. “That was one reason why pressure grew on [President Gerald] Ford, ultimately, to separate them and go back to the regular order.” Dasha Burns contributed to this report. Filed under: White House, Marco Rubio, Diplomac

As seen in the bible!

My very needed haircut, stopped a woman of needs and caused a constitutional crisis, then released positronic waves across America!

Business Tycoon and media personality vs Sleazo with fake law degree?

Survival today is about staying calm when storms go on. To ask God to let that storm pass.

Under Harris I gave America a 1% chance, under Trump now a 51% chance. I hope you all understand that reality.

She transferred her weight nicely across her body and entered the room with a large pen and thick glasses: May I help you?

Democrats have returned from their luxury vacation and almost drowned in oil, but they are back!

Sunshine therapy and good vibes offered as rejection relief for lovers.

Perhaps time travel is achieved by human's ability to perceive events connection to the past and make interesting positive predictions for the future.

Any civil war is by definition not patriotic.

I am just getting started again.

There is no such thing as a civilized rabid mouse.

The most dangerous people Jews have ever faced in history were other Jews. Perhaps early in his life Hitler was close to some Jews, and later became a raging antisemite. Same story with other butchers of Jews, often Jewish themselves.

Biden was a revolution and Trump is a counter revolution. If you do something really wrong there is a price, you all know that.

Liberal media looks less like media and more like obvious lies. It is illegal to distort the news and your complaints will be taken seriously. Long live democracy in America! Also, if you work in news you can't pretend to be a qualified expert, when you aren't!

After Israel was attacked by Hamas which included UN workers (UNRHA) The UN made comments concerning Israel's right to defend itself.

Compassion is not meant for illegal criminals.