As Secretary of State Marco Rubio assumes a commanding position as the presumed successor to Donald Trump’s MAGA throne, one of the former Florida senator’s supporters wondered this week if he is damaged goods.
Writing for NOTUS, longtime conservative columnist Matt Lewis noted that he supported Rubio in 2016 and his esteem for him has only grown, but now he worries that not only has he been “complicit,” which could damage his future or worse, or could he have learned the wrong lessons from the Trump administration.
Lewis articulates that central tension by writing, "The possibility that this sad detour in American politics could end with a President Rubio offers, at least on the surface, a tiny bit of hope," but that fragile optimism collapses under the weight of Rubio's actual record within the Trump administration.
The imagery haunts Lewis. He recalls Rubio "sinking into that couch while Trump and JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy"—a moment that crystallizes Rubio's passivity in the face of presidential misconduct.
"Any Republican who remained opposed to Trump has already been purged, which means the only viable Republicans have, to varying degrees, been tainted," Lewis observed before asking is he a "calculating conservative" or, "... has he transformed into a genuine populist nationalist? Or is he simply a chameleon? Is there even a 'real' Rubio?"
"If Rubio is an amoral Machiavellian, he might prove more dangerous than Trump, precisely because he’s more competent — and has had more time to observe the testing of America’s institutional guardrails," Lewis wrote before proposing, "If he has transformed into a populist nationalist, then he would compete in the same lane as Vance and Tucker Carlson — perhaps explaining to voters why his worldview evolved during the Trump era, and how he might offer a kinder, gentler version of this philosophy."
Adding that he hopes Rubio is "playing the long game," doing what he needs to do to remain "viable', he warned, "Then again, if a presidential candidate is willing to placate Trump to get elected, can we trust him to govern independently once he is in the White House?"