Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio became a topic of discussion on MSNBC on Saturday morning with former RNC chair Michael Steele suggesting Donald Trump picked him for the key Cabinet post for a reason.
By which he meant not his skills as a diplomat.
Speaking with GOP strategist Susan Del Percio, Steele –– who admitted he is friends with the former Florida senator –– brought up Rubio during a discussion on Trump's first few weeks in office where he appears to be bullying members of his own party.
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"It kind of draws me to a point as an example, Marco Rubio at the State Department," Steele told his guest. "I've always looked at Donald Trump selecting him as a way to punk the hell out of him. Because this is a guy –– I'm going to tell you why –– because this is a guy who has a core. I've known Marco a long, long time, and this is a guy who always, particularly in the Senate, fought very openly about the democracy piece and how important it was for the U.S. to use its soft power through agencies like USAID, for the U.S. to be on the front lines of confronting the aggression of our enemies like China economically and Russia militarily."
"And here he is now at the State Department and what does he have to do? He has to do what Donald Trump tells him to do, to do those things that go exactly counter to what he's always stood for," he elaborated.
Pointing to a New York Times article about "enacting policies aimed at pressuring China to relent on its forced labor of Uyghur Muslims," Steele reported, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long been a champion of policies that advance human rights and promote democratic practices."
"In the Senate, Rubio was a lead sponsor of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which had broad support from both parties in Congress. But now here he is firing 60 contractors working on those very issues," he explained. "Those issues are no longer a priority because they aren't a priority for this president. What do you make of this? I call it the punking of Republicans by Trump to get them to do the things that they know they would never do otherwise."
You can watch below or at the link.