How Trump went from deriding 'Little Marco' to nominating Rubio for secretary of state
The snub ultimately brought Donald Trump and Marco Rubio closer together.
When Trump passed over Rubio to be his running mate in July, the Florida senator didn’t pull back from the 2024 campaign. Instead, he doubled down and spent even more time traveling with Trump and acting as a surrogate on television.
The men deepened a relationship that got off to a rocky start when they faced off during the 2016 presidential campaign. The relationship progressed through Trump's first White House stint and comeback bid to become a mutually beneficial alliance. Rubio provided substantive foreign policy input in Oval Office meetings, said former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, without being overly ingratiating, as many are with the incoming president.
They worked amicably on shared policy goals during the first Trump administration, but grew closer as the 2024 campaign came to a close. They spent more time together, joking, bantering about sports and political gossip and developing more of a personal connection that went beyond their political careers, according to a close ally of both men.
“They never really got to know one another really, really that well, and the odd part is after VP they did,” the source said, adding that they connected while traveling.
Trump tapped Rubio to be his pick for secretary of state this week, putting him fourth in line to the presidency. It caps an eight-year overhaul of their relationship, which famously bottomed out during the 2016 primary with Trump mocking the senator as “Little Marco” and Rubio firing back that Trump has “small hands” and implying another part of his anatomy is small.
They've come a long way from that nasty primary contest, cementing a personal rapport in the closing months of the 2024 campaign, when Rubio was stumping with the incoming president through his final day of rallies. They bonded despite very different backgrounds, observers say.
The son of Cuban immigrants who worked as a bartender and a maid, Rubio had a modest upbringing in West Miami and has been in politics nearly his entire adult life, first on the West Miami City Commission, then the Florida House and eventually the U.S. Senate. Trump, meanwhile, is a business tycoon who entered politics late in life after years as a celebrity developer and television personality.
There are similarities in their personalities, though. Both are jocular, outgoing and prone to wisecracks.
“They’re both guys, guys,” the source said. “They both like sports… they both like to joke” and when they interacted on the campaign trail it wasn’t “hey let’s just talk about immigration policy.”
The final stretch of the campaign not only showed they enjoyed each other’s company, but Rubio also proved he was a loyal Trump defender during difficult moments.
During one of Trump’s toughest stretches in the campaign's closing days, after a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and Trump faced a wave of recrimination from Hispanic leaders, Rubio appeared at Trump’s next rally - his third in five days - in the heavily Puerto Rican community of Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Rubio spoke to the crowd in Spanish, joking to those who didn't understand that "basically what I said is I saved a lot of money by switching to GEICO.” He said Trump has the most "fascinating, most diverse coalition of Americans from every race, every ethnicity, every walk of life in modern American political history."
"It reminds us too that American... has never been a skin color, American has never been where your parents are born... American is anyone who is here, who wants to move this country forward and believes that our rights come from God, family's more important than government and this is the greatest country in the history of the world," Rubio said in a nod to the country's immigrant roots.
As the nation's most prominent Hispanic elected official, Rubio’s presence provided a vivid counter to the criticism Trump faced that he was anti-Hispanic.
When "the fire was hottest" Rubio "stood up and defended the campaign, defended President Trump in a way that a few others could," said the source close to both men.
Now Rubio will be a leading figure in Trump's Cabinet and a potential heir to his MAGA movement, keeping himself in the mix despite losing the veepstakes to incoming Vice President JD Vance, who may be the best positioned to take Trump's mantle in four years but could face competition from Rubio and others. It's an incredible turnaround from 2016, one that revives Rubio's status as a top presidential contender even as some still question if he abandoned his principles.
Reconciling after a tough campaign
Many Republicans have come around to Trump after initial skepticism.
The rift between Rubio and Trump was among the deepest, though, and most public.
Rubio at the time called Trump a “con artist” who couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. Trump mocked Rubio relentlessly.
Yet after Trump knocked Rubio out of the 2016 presidential contest with a decisive primary victory in his home state of Florida, the senator immediately began working to align himself with the GOP's new figurehead.
"After a long and spirited primary, the time for fighting each other is over. It's time to come together and fight for a new direction for America," Rubio said in a video message at the 2016 Republican National Convention that praised Trump's approach to the military, taxes and appointing conservative judges.
After Trump won, Rubio dined with the new president and his wife at the White House.
Rubio became an influential foreign policy figure during Trump's first presidency. He has been described as Trump's shadow secretary of state for Latin America, pushing tough policies against socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. He emerged as one of the biggest China critics, so much that he was sanctioned twice by Beijing.
Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, was in Oval Office meetings that Rubio attended and noticed how Trump respected what Rubio had to say on the Americas.
"Rubio and Trump seemed to have a good personal relationship and Marco just made the case very calmly and persuasively," Bolton recalled to USA TODAY. "I think it did have an effect on Trump."
While many who worked with Trump have spoken about the president-elect's weakness for flattery, Bolton said he did not see Rubio employ that tactic in his dealings with the president.
"Marco's approach was always to argue the substance of the policy, the issue, and I thought he was very persuasive with Trump," said Bolton, a Trump critic since leaving the White House.
Marc Short, who served as former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff during the first Trump administration, said both the incoming president and Rubio seemed to move on from their contentious primary long ago.
Trump "always embraces converts" and Rubio "was somebody who was always eager to work with the administration," Short said.
"My sense was it was probably more utilitarian, in the sense of it being beneficial to both sides," Short said of the interactions between the two men during Trump's first administration.
Rubio still had differences with Trump, rebuking his comments about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. He voted to certify the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claimed was stolen. He supported aid to Ukraine.
He now is fully aligned with Trump's agenda, though, voting against the most recent round of Ukraine aid.
Rubio's evolution on Trump has left him with fans and critics at both ends of the GOP spectrum. Some MAGA diehards are still wary of his hawkish, interventionist past, while there are establishment Republicans who view him as a sellout. Yet he also bridges these worlds like few other Republican figures and has enough goodwill in the Senate to easily win confirmation, with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, calling him a "strong choice" on X.
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, said Rubio is "the right guy" for secretary of state and should have "broad support across the spectrum."
America's face abroad
As Trump's secretary of state, Rubio will represent America abroad. He is uniquely suited for the role as a gifted communicator with extensive foreign policy experience in the Senate.
"He’d be a great face and a great voice for America,” Rounds said.
Rubio is "very qualified" for the top diplomat post, Bolton said, noting the Florida senator is "very knowledgeable about international affairs around the world."
Rubio's skills as an orator marked him as a rising star early in his political career, propelling him to Florida House speaker at 35 and then U.S. senator by the time he was 39. Now 53, he has 14 years of experience in the Senate, where he sits on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees.
More: MAGA makeover for Marco Rubio as he evolves from Bush protégé to Trump loyalist
Significantly for Trump, who values people who can deliver his message on television, Rubio has been a ubiquitous presence on cable TV for years. According to the left wing group Media Matters for America, Rubio has appeared on conservative cable channel Fox News' weekday programing 263 times since August 2017, including 70 times since January 2023.
"I think it's been clear over the years, the president likes someone who can get on TV and speak in a way that resonates with Americans and shows the ability, shows the strength of America," said the source close to both men.
"Marco's got a long, very successful career in front of the camera, and I think that's that's one of the things the president saw and appreciates in him," the person added.
Rubio's new status as the chief advocate of Trump's foreign policy abroad has eased concerns among some traditional conservatives about how the next administration could play out.
Short called him a "terrific pick."
"I think there’s a lot of encouragement for conservatives with that pick," he said.
Rubio's evolution on Ukraine to match Trump's position against more aid has draw criticism from both the right and left. Short and Bolton support helping Ukraine in the country's fight against Russia.
"The only area I'd be concerned about is Ukraine, where he has voiced opinions closer to Trump," Bolton said. "But, again, Trump is the problem on Ukraine, not Rubio."
Riley Beggin contributed to this report
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump grew closer with Marco Rubio after snubbing him for VP