SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump's Cabinet features more than a couple former rivals for the presidency, but just one from his own party - Marco Rubio. A senator from Florida, Marco Rubio supported a stable world order and human rights. He advocated for aid to be deployed as American soft power. As secretary of state and national security adviser, he now serves a president who campaigned on leaving the world to its own devices but who, in office, has upended global stability. Just this year - and remember, it is only March - the United States raided the capital of Venezuela and captured that country's leader and launched an ongoing attack on Iran. President Trump says that Cuba, where Rubio has family roots, could be next.
Dexter Filkins profiled Marco Rubio for The New Yorker, and he joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
DEXTER FILKINS: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: Ten years ago, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio were antagonists on the debate stage. How did Marco Rubio become his secretary of state?
FILKINS: Well, you know, Trump has a history of forgiving people who've insulted him. And even during the campaign in 2016, when they went behind the stage, they chatted a lot, and they became kind of friends. And so in that way, I think they both realized that politics is a game, and a lot of it is performance. And they kind of set that aside when the cameras are off.
SIMON: And what kind of U.S. senator was he? He arrived just as the Tea Party was gaining power, criticized President Obama. But then, of course, he worked towards things like immigration reform.
FILKINS: He did. I mean, he has an interesting past, political past. It's actually - it's difficult to track because he moves around so much. Rubio - if you look at the course of his career, he's said different things on different occasions, and it's basically whatever suits the occasion. But...
SIMON: I mean...
FILKINS: And I think...
SIMON: I should note that's the most common criticism you hear of politicians in both parties.
FILKINS: Well, I think Rubio has a special - yeah, he's in a special category on that front. But as a U.S. senator, Marco Rubio relentlessly advocated for a very active role for America abroad as the leader of the free world, as a donor of foreign aid, as a country that was willing to intervene, sometimes militarily if necessary. And so when he paired with Trump, the curiosity was - is Rubio going to have to lose all that? Because President Trump campaigned on America First, getting America out of all these stupid alliances that we're in and not starting any wars. What's happened, of course, is entirely the opposite.
SIMON: What brought Donald Trump over to Marco Rubio's way of thinking? I - forgive me for putting it this way. Was he played?
FILKINS: Not a chance. Not a chance that he was played. But I think President Trump is an activist president. He involves himself in everything. And I think Iran has been a problem for every American president going all the way back to Jimmy Carter. And so it's not that surprising to me that Trump, once engaged in Iran, would try to settle it. I am surprised that we got back into it in the way that we did. If you remember, there was no speech to the nation. There was no congressional vote. Trump posted something on, you know, Twitter or Truth Social at 2:30 in the morning.
Marco Rubio said I think what still remains a very curious thing when he was asked about why we attacked Iran when we did. And he said, well, the Israelis were going to do it whether we went or not. And so if the Israelis did it, then we figured the Iranians would probably attack our bases in the Middle East, so we jumped in. And he backed away from that, you know, at a hundred miles an hour after he said it. But I think if anybody played President Trump, it's not Marco Rubio, but it's Netanyahu in Israel.
SIMON: And I have to ask about Cuba because, of course, Secretary Rubio has a - yeah, I can say it - a personal relationship.
FILKINS: He does, indeed. The prospect of bringing that regime down - that's the dream for, like, every elected official in Miami, is to be - and Marco Rubio is now in the catbird seat and might be in a position to do something about that. I wouldn't predict the future here because if we look at the Iran war, I think it's not going the way that they expected it to go. And so, you know, I would probably hit the pause button on Cuba, at least until there's some kind of outcome.
SIMON: Do you think Secretary Rubio's running for president?
FILKINS: I think he wants to be president (laughter). He ran for president. It's probably a race between Marco Rubio on one hand and JD Vance, the vice president, on the other. One of the questions that caroms around Washington all the time is, like, who's Trump going to pick? You know, who does Trump want? Is he closer to JD, or is he closer to Marco? And, you know, all this is kind of playing out as we speak, but we've got a long way to go before we get to 2028.
SIMON: Dexter Filkins is staff writer for The New Yorker who has profiled Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Thanks so much for being with us.
FILKINS: Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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