Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was confirmed Monday as secretary of State, the first of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks to take office.
In becoming secretary of State, Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also makes history as the highest-ranking U.S. politician of Latino and Hispanic descent to date.
Rubio experienced a relatively easy and trouble-free confirmation process. The third-term Florida lawmaker was the top Republican member of the selective Senate Intelligence Committee and served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Not a single senator opposed his nomination on the Senate floor and he faced no opposition in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee markup that preceded it.
But there’s been debate around Washington as to how long Rubio will remain in the role, given that during Trump’s first team many of his top officials departed amid disagreements over policy or were dismissed after falling out of favor with the president.
Rubio takes the reins as America’s top diplomat as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters a third year, Israel and Hamas implement a long-negotiated cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip and increased Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific has rattled U.S. allies.
He also inherits a State Department that has been increasingly marginalized in the U.S. foreign policy process by the faster and less bureaucratic White House National Security Council.
