Trump’s pick for secretary of state doesn’t even speak MAGA

Marco Rubio is a neocon warmonger through and through, having subscribed to Washington’s every foreign power play in recent years

Of all the people that US President-elect Donald Trump could have picked as America’s chief diplomat, he's chosen Marco Rubio, Florida senator and neocon talking-point guzzler.

Guess it sort of makes sense on one level. They need a guy who can talk the same language as the neocon desk jockeys at the State Department. Kind of like an African Grey parrot who can speak English with humans but also bird language with other birds. The bird-brains at State speak mainly neocon, like Rubio. And he could be the MAGA-to-neocon translator for Trump, packaging the 47th president’s vision in a way that’s palatable enough for them to not spend the entire time trying to regime-change him, like they did last time he was elected.

But how well does Rubio even speak MAGA – the language of Trump’s non-interventionist, America First, and pro-peace base? Not very well, if his record is any indication.

Case in point: Back when the Nord Stream pipelines were mysteriously blown up, Rubio was one of the first out of the starting blocks to blame Russia for blowing up their own economic lifeline to Europe. But he quickly tripped over his own shoelaces. “The only people in that region who have both the motive and the capability to have done it are Russian or Russian forces. So I think, for me, it’s not an intelligence matter at this point. It’s a common sense matter,” Rubio said in the wake of the attack.

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It turns out that even the dumbest establishment fixtures didn’t buy the narrative of “Russia blew up its own pipeline.” Apparently, they consider it to be even less of a viable scenario than some drunken Ukrainians with Aquaman-grade diving skills blasting through concrete and steel in highly monitored waters, despite Zelensky trying to stop them at the behest of the CIA, of course. And then punishing the general they claim to be responsible for the operation, Valery Zaluzhny, by sending him to… London, where he’s currently Ukrainian ambassador to Britain.

Guess Western officials and intelligence sources went to the trouble of making all that up to hide Russia’s involvement. Because that’s the only way that Marco Rubio’s confident assertions could be considered credible. Or maybe the actual responsibility lies with another nation state that has the same kind of capabilities? Who could that possibly be? Rubio is apparently so indoctrinated that he simply can’t imagine. Either that, or he does know and is being deliberately dishonest.

Back in 2021, Rubio was literally calling on Biden and Germany to do something to stop the pipeline. “US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to President Joe Biden, ahead of his meeting with Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, asking him to convey to her 'that there is broad bipartisan support for preventing the completion of yet another pipeline that bypasses Ukraine.'” Rubio also highlighted that “completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will only endanger our democratic allies in East and Central Europe and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin in his aggression towards them,” he wrote.  So, Putin, “emboldened” by Nord Stream, according to Rubio, then decided to just blow it up? Yeah, okay.

Even in establishment Washington, Rubio stood out as being exceptionally indoctrinated by kneejerk anti-Russian thinking. But just like these guys who go “all-in” on fad diets or fitness trends, Rubio can’t even seem to bring himself to cherry-pick neocon causes. He just passionately double-fists them like Joey Chestnut scarfing hotdogs in a competitive eating contest.

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A tour of recent press releases on his website is like reading a Neighborhood Watch newsletter authored by a nosy grandma, peering into everyone’s windows: Iran, Yemen, China, Venezuela. One of his latest targets: The private US consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). “Instead of distancing itself from Communist China, PwC has opted to strengthen its relationship with the regime,” Rubio wrote, referring to the firm’s business with “government officials in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where Beijing is committing genocide against Uyghurs and other groups.” Guess maybe PwC has a different view of things, given that they’ve actually been there, unlike Rubio.

Rubio also condemned China’s foreign adoption ban. “There are approximately 300 American families, including Floridians, who have been matched with Chinese children,” the statement read. “Flashback… In December 2012, Rubio released a statement urging the Obama Administration to forcefully condemn Russia’s foreign adoption ban.” What is this world coming to when countries won’t send their kids to a foreign nation? Hey, isn’t that a war crime these days? Or only if they’re Ukrainian and sent to Russia?

“Rubio demands Biden-Harris admin stop importation of slave-made pharmaceuticals,” Rubio said in an October 2024 statement. If it’s Chinese, then of course it’s “slave-made,” but if it’s about electric lithium car batteries mined by kids in Africa for “American-made electric vehicles,” then he’s apparently all for it.

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“Designate Houthis as foreign terrorist organization,” Rubio pleaded to current Biden Administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken in another release dated November 1. Yeah, I’m sure that’ll really change things – unlike the other two million times that the Iran-linked Houthis have been added to and subtracted from the terrorist list. I’m sure that dudes currently waging war against US Middle Eastern adventurism in their own country and in the region, all while dressed like California surfers who just woke up from a nap on the beach, are super concerned about Washington’s bureaucratic wrangling. Next.

Just kidding. There is no “next” when it comes to Rubio and Iran. “While Iran continues to fuel terror from the sales of illicit oil, which mostly benefit Beijing, the Biden-Harris Administration has failed to fully implement the Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) Act,” Rubio wrote.  Doesn’t he have a neighborhood garage sale transaction that he could insert himself into instead – on the other side of the planet? Same thing.

“Edmundo Gonzalez is the rightful president-elect of Venezuela,” wrote Rubio on August 3, 2024. “This is the moment for those military officers in Venezuela to fulfill their constitutional oath & defend the legitimate interim President [Juan Guaidó] in this effort to restore democracy,” Rubio wrote five years earlier in 2019. Who’s next, Marco? Antonio Banderas?

The only way Rubio could ever possibly serve Trump’s non-interventionist vision of peace over the continued rampant global conflict that characterizes American foreign policy is if the neocon rhetoric is switched out. He’d have more success if Elon Musk shot him into space and forced him to adapt to a totally different planet.