Many of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees have sparked outrage and controversy, but the president’s choice for secretary of state proved to be rather anodyne. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio wasn’t just the first Cabinet nominee to be confirmed this year, the Florida Republican is also the only Trump choice thus far to receive unanimous support, clearing the chamber on a 99-0 vote.

Ahead of the vote, my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem made the case that the then-senator was seen as one of the “normal” Trump picks, but these perceptions gave Rubio far too much credit. “In a reasonable world,” Zeeshan argued, his record “would make his nomination for secretary of state controversial.”

Senators disagreed, but weeks later, Zeeshan’s assessment is holding up nicely. Indeed, Rubio’s tenure as the United States’ chief diplomat is already off to a dreadful start.

As a senator, for example, Rubio was one of Congress’ most enthusiastic champions of the U.S. Agency for International Development. As a member of Trump’s White House Cabinet, however, Rubio has been content to say and do effectively nothing to protect USAID as the president and let Elon Musk kneecap the agency.

This was one of the secretary’s most glaring recent failures, but it was not the only one. After a couple of weeks on the job, Rubio has also:

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• Welcomed Darren Beattie to serve as an acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, despite Beattie’s history of racism.
• Tapped Pete Marocco to help run USAID, despite Marocco’s Jan. 6 past.
• Silently went along as Trump stripped deportation protections from Venezuelans in the United States, despite Rubio previously agreeing that deporting Venezuelans would be a “death sentence.”

It doesn’t help matters that Rubio also appears to have contradicted the administration on Trump’s radical new plan to acquire the Gaza Strip.

Maybe the secretary of state needs more time. Maybe he’s struggling now, but after the former senator gets settled in, he’ll be better able to do the job.

But in the meantime, The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell has begun describing Rubio as a “spineless coward” who is “complicit in the ongoing dismantling of the federal government and shredding of the Constitution.”