There were a variety of odd moments in Donald Trump’s national address last week, but among the most peculiar was the point at which the president singled out Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump reiterated his interest in taking the Panama Canal, adding that he’d put the former senator in charge of the endeavor.
“Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong,” the president said.
As part of the same aside, the Republican referenced the fact that Rubio was confirmed unanimously in the Senate. “I’m either very, very happy about that or I’m very concerned about it,” Trump added.
Nearly a week later, it’s still not altogether clear what exactly the president was trying to say, though the comments, which seemed unscripted, suggested that Trump and the nation’s chief diplomat were not necessarily on the same page.
A few days later, The New York Times published a much-discussed behind-the-scenes report on the latest gathering of the White House Cabinet, which focused considerable attention on the secretary of state.
Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the secretary of state, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world. … Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired “nobody,” Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Times’ report, based on interviews with five people with knowledge of the events, added that Rubio had been “privately furious” with Musk for weeks, and he said at the meeting that the president’s top campaign donor wasn’t being truthful. (Neither MSNBC nor NBC News has independently verified the report.)
Musk, according to the account, told Rubio that he was good on TV, “with the clear subtext being that he was not good for much else,” and “the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time.”
Trump reportedly allowed the back-and-forth to continue, “as if he were watching a tennis match,” before eventually intervening, but if the reporting is correct, it served as a timely reminder that the secretary of state and the White House are not as closely aligned as they probably should be.
Indeed, just a few days before Times’ article was published, Vanity Fair reported, “Rubio is privately frustrated that Trump has effectively sidelined him. According to four prominent Republicans close to the White House, Rubio … has told people he is upset by his lack of foreign policy influence despite being, on paper at least, the administration’s top diplomat.”
The article from Gabriel Sherman added that Rubio “is often the last to know when foreign policy decisions are made in the White House.”
For his part, Trump has denied any internal tensions and appeared to be quite upset last week when an NBC News reporter asked about the alleged Rubio-Musk clash. But the fact remains that there’s a foundational problem that the administration has made little effort to address: The president and the secretary of state disagree — often. In case the policy disagreements weren’t enough, there are also instances in which the secretary of state was simply left out of the loop on major developments. Last month, for example, the administration brought home Marc Fogel to the United States after years of imprisonment in Russia. Rubio boasted, in reference to Fogel’s release, “I think it’s also important to note it was not in return for anything.” That was soon contradicted by the White House — and the Kremlin. About a month ago, I made the case that Rubio’s tenure was off to a dreadful start. There can be no doubt that conditions have deteriorated since. The week before Inauguration Day, Politico published a report that predicted Rubio wasn’t “likely to last long” in his position. Two months later, it’s hard not to wonder whether he occasionally re-reads the article and contemplates his future working for a president who rejects many of the secretary’s core beliefs.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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