President-elect Trump is expected to nominate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as Secretary of State, a source familiar tells Fox News.
The source noted that while Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, as of now he’s planning on offering the job to Rubio, the three-term senator whom the former president considered as his running mate this summer before naming Sen. JD Vance as the GOP vice presidential nominee.
Spokespeople for the Trump transition didn’t immediately comment.
The news was first reported by the New York Times earlier this evening.
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Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of the Tea Party wave. He is known on Capitol Hill as a foreign policy hawk who favors maintaining U.S. alliances overseas, including NATO.
But Rubio, who sits on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, has taken similar positions to Trump on international conflicts, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war with Hamas.
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In April, the 53-year-old senator voted against the $95 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine and has urged the eastern European nation to negotiate an end to its war with Russia.
Rubio was a rival to Trump during the combustible 2016 Republican presidential nomination battle [with Trump deriding him as ‘Little Marco’] but over the years has become a strong Trump ally in the Senate..
Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, would become the first Latino Secretary of State in the nation’s history.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a major backer of Trump this year, applauded the news.
RJC National Chairman Senator Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement that “we know that with Senator Rubio leading the State Department, America will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and confront our enemies.”
“In these extraordinarily dangerous times, Senator Rubio is an outspoken defender of Israel who has always had the Jewish state’s back,” they added.
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Less than a week after winning a second term in the White House, Trump has already begun to shape his cabinet.
In the past 24 hours, Trump has selected Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations, Tom Homan as the new “border czar,” Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida to be his national security advisor, and former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to steer the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
