Last time Donald Trump won office, it was Sen. Marco Rubio asking the probing questions.
The Florida Republican used his perch on the Senate foreign affairs panel to grill Trump secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, for more than ten minutes about Russian election meddling in the most recent election.
On Wednesday, it will be Rubio’s turn to field uncomfortable questions about Trump’s unorthodox approach to U.S. national security, as his Foreign Relations Committee colleagues publicly vet him for the nation’s top diplomatic post.
Since winning the November election, Trump has made unconventional pitches for the U.S. to take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. More immediately, he has pledged swift action to bring home Hamas-held hostages and an end to the yearslong Russia-Ukraine war.
Yet, Rubio’s confirmation hearing is expected to be one of the least contentious, with Democratic senators focused on a platter of controversial Trump appointments.
“I think that will be the closest hearing that’s a lovefest of any of the confirmation hearings. I can’t say that about the other ones,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who sits on the committee, said.
A former presidential candidate and senator of 14 years who served as vice chair of the Senate’s famously bipartisan intelligence committee, Rubio is one of Trump’s only Cabinet picks expected to win widespread Democratic support.
The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio would be the first Latino secretary of state.
He’s well-respected by colleagues and widely seen as an institutionalist, said Emily Horne, a former spokeswoman for the National Security Council in the Biden administration.
“So relative to some of the other Cabinet nominees, who seem to be coming in with a mandate to break the institutions that they’re being appointed to lead,” Horne said, “I think there’s largely a feeling that Rubio is going to, as secretary of state, execute the administration’s foreign policy while not taking a sledgehammer to the foreign service or a whole host of our diplomatic and foreign policy norms.”