Everything Is Coming Up Marco Rubio

Walk into a high-stakes State Department meeting with Secretary Marco Rubio, and you might find him dissecting last night’s Miami Dolphins game, play-by-play, formation by formation.

Then, in a heartbeat, he pivots: breaking down alliances, threats, and America’s next move on the global stage.

People close to the secretary say that’s just who Rubio is. A lifelong diehard Dolphins fans, Miami native, and now the man President Trump tapped to execute his foreign policy vision. He’s the man with a million jobs.

The Daily Caller spoke to people within Rubio’s inner circle, both within the administration and outside of it, about his meteoric rise. Some watched Rubio operate as speaker of the Florida legislature. Others saw him upset Charlie Crist in his race for Senate. All watched as he evolved from “little Marco” to perhaps the most powerful Secretary of State since Kissinger. Some of them even got emotional while speaking about the impact he has had on their lives.

Rubio has long been a foreign policy wonk with certain ideas of what America’s role in the world should be — particularly in Latin America. As Trump has sought to reshape the region, speculation has emerged about how much influence Rubio has on the president’s vision, or if Rubio is just the ideal candidate to put Trump’s instincts into action.

“I think what you’ve seen over the past year is there’s a level of trust and comfort, and a lot of that stems from Rubio understanding what the role of a secretary of state is, what the role of national security advisor is, what the role of an advisor to the president is,” a source close to Rubio told the Caller of the secretary’s rise and his relationship with President Trump.

From interceding in conflicts around the world to capturing dictators like Nicolas Maduro, Rubio has been at the center of it all. Reshaping the Western Hemisphere has always been a pet passion for the South Floridian, and it’s now a priority for his boss too — perhaps in part due to Rubio’s years-long work.

Rubio was the first person to bring the story of Lillian Tintori, the wife of the biggest political dissident in Venezuela at the time, to Trump during his first administration. Tintori met with the president, with Rubio’s help, in 2017.

“And Rubio, even though he wasn’t a member of the administration, was there to plant that seed, and then his entire group starts taking over some of the Western Hemisphere posts in order to drive a policy,” Carlos Trujillo, a long-time Rubio ally and Trump’s ambassador to the Organization of American States in his first term, told the Caller. He added that Rubio was a guiding force during Trump 1.0 on Western Hemisphere policy.

“That all started taking place in 2017 and the architect of that was Marco Rubio,” Trujillo said.

Republican Idaho Senator Jim Risch, who served on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees with Rubio, told the Caller that he believes they share similar views: America can’t be the “policeman of the world” but also cannot be “isolationist.” It’s a balance that is manifesting in Trump’s foreign policy. (RELATED: Marco Rubio Lays Out How Trump Admin Will Gauge Venezuelan Cooperation)

While he does have influence over where things may go like any top advisor to a president, Rubio’s inner circle said the key to his success has been understanding his role as an enforcer for the president, not a guide.

“When he took the job, he understood he was taking the job to help the president execute the president’s foreign policy agenda … and coming into it with that sort of humble position,” one source close to the secretary said. 

Those who work with him on a daily basis described him as thoughtful and intelligent, with the ability to internalize complicated issues rather quickly. He’s said to be highly accessible around the West Wing, and one source wondered out loud if he had a photographic memory.

“He reads … and you think like, oh, ‘everyone reads,’’ but not like he does … he knows exactly what’s in the pre-brief materials, and he gets it, just instantly. He remembers the numbers, he remembers the background,” an administration official noted. Another administration official told the Caller that Rubio is always expected to be about 30 steps ahead of the current conversation.

These traits shine when Rubio discusses foreign policy with the president. One administration official explained there is a “narrative” about how to secure the Western Hemisphere in a way that secures America’s security without intervening so much that it ties “the American people down in these faraway conflicts.”

“The Secretary is very thoughtful at understanding how to balance those considerations and how to get to the right outcome in these really hard, complicated situations, and understanding when the moment is right, when it’s not right, when to talk, when to act,” an administration official told the Caller.

Those close to him said Rubio’s humility traces all the way back to his early career.

The Secretary of State’s first foray into politics was serving as a city commissioner in West Miami, which eventually propelled him to speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

“[My brothers] came up for my swearing in — I’ll get emotional just talking about this — and they were so anti-politics, and they sat in the gallery and watched my swearing in. They got to hear Marco’s first opening day speech, and they were just stunned,” Florida Congressman Jimmy Patronis told the Caller.

“They could not believe how amazing this guy was, and his passion and his vision and his ideas, and they just immediately just fell in love with him,” Patronis added.

Patronis told the Caller how the then-speaker set up a monthly lunch program to ensure that all members were meeting regularly and cultivating relationships with one another. He also started a mentorship program to ensure that all new members were shown the ropes and set up to succeed by veteran members. It’s a program, the congressman told the Caller, that continues to impact their life to this day.

He also had a penchant for playing flag football with his colleagues, Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told the Caller.

“I worked for a member at that time that — honestly, I worked for him for an entire year. I don’t think he ever asked me my name,” Trujillo told the Caller.

“Rubio comes by the office and immediately just engages with everyone, from the lady who’s manning the reception desk to the person making coffee, to the interns, to the staff,” he said.

It’s those moments that Rubio’s friends and advisors point to when asked how he managed to upset Crist with a relatively small campaign team.

“He would drive himself to events in his Ford F-150. He would sit in the crowd, wait for everybody to speak and then he would go up and give his speech and say, ‘I’m running for Senate,’” a longtime Rubio advisor told the Caller.

Rubio hit the ground running in the U.S. Senate. He served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Then, he ran for president in 2016. Rubio ultimately dropped out and returned to the Senate.

It was on the 2016 campaign trail that his eventual boss gave Rubio a vintage Trumpian nickname: “Little Marco.”

“During the campaign, Marco would tell me stories about how, during the debate, the president would be lighting everybody up and then during the commercial breaks, [Trump] would turn to you and just be like, ‘Hey man, that was a pretty good shot,’” one source close to Rubio told the Caller, saying the secretary of state knew to never take any of it personally.

Rubio never had ill feelings towards Trump. He saw the campaign as an opportunity to learn, and decided to get behind the president. And once Trump moved to Florida, he became a constituent of the state’s senators, something sources said helped their relationship develop even further.

“People will always ask, ‘You guys were … really mean to each other during the 2016 campaign,’ and the secretary typically responds to that saying, ‘Nobody asks a boxer when they come out of the ring why they were trying to punch the other guy into things, right?’” another source close to Rubio told the Caller. 

Rubio studied why he lost, which of Trump’s ideas resonated with his supporters, and got to work on how he could better influence foreign policy.

It’s the same approach he had when he nearly became Trump’s running mate in 2024.

The secretary of state has since earned the president’s trust. He knows his stuff. He has a sense of humor and he loves to talk football.

I do not normally respond to online rumors but feel the need to do so at this moment

I will not be a candidate for the currently vacant HC and GM positions with the Miami Dolphins.

While you never know what the future may bring right now my focus must remain on global events…

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 8, 2026

White House Announces Over 1,000,000 New Jobs Were Created In December But They Were All Filled By Marco Rubio https://t.co/miDeObm3VO pic.twitter.com/0wWwbvh3UM

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 7, 2026

At one point in the administration, Rubio had four jobs: secretary of state, acting national security advisor, acting archivist of the United States and acting administrator of USAID. Most recently, Trump put him in charge of the 2035 World Expo in Miami. 

Memes and jokes have circulated of Rubio taking on more jobs, like being the Queen of England or a nanny to the Vances’ fourth child. Rubio has gotten in on the fun himself. Ahead of Labor Day, he joked in a cabinet meeting that the holiday had become so special to him because of all the jobs he holds. When the Miami Dolphins fired their head coach, Rubio jumped on X to announce that it was a role he would not be filling.

Officials told the Caller that Rubio loves the jokes, he laughs and occasionally will mention the latest meme in meetings. But those close to him were quick to mention that he isn’t just good at balancing his federal jobs but that he has always put his role as a father, husband and a Catholic above the rest.

“He could go home and be happy without having a title. It’s not necessary to kind of define his life,” a longtime ally told the Caller. “God has given him these talents, these abilities, this passion for public service, and so that’s what keeps him in public service.”