Those of you who read my articles from time to time know that I'm not a fan of the current President of the United States. But that doesn't mean he doesn't sometimes get it right.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump dubbed Marco Rubio "Little Marco". At the time I thought it was unfair. I knew the then-Senator from Florida a little bit and respected his foreign policy credentials. I spent time with him when he visited Honduras - I hosted briefings and dinner for him in my house - and I found him to be smart and, unlike a lot of his peers, a good listener. He was familiar with how our overseas assistance programs worked, and understood and supported our approach, through USAID and other assistance programs, to trying to improve life for ordinary Hondurans so they'd see their futures at home and not in the United States. In other words, he understood that USAID programs served a clear national interest.
So when Trump nominated him to be Secretary of State I was pleased. Rubio could have been Secretary in any "normal" Republican administration. And compared to the mediocrities that Trump appointed to other national security positions - Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth - Rubio was George C. Marshall by comparison.
So has Secretary Rubio panned out as the adult in the Situation Room, as many, including me, hoped?
No. Trump was right. He's Little Marco, and getting littler all the time.
Six months into his tenure the only mark he has made on U.S. foreign policy is to diminish it. He seems barely involved in the big challenges of the moment - Russia/Ukraine, Gaza and Iran - and instead has dedicated himself to cancelling student visas of foreign students who protested Israel's attacks in Gaza, and decreasing U.S. influence around the world.
His re-organization plan for the State Department includes firing thousands of employees, closing embassies overseas, shutting or significantly downsizing offices that deal with human rights, migration, climate change and other key global issues, and of course, his signature achievement so far, cancelling most U.S. overseas assistance programs and shuttering USAID.
On July 1, the day USAID officially disappeared, Rubio could have done the right thing and praised the thousands of USAID employees who had labored abroad in the toughest places on earth, delivering assistance to the world's most needy in the name of the United States. Instead he chose to pee on the ashes.
Rubio couldn't bring himself to say "thank you". He couldn't bring himself to say that USAID has saved millions of lives over 64 years, lifted millions out of poverty, supported democratic movements against tyranny, helped reduce crime, disease and malnutrition. He couldn’t admit that USAID has helped make the United States stronger and more prosperous, nor that millions around the world know the United States through the soft power of USAID.
Instead, he said this: “USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War.”
Rubio's words are not only insulting to the thousands of USAID employees who devoted their professional lives to making the world a better place, in the name of the United States of America, but they are stupid. And the tragedy is that Rubio knows very well that they are stupid. He's traveled widely, seen the programs first-hand, knows the devotion and professionalism of USAID staff, and understands how the programs are first and foremost in our own national interest.
He's not the first politician to sacrifice principle to political ambition, but he has certainly taken it to the next level.
Secretary Rubio, your ambition is big but your words and actions are small.
So let me say what the Secretary of State should have said to all of the great USAID colleagues I've worked with over the years - thank you for your dedicated service to our country. History will show that you had it right and that our shrinking Secretary of State has it dead wrong.
Pitch perfect, Jim. USAID, and America, deserve better.
Hard to disagree with anything you say here. One profoundly puzzling piece of our deeply puzzling political environment is the abject capitulation of prominent Republicans to seeming policy folly, in this case foreign policy folly. First, they enthusiastically participate in the destruction of our institutions. Then they praise the destruction as a fantastic accomplishment, even though they (presumably) know better and think differently in private. Are they taking a page from the handbook of the current president and knowingly and consciously lying, seeing the political rewards one can reap by doing it? It is difficult to believe that craven political ambition alone can explain this. Would someone so apparently serious as the current Secretary of State really be prepared to sacrifice everything, including the national interest, on that hollow altar? How about true belief then? Or the zeal of the convert? Did he suddenly become convinced that our institutions were so deeply rotten that only destruction, and not reform, could begin to address it? That whatever might come next, even if it's nothing, would be better than what had been there before? I'm frankly at a loss. Like many Americans, I find myself wondering whether those in positions of power by definition know what they're doing and know something we don't. Then I remember (from personal experience) that high position alone confers little or nothing. First comes the role of strong institutions. Then comes the will and vision and hard work of individual people, including our leaders--for good or ill. It's hard not see the situation tipping sharply in the latter direction as a result of all this. Our institutions be damned. And to think that principled position now appears partisan. What have we come to?