Michael Scherer

I remember being in Rubio's office in 2013, I think, doing an interview with him about why we needed comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship.

So Rubio has really taken a journey.

And I don't think it's entirely Craven on his part.

I think he evolved independent of Trump after Trump won in 2016, after he lost that election.

But Rubio has come to be much more of a nationalist.

I think in important ways, he has come to the Trump view on a lot of this stuff.

I think internally, when it comes to Russia, he is the hawk in these discussions.

You know, he's the one sitting next to Witkoff saying, wait, we don't really want to trust Putin on all this stuff.

You know, like, this is not a guy to be trusted.

But he is very much driving, as you said, this hemispheric view that the president came into his second term with.

And this idea that the U.S.

needs to project its power south.

And, you know, he's long pushed for basically a change in the regime in Cuba.

And I think he's pushed Venezuela as a sort of stepping stone to that.

The other thing I think about Rubio is in a similar way to Suzy, and they're very close.

They know each other from Florida.

I think if Suzy had gotten to choose, you know, Rubio would have been the vice president, not J.D.

Vance.

Rubio understands how to...

advise the president into getting him what he thinks he wants while also trying to help him avoid pitfalls.