The Indo Daily
Iran war: How ‘Little’ Marco Rubio embraced Trump’s inner circle and why he may dethrone him
28 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Tessa, this is the first episode of Seachtain. There's a new episode every Tuesday with stories and stories about your life on the island. I'm very happy to be here. It was like I was talking to Stephen McCullough. It was like I was talking to the audience team. It was like I was talking to the audience team. It was like I was talking to the audience team.
It was like I was talking to the audience team. It was like I was talking to the audience team. It was like I was talking to the audience team.
It was like I was talking to the audience team.
It was like I was talking to the audience team.
On the latest episode of Real Health with me, Carl Henry, I'm delighted to be joined by John O'Driscoll. And it's all things financial fitness.
I think that there's kind of four pillars of people's health. There's physical, mental, financial and nutritional. And they're all kind of all intertwined. The problem with financial health or health issues is like they don't leave you. You go to bed at night if you're stressed about money. You wake up in the morning stressed about money.
So like, you know, you can't really just kind of box it off and compartmentalize.
It's available on all podcast platforms.
Hey there, we are Indosport with me, Joe Malloy. We cover sport and we have things like this.
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Chapter 2: What recent events have escalated tensions between the US and Iran?
But we're going to keep that in the country. We're going to keep this civilian program. So that's going to be interesting to see if we get a compromise there. But let me also add what some in the media have not noticed, what Iranians have kept off the table. Just before this war started, the U.S.
was calling for Iran to limit its ballistic missiles and to limit its ties with groups in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranians have kept those issues out of both the first and second stage, which is a victory for them because it means they don't have to observe any limits on those missiles or on their regional behavior.
So what are we hearing from Donald Trump on the U.S. camp? And like, what is the next step in this whole situation?
I mean, what you're hearing from Donald Trump is bluster and bluster the point of incoherence. And by yesterday, while saying, oh, the Iranians will make a deal, they'll have to deal, they've got no choice but to negotiate. He then said, you know, if they don't deal, he's going to come in hard on them again. Iran is very much intent. They want very much to make a deal.
So far, they haven't gotten there. We're not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be either that or we'll have to just finish the job. But then, bizarrely, because Oman, a very important Gulf state, a partner of the U.S., has been negotiating with the Iranians about the Strait of Hormuz, he threatened to bomb Oman. Nobody's going to control it.
It's international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else who will have to blow them up. They understand that. So, you know, you've got Trump who's putting out these headline statements and then you have the administration who are actually trying to do the hard work here. And right now they're split.
There are some of the administration who would like to go back and attack Iran, hit it again. That includes the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. But I think key here is, is that both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance want a way out of the war. They want a way out of the war in part because of the domestic problems. opposition to the war, including its economic effects.
And they won out because of the Gulf states who have this very key role economically and politically, and who are now saying that they want a negotiated settlement.
Well, you mentioned Marco Rubio there, and I suppose that's maybe a noticeable change from the beginning of this war, his kind of growing presence and commentary on the war. Talk to me a little bit about Marco Rubio.
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Chapter 3: How realistic is the prospect of a peace deal between the US and Iran?
just didn't say very much at all and focused, for example, on issues like Venezuela, where, of course, the United States is trying to exert dominance, and then Cuba, where it might be threatening military action in the near future. But that has changed in recent weeks.
Vance had to put his head up above the parapet last month for the first and only set of talks with the Iranians, which took place in Pakistan. But then he sort of retreated. Rubio, since then, has been on the ascendant in terms of being in public view.
Chapter 4: Who is Marco Rubio and what role does he play in US foreign policy?
So when he's been traveling with his duties as Secretary of State, he was in India this week, for example, he's taking questions from the press about the state of the Iran negotiations. And he's the one that's putting out the line, maybe we have a deal soon, maybe, maybe not quite yet, etc., etc.
I think like anything with something like this, it's going to take a couple of days to settle on even down to the disagreements over a word sentence. So we'll have to work through that. If there's going to be a deal, we're going to have to work through that.
Rubio's gamble here is, is that by taking more of a public profile, he'll look like the guy who helped get the U.S. out of this mess. The downside of that course is if the U.S. doesn't get out of this mess, then he's going to carry some of the cost.
Yeah, he has become very prominent, as you say, in recent weeks. And I suppose he's really seen as Trump's foreign policy enabler. But let's look into his political rise. Take us back to, I suppose, his beginnings and how he enters politics and I suppose his rise through politics.
So Marco Rubio is the son of parents who came from Cuba in 1956, just before the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. He is part of that very large Cuban-American population in Miami, in Florida, and he decides on a political and legal career.
So, you know, by the late 1990s, when he's in his 20s, he's serving as an intern to very powerful legislators and working on, for example, the presidential campaign of Bob Dole. He uses that as a springboard to get into the Florida legislature, where he's there for almost a decade. He becomes one of the youngest speakers of the Florida House in history.
He takes a few years off, around 2008, 2009, and has a post at a university, but he's preparing to get into the U.S. Senate. And he succeeds in the 2010 election.
Thank you.
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Chapter 5: What led to Marco Rubio's rise within Trump's administration?
There was a moment early in this campaign where I didn't know how I was going to raise the money to be competitive. And I'll never forget that the next morning my children showed up, they had collected their allowance, handed it to me. And it was in that moment that I was reminded of what this race and election was really all about. It was about the future.
And of course, you know, that's his springboard. Except his rise is interrupted to an extent when he runs against Donald Trump in 2016 and not only fails to get the nomination, Trump humiliates him. You might remember that nickname, Little Marco, that Trump kept using and still has in his pocket if he falls out with Rubio.
And a couple of days ago, CNN came out with the latest poll where we're 49 for Trump.
Rubio is 16, but after last night's...
Little Marco, Little Marco.
So Rubio repairs his career after that defeat in the presidential campaign by focusing on the Senate, building up his profile there, very public on a number of issues, especially foreign policy issues, and then gets the tap to become Trump's Secretary of State. In Trump's second term.
And here's the challenge, because in the first few months of that administration, Rubio was very, very quiet, almost seemed like he was intimidated because of the fear of offending Trump. Your sharp listeners may know that there's a meme out there of a character named Homer Simpson who retreats back into a hedge. Well, that was being applied to Marco Rubio, right?
Well, Marco has now come out of the hedge. For better or worse, Marco has come out – and I think this coincides with the fact that very soon candidates for the presidential run in 2028 – and of course Trump legally can't run again. I don't think he will try to defy that. Candidates have to begin to prepare for their campaigns, and that's going to include Rubio and Vance.
They have to start raising money. They have to start putting donors together. They have to start putting political action committees together, either while they're in office or just after they step down. And that, I think, accounts for the positioning that we're getting of Rubio and Vance on Iran, on Cuba, and on domestic issues.
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Chapter 6: What were the key events that triggered the US-Iran conflict?
There were some Republican legislators who came out and denounced that very, very strongly. There were seven Republicans that voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in the Senate. Marco Rubio was not among them. Marco Rubio was not amongst any of the senators who loudly talked about the January 6th investigation.
or indeed Trump's attempts to overturn the election, Rubio focused on other issues.
First of all, I think the trial is stupid. I think it's counterproductive. We already have a flaming fire in this country, and it's like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire.
In other words, when it came to Trump, he kept his nose clean. Then what he did was, is that he maintained, as it were, a profile where he appeared to be a very steady Republican in the Senate. He didn't try to outshine Trump or overtake Trump. And that's where we are now, because I think the shift between J.D. Vance, the vice president, and Rubio, I think J.D.
Vance was seen as the heir apparent to Trump until a few months ago. And I think people both in the Rubio camp and indeed around Donald Trump have said that may not be the case now. I think Vance may have gotten out a little bit too in front on his skis in terms of possibly taking headlines away from Trump. And I think there's concerns about how effective Vance is in public.
And Rubio's trying to take advantage of that now, again, while never crossing Trump, never calling him out.
So at the cabinet yesterday, at the cabinet yesterday, which was just a photo opportunity, you had the spectacle of Marco Rubio, the man who got called Little Marco, the man who was at one point humiliated by Trump in debates with vulgar language I can't even repeat, talking about that this was the greatest president America has ever seen.
But here's the bottom line, because I keep getting asked, what is this all about? It's very simple. Iran and these people in charge of Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and they will never have a nuclear weapon, and they most certainly will not have one as long as you're president of the United States. On that point, it's very clear.
So how influential has he been then during his time in Trump's administration, do you think?
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