It required an incredible amount of sophistication to achieve the desired result in Caracas: a dictator detained and transported alive. The mission had been planned and mapped out for months, worked and reworked at the behest of the Commander-in-Chief. No American casualties would be tolerated. Special Forces had been circling and at the ready for weeks.
The helicopters were easy targets, so a vital part of the mission was to eliminate Nicolás Maduro’s ground- to-air response beforehand and claim total air superiority. There must have been any number of worries that such a risky mission could go wrong, yet mere hours before it started, Marco Rubio was calmly sitting at a table in Mar-a-Lago where he was captured singing along to Pitbull and throwing up his hands at the chorus of “Fireball” in a celebratory mood. There he is, the American Secretary of State: constantly memeable, always on his phone.
Rubio had an incredible journey to this moment of victory. Once he was ridiculed for his heel boots and robotic debate-stage talking points. He was the ordained inheritor of neoconservative dreams. He posed with Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy and Tim Scott in South Carolina, the last establishment gasp before the reality of the 2016 cycle set in.
But Rubio has remade himself into something new and interesting. His rakish wit and a come-at-me on-camera attitude renders him immune to the jabs of talk-show critics. Rubio is now the best version of himself; the laid-back Gen Xer of the cabinet, cool and composed under pressure and with an occasional knowing wink to his audience. This is a guy who officially does not give an F. And, as Secretary of State, that is a very powerful thing.
Rubio’s origin story was always an oddity: he was a dyed-in-the-wool social conservative, a Mike Huckabee supporter in 2008, who latched on to the energy of the 2010 Tea Party to seize a Senate seat. TIME magazine hailed him as the “savior” of the Republican party, the establishment-friendly Hispanic face of a newly anointed nationalist movement tied to tricorne hats and pocket Constitutions. As a presidential candidate six years later, he attempted to bring everyone in for the win, running a campaign that seemed more tuned to a general election than a primary. But things didn’t go as planned. At a rally in Hialeah, a Cuban-heavy Miami-Dade neighborhood, he stayed late onstage to take questions from Fox News’s Megyn Kelly as supporters provided a cheering backdrop – only for the interview to conclude too late for people to vote at the nearby polling booth. That became the moment people remembered.
But Marco learned valuable lessons from the debacle. There was a brief moment where it seemed he might quit the Senate, or potentially take a break from politics entirely – but upon his return, he stood out as a politician who had learned from the defects of the Paul Ryan-led Club for Growth and was more open to moderation. He became an increasingly loyal Trump supporter, advocating for his national security policy without hesitation and putting the best spin on choices made by the Commander-in-Chief.
President Trump ruled out talks with Iran’s government and encouraged antigovernment protesters in the country to keep up their campaign, his latest intervention in the uprising.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Large-scale demonstrations in Iran began in late December, initially triggered by soaring inflation; the collapse of the rial, the country’s currency; and the economic pinch felt by ordinary people.
Since then, hundreds of thousands have filled the streets. The regime has instigated a bloody crackdown that has led to hundreds of deaths and more than 10,000 arrests, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene, prompting U.S. officials to examine possible strikes on Iranian military sites. No action is imminent, the officials said, but Trump has taken briefings to explore options including military, cyber and economic measures.
Iranian diplomats have been looking for a way to restart nuclear talks and persuade the U.S. not to strike their country, according to an Arab diplomat and a senior European official.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has floated the idea of a meeting with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Switzerland, possibly ahead of next week’s World Economic Forum, those people said.
Iranian diplomats have said they are now open to direct talks with the U.S., a reversal from Tehran’s insistence that talks should be indirect, the Arab diplomat said. But the Islamic Republic is insisting on its right to enrich uranium, the diplomat said, something that is unlikely to find favor with Washington.
