Marco Rubio has something to say, and it’s not in a soundbite

The Trump administration’s flirtation with “independent” media

Marco Rubio’s X debut

Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week sat down to be interviewed on X (née Twitter), and predictably, because it wasn’t on cable or in the New York Times, no one quite noticed.

No one, that is, in the halls of Washington and the salons of the Council on Foreign Relations. They may not have noticed, but the interview, which went nearly an hour long, has since generated nearly seven million views.

There’s a new something out there, and it is represented in this interview, where Rubio also promised to do it again and open the State Department briefing room to more “independent journalists.”

Rubio talked about Gaza and Middle East peace, USAID, Ukraine, and even COVID, but what struck me most was the tone of the conversation, that it wasn’t the usual prepared remarks or the frenetic and fleeting sound bite. It was almost as if Rubio was thinking out loud, willing to say he didn’t know or “maybe,” that he was given permission to be human. Rubio’s answers were actually quite candid.

It is one of the strongest affirmations of social media, and the power of the platform I’ve seen, because more than anything, the “conversation” was one in which normal people can participate. It isn’t an official pronouncing policy from on high, or the employment of the national security threat to tell people that there isn’t any alternative, which also tells people to go home and stay out of the way of the “men’s work.”

Oddly, the venue and framing of the interview emulated television in its visuals. Rubio was in his suit with neatly parted hair sitting in an ornate State Department room, imagery that one doesn’t expect to see in the wild west that is X or Youtube. Interviewing Rubio as well was a prim Catherine Herridge, the controversial ex-CBS reporter who has defected to X for its greener pastures.

The interview itself though, to my surprise, covered hot button issues like Trump’s negotiations with Russia over the Ukraine War, Gaza, and the “lab leak” theory of COVID-19.

On Gaza, for example, Rubio admitted that Trump’s proposal to turn the strip into some Trump-named resort destination wasn’t going over so well in the Arab region. 

“Now, our partners in the region don't like that plan and I talked to them,” Rubio said. “ I talked to the UAE yesterday and my challenge is if you don't like the president's plan, then I think you should come up with a better plan and I hope they do.”

Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into some kind of Sandals resort is, of course, insane. But at least you know what Rubio is thinking. Got a better idea? Offer it, he’s saying. That’s quite the departure from the Biden administration where you needed a journalistic decoder ring to understand where they even stood on any issue. 

And pointing the responsibility to the wealthy gulf states as the ultimate guarantors was also helpful, something the previous administration refused to do, presumably because of their obsession with respecting the “sensitivities” of our all important strategic partners, wherever they are, which prevented them from also speaking outside of the smoke-filled rooms. 

On Hamas, Rubio acknowledged (in plainer terms than Blinken ever did) that the Israeli war had failed to eradicate the group. “They clearly have enough people to still be a threat at some level,” Rubio said, adding: “they cannot be allowed to reconstitute.” 

Having monitored the Biden administration’s State Department briefings closely, it was almost jarring to see something resembling an ordinary speech pattern as opposed to a patchwork of talking points strung together.

In defending the administration’s suspension of USAID funding, Rubio remarked, “I know it’s been disruptive for some programs,” before arguing that it would be beneficial in the long-run. When asked if he had any regrets about the shuttering of USAID, Rubio replied, “ Look, I wish we'd had more cooperation.” 

He was also very frank in arguing that he saw USAID’s role being that of advancing America’s global interests rather than being some general charity. Here’s what he said: 

“The idea that USAID is some sort of global charity that's out there, you know, serving the interest of the global community. No, it's called the U.S.-AID — in the United States. It’s our taxpayer money that should also be aligned with the national interest and if it isn’t, it needs to stop.”

Whether one agrees or not, that’s the basis for a conversation about what should be important. It’s not some blitzkrieg against Washington and the bureaucracy as Donald Trump and Elon Musk see it.

On the subject of ending the Ukraine war, Rubio had the kind of tough medicine nobody in Washington wants to hear but just about everyone else knows is true. Not just that Russia will have to be negotiated with, but even that those negotiations might fail. “I don’t know,” Rubio said of whether the Russians really want to end the war. “We’re going to find out.” 

“ If you want to be mature and grown ups about it, I'm not a fan of most of what Vladimir Putin has done, and that's largely irrelevant when it comes to statecraft, because, we ultimately have to be able to talk…”

“The President has been very clear. He wants this war with Ukraine to end. And he wants to know are the Russians serious about ending the war, or not serious about ending the war. The only way is to test them, to basically engage them and say, okay, are you serious about ending the war, and if so, What are your demands? Are your public demands and your private demands different? We have to have some process by which we engage in that conversation. Now, it may turn out that they don't want to end the war. I don't know. We're going to find out. But we have to have that process to determine that.”

Rubio could have added that the Ukrainians will have to decide too, and that the Europeans (who will ultimately be the guarantors of Ukraine’s security) will also have to play. But the straightforwardness is refreshing.

On COVID-19, Rubio, who served for years as the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee,  came out and said he thought the pandemic was the result of an accident in China.

“So I think, in my view, based on everything I have seen, that the likeliest situation here was that the Chinese were messing around with the virus. Somebody caught it in a lab and they took this novel virus and spread it through China and then spread it to the world and it was devastating and there needs to be accountability for that.”

I have no idea if that’s what really happened. What I do know is that the previous Secretary of State would have hemmed and hawed about this or that preliminary intelligence community assessment and how we need more information, time and deliberation, instead of simply leveling with the public about what he thinks.

That hemming and hawing and the rehearsed and excruciatingly constructed talking points that are meant for the experts is the antithesis of social media — X in particular, where the interview took place.

By embracing these platforms, Rubio is finding a medium in which he can say, “I think.”

Rubio says as much at the end of the interview:

“We have to take our message where people are getting their news and information and in these sort of long form interviews where you're getting serious questions and can provide answers to nuanced issues — not little soundbites that they run during the cable news hour …  We need to communicate with people … this is their State Department, it's not my State Department.”

Whether the rest of the administration will follow suit remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that social media is forcing a change, and it is most positive because it admits people to the normally closed compound of national security.

— Edited by William M. Arkin