Marco Rubio emerges as key Trump power player after Venezuela operation

Early in the second Trump administration, analysts openly wondered how long Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s relationship with President Donald Trump would last.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long embraced a Cold War–inflected, hawkish approach to foreign policy that initially appeared at odds with Trump’s worldview. 

Trump had been deeply skeptical of U.S. involvement in Ukraine and surrounded himself with prominent anti-interventionist voices, including Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Shortly after Trump won the election in 2024, Pete Hegseth, then set to become secretary of war, described himself as a “recovering neocon.”

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But in 2026, Rubio sits at the apex of his career, emerging as one of the most influential figures in Washington. 

He holds two additional titles: national security advisor and head of the National Archives. The last person to serve as the nation’s chief diplomat and national security advisor was Henry Kissinger, widely seen as the architect of foreign policy during the Nixon administration.

“He’s just really smart, really effective, and he’s succeeded at everything he’s done,” Matt Kroenig, a former Pentagon official and current vice president at the Atlantic Council think tank, told Fox News Digital. “He doesn’t see his job as containing Trump. He understands who the boss is and channels those instincts into constructive directions.”

The man of many hats has pursued the fall of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for nearly a decade.

“I think that U.S. armed forces should only be used in cases of national security threats,” Rubio said in a 2018 interview with Univision. “I think there is a strong argument that can be made right now that Venezuela and Maduro’s regime have become a threat to the region and to the U.S.”

On Jan. 3, Rubio got his wish, when special operators descended on Caracas, Venezuela, to snatch the dictator of 12 years and his wife from their bed.

Maduro appeared to sense the danger early. In a message to Trump, he warned that Rubio “wants to stain your hands with blood — with South American, Caribbean, Venezuelan blood,” as the U.S. kicked off a campaign of airstrikes on drug traffickers in the Caribbean in September 2025. 

Trump likely didn’t need much convincing. 

“Trump was very focused on Venezuela in the first term,” Kroenig said. “I think he probably saw the outcome of the first term was not what he wanted.”

Though Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was recently sworn in, Trump has asserted that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela.

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Less than a year ago, media outlets portrayed Rubio as crowded out of diplomatic negotiations, with envoys like Steve Witkoff running point on Iran, Gaza and Ukraine. Vanity Fair reported that Rubio was “frustrated” by being “sidelined” on foreign policy decisions, while The Atlantic ran a profile of Witkoff calling him “the real secretary of state.”

Brian Hook, the architect of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran during the first term, at one point appeared poised for a senior role after leading the 2024 State Department transition team. Instead, Trump ultimately dropped Hook, as he did former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars… YOU’RE FIRED!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in January 2025. 

That trajectory shifted months later when Trump launched airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Now, Rubio has become the most visible public face of the U.S. mission in Venezuela, appearing on television to clarify Trump’s remarks about the U.S. “running” the country. Rubio said Washington would rely on economic leverage and strategic tools — including sanctions enforcement and oil quarantines — to shape a transition. 

He also laid out a phased plan for stabilization and recovery centered on controlled oil sales, underscoring his role as the administration’s principal explainer after the capture of Maduro.

The White House and Rubio’s office could not be reached for comment. 

Vance and Gabbard, by contrast, have been far less visible on foreign policy.

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Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other senior Trump advisors sat alongside the president at Mar-a-Lago as he monitored Operation Absolute Resolve, the mission to capture Maduro. Vance participated remotely by video from Ohio due to increased security concerns, according to a Vance spokesperson. 

Gabbard, who previously criticized U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, played no public role in the lead-up to the operation. Less than two days before it began, she posted a series of photos on X from Hawaii.

In 2019, Gabbard wrote that the United States “must stay out of Venezuela.” 

After the operation, she praised its execution, writing: “President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers. Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution.”

“It is unfair to focus on DNI Gabbard’s past views, given other Trump administration officials have also previously voiced disagreement on policy or even slammed the President directly,” an administration official told Fox News Digital, adding that Gabbard provided the president intelligence for the Venezuela operation. 

Vance, meanwhile, has focused much of his public messaging on domestic issues, including a fraud investigation involving Minnesota daycare centers and the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent — an incident the Department of Homeland Security has described as an act of self-defense.

A Vance spokesperson insisted the vice president was “deeply integrated in the process and planning” for the Venezuela operation, as was White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

But, Kroenig said, Vance “is probably skeptical about how this is going, and I think he sees his base among Republicans who are skeptical.” 

“While I think things are going well so far, there is still a possibility that they could fail — in which case, when he runs in 2028, he can say, ‘You know, I was never really supportive of this policy anyway.’”