WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declaration last week that foreign policy “belongs” solely to the Executive Office of the President is undermined by the statements and legislation of a certain former senator: Marco Rubio of Florida.

Rubio’s comment about flouting a federal judge’s order was merely the latest plank on a mounting Trump administration wall of statements and actions that go beyond even the so-called unitary executive theory, which has been pushed by GOP officials such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, George W. Bush-era Justice Department official John Yoo and one of President Donald Trump’s first-term attorneys general, William P. Barr.

The theory posits that the office of the president has vast powers, and those authorities need to be codified by laws, executive orders, legal precedents and agency guidelines. The Trump 2.0 team appears to agree with the “unitary” philosophy, but with a twist: Where Cheney and others at least humored the other federal branches, this administration has been much more dismissive of their roles and legitimacy.

Asked during an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he felt a need to uphold the Constitution, Trump replied, “I don’t know.”

“I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said,” he added. “What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.”

Trump had been asked about a Maryland man who was in the United States illegally until the administration deported him to his native El Salvador, without a new immigration court hearing. The Supreme Court ordered the White House to “facilitate” his return, something the president and his top aides have thumbed their nose at, calling the man a “terrorist” and a “criminal” member of the MS-13 gang.

Trump contends he has the executive power to run foreign policy — and much of domestic affairs — how he sees fit. In many ways, the first 100-plus days of his second term have offered a roadmap for how future chiefs executive might bypass Congress. And Rubio’s defense of the administration ignoring the Supreme Court order suggests the former Senate Intelligence vice chairman and Senate Foreign Relations member has quickly embraced the Trump version of the unitary executive theory.

Asked Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House if the Trump administration had been in touch with Salavadoran officials about returning the man or had made such a formal request, Rubio replied: “I would never tell you that. And you know who else, I’ll never tell a judge.”

Why?

“Because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge,” Rubio said. “So we will conduct foreign policy appropriately, if we need to. But I’ll never discuss it, and no one will ever make us discuss it because that’s how foreign policy works.”

But as a member of Senate spending, national security and foreign policy committees for 14 years, Rubio questioned a long list of officials from the Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations about a slew of foreign policy issues. What’s more, he introduced or co-sponsored many pieces of legislation focused on global affairs matters — and laid out what he and his Senate colleagues believed America’s policies should be on those topics.

For instance, in November 2023, Rubio and other Senate Foreign Relations members questioned Biden administration officials about the Russia-Ukraine war and the administration’s handling of the conflict. In his first spoken words at the hearing, Sen. Rubio did not sound like someone who believed foreign policy belonged solely to the office of the president.

“It’s my personal belief, and I’ve tried to make this argument, that the three challenges of what’s happening in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Straits; what’s happening with Iran’s desire to build an Islamist regional order centered on Tehran; and … what (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin has done in Ukraine, that those three things in combination, any one of the three, can (hold) the real risk of escalation (spiraling) into something worse,” he said at the time.

“But the combination of the three really are an inflection point that will determine, in my view, much of what the rest of the century is going to look like,” he added. “The rest of the century is the trade-offs that are going to have to happen. We’re going to have to make policy decisions because one of the risks we run is being overextended.”

Paper trail

His legislative history also paints the portrait of a senator who took Congress’ role in foreign policy seriously.

For example, in May 2023, he introduced a bill that offered some advice to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That measure, which never received committee action in the Democratic-controlled chamber, would have required President Joe Biden’s top diplomat to begin talks with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office about possibly changing its name to the “Taiwan Representative Office.”

Rubio, later that November, co-sponsored a bill from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, that would have set up and funded an “Iranian Sanctions Enforcement Fund” to oversee and enforce U.S. sanctions on Iran and its proxies, among other proposed functions; it also never received committee action.

He also co-sponsored bills on suspending normal trade relations with China, revising U.S. policies toward alleged Iranian human rights violations, and supporting efforts by the Philippines to combat China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

Rubio also co-sponsored with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a provision in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that prohibited any U.S. president from withdrawing from NATO without first obtaining the approval by a vote of two-thirds of the Senate or an act of Congress.

Over Trump’s objections, Sen. Rubio helped push a sanctions measure into law in 2017 that targeted North Korea and Iran, as well as Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

What’s more, during the last Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his bill that would have required the Biden administration to craft a comprehensive sanctions strategy for responding to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, though that measure never reached the Senate floor. The legislation called for the Pentagon, as well as the State and Commerce departments, to submit reports to lawmakers about the federal government’s preparations to respond to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.

In short, those legislative moves showed Rubio as a senator regularly exercising the legislative branch’s oversight and “power of the purse” roles in foreign policy.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about Rubio’s apparent change of heart.

‘He gets it solved’

A key reason for this shift on foreign policy and the executive branch could be Rubio’s need to remain in Trump’s good graces. After all, there will be a Republican presidential primary in 2028.

Notably, after Rubio was the last Cabinet member to speak at Wednesday’s meeting, Trump, seated to his immediate left, patted his onetime rival on the arm approvingly.

The next morning, during a Rose Garden event, the president again praised the man he had once derisively called “Lil’ Marco,” saying: “Marco Rubio, unbelievable. Unbelievable. … When I have a problem, I call up Marco. He gets it solved.”

Trump would later Thursday name Rubio his acting national security adviser and suggested he could keep both jobs permanently, something not done since Henry Kissinger.

“A lot of people say it really works in with what Marco is doing,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “I’m going to be naming somebody.”

When asked during the “Meet the Press” interview about a presidential successor, Trump mentioned the senator-turned-secretary of State.

“I think (Vice President JD Vance is) a fantastic, brilliant guy,” he said. “Marco is great. There’s a lot of them that are great.”

Many conservatives in recent days have flooded social media with praise of Rubio as Trump’s “go-to guy” and “a gem” and “awesome.” Though some have felt differently, as Richard Hanania of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology put it on social media: “How Rubio rose to the top of MAGA: by abandoning every principle he once might’ve had and completely subordinating himself to Trump’s will.”

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