Trump turns to GOP defenders Stefanik, Rubio for diplomatic posts

President-elect Donald Trump is turning to Congress for his initial picks for top diplomatic postings, opting to elevate partisan warriors instead of individuals with management experience in the private sector or government.

Trump said Monday he would nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be ambassador to the United Nations and many news outlets reported that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was his choice for secretary of State. Trump hasn’t publicly confirmed the Rubio news.

Rubio is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the second-ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stefanik sits on the House Armed Services and Intelligence panels in addition to being the House Republican Conference chairwoman.

The choice of Stefanik, 40, and the expected one of Rubio, 53, underlines how Trump is opting his second time around for national security deputies who have demonstrated a willingness to defend his conduct both in and out of power. His first administration was initially marked by dissent within his foreign policy and national security teams.

Both Stefanik and Rubio began in Congress as hawkish internationalists but have recalibrated their positions to be in step with Trump’s “America First” foreign policies.

Stefanik has distinguished herself recently more for her loyalty to Trump and her heated partisan attacks as the fourth-ranking House Republican than for her diplomatic tact.

“Elise is a strong and very smart ‘America First’ fighter,” Trump said in a statement, noting she was the first member of Congress to endorse his 2024 candidacy and had “always been a staunch advocate.”

Though Stefanik hasn’t served on the House Foreign Affairs or House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee panels that have oversight over United Nations-related matters, the fifth-term lawmaker’s senior-level status on Armed Services and Intelligence have given her experience on many national security concerns that dominate Republicans’ traditional interests at the U.N., especially on the Security Council.

She is also a hawkish defender of Israel.

In an October statement responding to reports the Palestinian Authority, which has observer state status at the U.N., was trying to build support for a vote to expel Israel from the body’s General Assembly, Stefanik warned that such a move “would result in a complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations.”

“American taxpayers have no interest in continuing to fund an organization that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have allowed to rot with antisemitism,” she continued.

Her grilling late last year of the president of Harvard University, her alma mater, as well as the presidents of two other elite American universities on their responses to campus protests over the war in the Gaza Strip and antisemitism went viral.

“She is a fighter, and President Trump could not have chosen a more capable person to represent American interests abroad,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement congratulating Stefanik.

Both Stefanik and Rubio in April voted against giving Ukraine nearly $61 billion in additional defense assistance and economic aid as part of the national security supplemental law.

Stefanik received a “poor” grade from the Republicans for Ukraine project, which is run by Defending Democracy Together, an advocacy organization created by conservatives to push the GOP to maintain its internationalist foreign policies. Stefanik’s rating stems from her anti-Ukraine statements as well as votes against bills to provide security assistance to Ukraine, said the group.

Rubio: From neocon to ‘America First’

Rubio, previously a candidate to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick, called the foreign assistance legislation to aid Ukraine, as well as Israel and Taiwan, “legislative blackmail” because the broader measure didn’t include a border control measure. But Rubio voted against an earlier version of the supplemental in February 2024 that did include a bipartisan border security compromise measure after Trump opposed it.

Rubio, who has publicly speculated about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mental health and called him a “butcher,” has made a particularly dramatic turn since the 2016 GOP presidential primary when he mocked Trump’s inherited wealth and business bankruptcies and rebuked his isolationist views.

“You don’t have to be fan of Vladimir Putin to want the war to end,” Rubio said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show after Trump’s win last week. “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong in standing up to Russia, but at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war that needs to be brought to a conclusion because that country is going to be set back 100 years.”

A former Florida House speaker, Rubio rode to the Senate on the 2010 Tea Party wave. Once there, he differentiated himself not as a fiscal hawk but as a foreign policy specialist and a neoconservative. His years of bipartisan work on the Intelligence and Foreign Relations panels are expected to make for a smooth Senate confirmation process.

Senate Foreign Relations Democrats are expected to be relieved to have a familiar face leading Foggy Bottom and representing the U.S. around the world amid global uncertainty over what a second Trump presidency means for the regional alliances that the Biden administration worked to rebuild and expand after Trump’s turbulent first administration.

Since Trump left office, Rubio has championed legislation to limit the executive branch’s options regarding Russia. He co-sponsored with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a provision in the fiscal 2024 national defense authorization law that forbids Trump or any U.S. president from withdrawing from NATO without approval by a two-thirds Senate vote or an act of Congress. And he has introduced multiple Russia sanctions bills this Congress.

But Rubio’s hawkish stances are most closely associated with China. He opted to specialize in the country years before many of his GOP colleagues concluded that Beijing posed the most serious long-term strategic threat to U.S. interests. He has sponsored over 50 China-related bills in the current Congress.

Rubio, who is Cuban American, would be the first Hispanic secretary of State. He has long been the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere subcommittee and has used that perch to argue against relaxation of the trade embargo on Cuba and for strong sanctions against Venezuela.