Democrats Who Let Marco Rubio Inspect Their Wallets Very Disappointed With Predictable Outcome
Let’s hope they learned something.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become a loyal foot soldier for Donald Trump’s callow, short-sighted “America First, Right After Russia” foreign policy. When not gutting foreign aid and burying U.S. soft power around the globe, Rubio has found time to target trans Americans and needlessly make their lives more difficult. Senate Democrats unanimously voted to confirm their former colleague, which has saddled them with Rubio’s toxic actions. Don’t worry, though, they feel just terrible about it.
Several Democrats have admitted that they “regret” their vote for Rubio. Chris Van Hollen from Maryland told CNN that Rubio once understood that Russia invaded Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t a dictator — you know, basic facts.
“But it seems like he’s had a total lobotomy or heart transplant,” Van Hollen added. Rubio has certainly demonstrated a moral center equal to the pre-reformation Grinch, but before Van Hollen questions anyone’s cognitive reasoning, he should acknowledge that Rubio willingly agreed to serve in the Trump administration, which is openly pro-Russia and anti-democracy. That was’t a secret. If Rubio truly wanted to defend Ukraine’s interests, as well as preserve U.S. soft power, he would’ve remained in the Senate and voted against whichever lickspittle toady Trump nominated for secretary of State.
All Apologies …
Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut told CNN’s Dana Bash that he also regretted voting to confirm Rubio, who stuffed all the bananas in his tailpipe. (Below clip courtesy of
.)“It was a mistake,” Murphy admitted. “It was a mistake. I think a lot of us thought Marco Rubio was going to stand up to Donald Trump on an issue like this.”
Oh, I see the problem. Apparently Senate Democrats are all idiots. That’s not exactly encouraging. We need more than a band of Gilligans to confront Trump’s fascism. Look, if a cop goes to work for a known mob boss, he’s probably not going to stand up to the mob on issues related to organized crime. That’s not why he’s there. That cop is corrupt.
Democrats are in the minority. There was no reason for them to vote for any of Trump’s nominees. They should’ve forced Republicans to find all the votes themselves and make Vice President JD Vance forgo his ski vacation so he can cast any necessary tie-breakers.
Very serious people have posted lengthy lectures on social media defending Democrats’ support for Rubio. They claim that an early bipartisan confirmation would give Democrats credibility among the supposed “good” Republicans such as Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, and the perpetually concerned Susan Collins when they objected to the grossly unfit Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel. Of course, that strategy failed, as any small child might have told them. (Ironically, Mitch McConnell was the only Republican who voted against Kennedy Jr. and Gabbard.)
The other pro-Rubio argument is that he was the best possible option, far preferable to Michael Flynn or even someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is incredibly defeatist but also politically unwise. There is zero evidence that Rubio has caused less harm as secretary of State than the worst MAGA hack would have, and obvious nut jobs like Flynn or Greene would’ve proven an ongoing political liability for Trump. Instead of capitalizing off this, Democrats instead helped install the MAGA mob’s front man in the State Department.
Trump picked Rubio precisely because he still maintains a superficial veneer of respectability, even as his body language looks like an impressionist painting of a human soul putrefying.
‘Liddle’ Marco keeps shrinking
In fairness to my former classmate, Marjorie Taylor Greene does seem to have a consistent set of beliefs, all of them evil. Marco Rubio has demonstrated that he believes in very little other than maintaining access to power. He warned Republican primary voters about Trump in early 2016. He told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “For years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media and voters at large, that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump.” Then he spent the next decade supporting Trump without even bothering to explain or justify himself. He stuck with Trump through impeachments and coup attempts. He endorsed Trump again in January 2024, before the primary contests even began. The fawning message he posted on social media held some obvious clues for Democrats if they’d paid attention:
“When Trump was in WH I achieved major policies I had worked on for years (like expanded Child Tax Credit & tough sanctions on regime in Cuba & Venezuela) because we had a President who didn’t cave to special interests or let bureaucrats block us,” he wrote. “I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created.”
Democrats didn’t even grill Rubio that hard during his confirmation hearings. It was practically a love fest. Tammy Duckworth personally thanked him for supporting her changing Senate rules so she could bring her new daughter on the floor for votes. (Watch below.)
That was nice of Rubio. He’s probably capable of treating fellow members of his Senate country club with respect. He’s clearly not Ted Cruz, who enjoys bipartisan loathing. However, it’s a mistake to confuse Rubio’s personal congeniality with actual moral character.
Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gushed to Rubio before his opening remarks: “You and I have also had a good working relationship for many years. I believe you have the skills and are well qualified to serve as secretary of State.”
A few weeks later, Shaheen was one of several Democrats denied entry to the U.S. Agency for International Development after the Trump/Musk administration shut it down. Last week, Shaeen and Brian Schatz sent Rubio a letter demanding answers after he fired or placed on leave almost all USAID staff.
“The lack of compliance with the law, and the lack of communication and transparency, is unprecedented and not representative of the collaboration you professed, and we expected, when we confirmed you as Secretary of State,” they wrote. Of course, it’s a little late for second thoughts after Rubio was unanimously confirmed. It’s doubtful he’ll even answer their letter.
We can only hope that Democrats at least learned an important lesson from all this. When armed burglars show up at your house, you might not be able to keep them from robbing you, but you don’t have to help them load your furniture into their van.
It’s a mistake I could forgive in 2017 when the idea of “adults in the room” was plausible. But since then we’ve seen the same pattern of Trump either forcing the adults to confirm to his raging worldview or bypassed and thrown out. If this was obvious to an outsider like myself then there’s no excuse for senators who do politics for a living to be so naive.
Plus, what’s even the upside here? That some mythical swing voter will lean towards Democrats because Democrats were so nice and norm-respectful to Republicans? That’s not what a swing voter really is, and if Democrats don’t get that we’re in worse trouble than I thought.
Clean them all out—form Democratic Tea Parties and primary the bunch of them. We cannot win a war with soldiers like this.
it's incomprehensible to me that even a senator like Murphy, at the moment the loudest and clearest of those sounding proper alarms over the the president, DOGE, et al, fell in with the (also incomprehensible) vote for Rubio. why are the Democratic senators blind to what we on the outside, just from what we see in public reporting, see as blindingly obvious?