Welcome back to Washington Secrets on this bitterly cold Monday morning. Today, we have a look at Marco Rubio’s funniest lines and a near diplomatic dinner disaster.
The nation’s chief diplomat, Marco Rubio, is accustomed to taking phone calls from counterparts, ministers, and dignitaries at all times of day and night.
And sometimes, if dinner has already been taken in the far-off land and if the caller has enjoyed ample refreshments, those calls might go in all sorts of different directions.
Rubio has become known around the White House for the way he recounts one particular dignitary’s slurred words and non sequiturs in those late-night chats.
“He would have the room in stitches as he described how they would have completely different conversations depending on the time of day when the call was being made,” a source close to the White House said.
The secretary of state has been in the spotlight for the past three weeks following the special forces raid to capture Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
The result is a politician on the up, strengthening his position at the heart of the administration and cementing his place as a leading candidate to take up the MAGA mantle in 2028, when Trump is term-limited.
Vice President JD Vance may be the front-runner. But insiders tell Secrets that Rubio has been a hit at the White House ever since being sworn in. His easygoing manner and ability to remember names of junior staff have made him one of the most popular Cabinet secretaries, while Vance is still getting to grips with retail politics.
And then there is his humor.
“It’s his secret weapon,” a former aide said.
Those who remember slightly wooden performances during his 2016 White House run say his time in the spotlight as senator and then presidential candidate has seasoned him as a politician, giving him the confidence to lark around.
It was evident from Day One. After being sworn in as secretary of state, he paused during his speech to ask his audience to bear with him while he addressed family back home in Spanish.
He quickly described how only in America could the son of a refugee become secretary of state, before turning to Vance behind him and switching to English.
“I just said I saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico,” he deadpanned. “That’s what I said.”
Vance chuckled.
Moments like that and his ability to talk football with Trump are why insiders think Rubio might be the president’s favorite Cabinet secretary.
During one Cabinet meeting, he ended his remarks by urging the president to sign an executive order banning Saturday weddings during the college football season.
Last week, he traveled with the president to Miami for the college football national championship game. Another bro bonding opportunity.
In the meantime, he has another card up his sleeve. His responsibility for foreign affairs means he need not weigh in on domestic affairs, such as the death of a protester at the hands of Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. In contrast, Vance has been busy posting about the killing, defending the agents, and accusing protesters and local officials of “engineered chaos.”
Those words could come back to haunt Vance as a growing number of Republicans split with the White House on the issue.
No such worries for Rubio, who is certainly the funniest member of the Cabinet, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“One time, Elon was talking about how there were 240,000 people that DOGE had found who were over 114 years old who were collecting unemployment,” he said on Katie Miller’s podcast recently. “Marco said, ‘Well, in their defense, it’s hard getting a job after 114.”
Queen of the scene
Tina Brown knows a thing or two about dinner parties: How to throw them, how to be a guest, and how to b**** like hell when you’ve been left sitting between boors at the wrong end of the table.
The journalist extraordinaire dedicated an entire Substack column to the theme of seating plans not so long ago. The memories of one particular table-based outrage are still fresh in her mind six years on.
“The seat I drew was between an empty chair and a cream puff-faced British woman of indeterminate provenance, whom I later learned was Bibi Netanyahu’s ex-wife. My newsman husband, Harry, got the punishment seat between a society decorator and a Park Avenue dermatologist,” she wrote, listing in detail how lesser journalists got plumb placement between Cabinet secretaries and the like.
“In a mist of status anxiety, I found myself lurking in the port-a-potties, looking at the reflection behind me of screaming Fox harpy Jeanine Pirro.”
So, you can imagine the consternation at the British ambassador’s residence last week, ahead of a “Brits in DC” dinner, when a late-arriving official noticed the seating plan. The Queen of Letters had been placed right at the end of the table, far from the juiciest of conversations.
Our quick-thinking man hastily switched the name cards, Secrets is pleased to relate, and Brown spent the evening happily ensconced next to James Roscoe, the acting ambassador, catching up on diplomatic gossip and the weightiest of international affairs. Disaster averted.
Eleanor Holmes Norton bows out
Eleanor Holmes Norton is not running for another term as Washington’s nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives. Reports have circulated for months that the 88-year-old’s declining health made it impossible for her to continue in the role. And now, her campaign has filed a notice with the Federal Election Commission terminating her run.
The New York Times chose to report this twist with the following line.
“It was not clear whether Ms. Norton had authorized the termination of her campaign, or whether she even knew about it.”
Lunchtime reading
The four types of Trump supporter: And the four roles that Trump plays
The superhuman president: “It’s not dozing. Sometimes if he’s thinking about something — and I made that mistake at first too — he adopts a pose. He leans back or leans forward a little bit, and he either closes his eyes or looks down — because he often takes notes in his lap.”
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