Marco Rubio revealed that his arrival at the State Department began with a call from Donald Trump that was quite less formal than one might expect for one of the most important positions in the U.S. government.
According to the Secretary of State, during an interview with Katie Miller, the then-president-elect did not call him to ask if he was interested in leaving the Senate to become the head of U.S. diplomacy. He practically informed him that the position was his.
"He simply called me and said, 'You are going to be the Secretary of State.' It wasn't presented as an option," Rubio recalled during the conversation, which took place at the State Department and included his wife, Jeanette.
The Cuban-American explained that during the campaign there was a certain perception that he could end up holding an important position in a potential second Trump administration, but he assured that the matter had not been discussed openly between the two.
The call came, according to his memories, just 48 or 72 hours after the elections.
Trump could have even gotten ahead of the announcement himself.
"I think I had even published it, and then he told me," Rubio recounted with laughter. Despite the unusual way he received the news, he made it clear that he accepted with enthusiasm: "I was happy to do it, and I felt honored."
Rubio insisted that the conversation was far from being a negotiation about his political future.
"It wasn't something like: 'Would you be interested?'. It was more like: 'You are going to be.' And I said: 'Well, here we go,'" he recalled.
The anecdote now provides a more personal perspective on an appointment that had a significant impact among the Cuban people.
Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, left his seat for Florida to become the first Hispanic to head the Department of State. During his swearing-in ceremony in January 2025, he spoke in Spanish and honored his parents, who arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1956.
Since his appointment was announced, his history of critical positions toward the Havana regime has raised expectations about the role Cuba would play in the foreign policy of the new administration.
Over time, Rubio has ended up occupying a central position on that front.
Trump has publicly acknowledged his role in the contacts with Havana. In March, he stated that Cuba was negotiating “with Marco and me” and introduced the Secretary of State as one of the key figures in Washington for those discussions.
The president himself has also highlighted Rubio's family background as an element of experience on the Cuban issue, publicly noting that his parents were from the island.
The interview with Miller, however, shed light on how Rubio began the path that led him to that position, which he accepted with enthusiasm. "Here we go," he recalled thinking at the time.
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