Senate confirms Marco Rubio as secretary of State

Rachel Oswald, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 20, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday resoundingly confirmed colleague Sen. Marco Rubio to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of State, making him the first member of the 47th president’s cabinet to win the chamber’s backing.

The swift Senate vote, 99-0, for Rubio followed shortly after the senior senator from Florida received unanimous support, 22-0, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was a member for his 14 years in the Senate.

“Anyone in America who wants to see what American foreign policy looks like and get a good rundown on it, needs to watch (Rubio’s confirmation) hearing and watch the questions that were asked (of) Sen. Rubio and his answer to those questions,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said to reporters as committee members were still filing into the room to cast their vote. “He was flawless in his presentation of American foreign policy.”

The committee vote was held open for the better part of an hour to allow all panel members to vote.

“No one in this body can doubt that Marco Rubio is a very intelligent man with a remarkable understanding of American foreign policy and a very deep commitment to the American dream,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, in floor remarks ahead of the confirmation vote. “That dream comes from the fact that his family has a history that started with the immigration to the United States from Cuba, and then watching their former homeland fall into a communist dictatorship that still exists to this day. That helps explain his love for America and his drive to oppose oppressive autocratic regimes that threaten freedom.”

Rubio’s confirmation may be one of the few overwhelmingly bipartisan votes that Trump’s early nominations receive from the Senate. Other top national security nominees such as former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to be the Defense secretary and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence have been met with deep Democratic opposition.

Prior to his confirmation, Rubio was the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations panel.

At his hearing last week, Rubio impressed his colleagues with his knowledge of a wide range of issues including the declining number of countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan, the regulatory landscape of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership, International Criminal Court indictments targeting senior Israeli leaders, support for Ukraine, China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea, and the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

“We’re used to seeing nominees who know a lot about a couple of things and sometimes who know very little about virtually everything,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said to Rubio at his confirmation hearing.

“But I think you’ve seen a hearing with a nominee who, agree or disagree with the points he’s made, he’s not talking out of a briefing book,” continued Kaine, who for years traded off leadership with Rubio of the Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere subcommittee. “He’s not having to thumb through a binder to decide how to answer a particular question.”

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week said he would appoint Ashley Moody, the state’s Republican attorney general, to replace Rubio upon his resignation from the chamber.

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