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Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks in Washington, D.C.
Evan Vucci/AP
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Evan Vucci/AP
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to appear before lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to discuss Venezuela’s future, the first public testimony since the stunning capture of former President Nicolás Maduro.
The newfound focus on the South American country and future uncertainty has raised questions about whether Rubio, a Venezuela hawk who also serves as the national security adviser, has too much influence.
Rubio is the first person to hold both roles at the same time since Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.
But the White House says the old National Security Council structures were too bloated and are ultimately unsuited for how this administration does business.
“This is a top-down, not a bottom-up process. The president was elected by the American people to carry out his foreign policy agenda, and he ultimately decides, based on what he feels, is the best choice for the American people,” said a White House official not authorized to speak on the record.
John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser in the first administration, says it’s no knock on Rubio, but “I’m not sure anybody, including Henry Kissinger, really has the bandwidth to do it.”
The national security adviser is supposed to help make sense of the different complexities facing the U.S. and guide the president toward more measured choices.
Trump asked Rubio to take on yet another full-time role managing the sprawling national security apparatus last year, replacing Michael Waltz, who had come under scrutiny for adding a reporter to an online chat discussing the U.S. military strike in Yemen.
According to Bolton, Trump and Rubio have made it harder by slashing the NSC and upending the process that’s traditionally served as the hub for all the different agencies, like the departments of State and Defense and Treasury.
“There’s no guarantee that following the process will result in a successful policy,” Bolton said. “But the odds are you’re going to have more success. If you think about the pluses and minuses of the different options, weigh the considerations and try to have some coherent plan you’re following.”
Bolton became a fierce critic after he was fired from the administration. Since then, Trump’s Justice Department launched a prosecution into Bolton for allegedly mishandling classified information, which he denies.
It’s not only Venezuela that Rubio must deal with. It’s also Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Greenland.
Emily Horne, who served as NSC spokesperson in the Biden administration, questioned how much advanced analysis was conducted on the geopolitical implications of the Venezuela operation. She says it’s unclear how extensively they gamed out how the operation plays with adversaries and allies, despite the obvious, careful military planning.
“However, that’s a different thing than saying that we were bringing everything we could to both executing this operation and ensuring that we know what the day after or the week after and beyond look like,” said Horne, who now writes an online newsletter on politics and policy.
The White House official pushed back on such characterizations, describing them as “inside baseball” complaints that did not resonate considering the success seen so far.
“I feel like that’s totally negated by the fact that things are stable and going well and there is a cooperative economic relationship in place, and we have maximum leverage over the regime,” the White House official said.
The White House official says the fact Rubio is handling both roles and the streamlining process of NSC operations allows for Rubio to be more effective at carrying out Trump’s directives. Rubio is at the White House almost daily, the official said.
A senior administration official, not authorized to speak on the record, pointed to Rubio’s three-phase plan, which he is expected to go into further detail with to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Step one is stabilization and not allowing the country to devolve into chaos. The second phase is moving to recovery, while ensuring American companies have access to the Venezuelan market. The third phase is transition.
The senior administration official said many critics want to jump to the last phase and elections, but they’re forgetting about the lessons of Iraq.
“That wasn’t exactly ideal, right!” the official said. “When you sort of decapitate all the instruments of government, you create an insurgency that takes 20 years to quell.”
The official pointed to a more streamlined NSC that is focused on executing the president’s priorities, instead of serving as a policy-making apparatus competing with other agencies.
Alexander Gray, who was chief of staff for the White House National Security Council in Trump’s first term, told NPR’s Tamara Keith that an “honest broker” is less necessary when you have a general meeting of the minds on the big issues.
“The benefit, so to speak, of a national security adviser who’s also secretary of state in terms of shaping the process is less significant when people are generally aligned,” said Gray, who now serves as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which promotes geopolitical cooperation between the U.S. and allies.
Rubio is at the center of it all. And he’s taken aim at the foreign policy apparatus, describing institutions like the NSC and State Department as having been ossified and out of touch.
Following Maduro’s capture, Rubio said the message to the world is that this administration isn’t going to let any kind of internal hemming and hawing stop the U.S.
“I can tell you, I’ve watched this process now for 14, 15 years,” Rubio said. “I’ve been around it. Everybody talks. ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. When I get there, we’re going to do this.’ This is a president of action. I don’t understand how they haven’t figured this out.”
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