“It didn’t work with President Trump. Less than 48 hours after the Republican Party’s midterm election defeat, the first resignation has already landed, and reports of more departures — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio — are circulating in Washington.”
The election results have forced the Republican Party to confront a reality it had long avoided, ara.cat reported: what has actually been happening in the United States over the past two years. The fierce loyalty Donald Trump has demanded from his allies, the report argues, produced a blindness to those conditions. The immediate reaction to the shock has been a mix of mea culpa and finger-pointing at the president, alongside calculations about how to stop the damage from spreading.
Rubio Reportedly Weighs Exit After Midterm Results
Sources close to Rubio told Bloomberg that the secretary of state is considering whether he should leave the Trump administration following Tuesday night’s results, ara.cat reported. The same report said Rubio is also weighing his next steps for the future, including whether leaving the executive branch now would still leave him an opening to run for president in 2028.
The State Department flatly denied the report, and Rubio himself, asked by The New York Times, distanced himself from the news and declined to comment on his future, according to ara.cat.
Rubio is one of the few career politicians in the presidential cabinet — arguably the only one — and has spent years building his career by swallowing slights, including from Trump himself, the report noted. Before praising him for the military operation in Venezuela, Trump had long belittled Rubio, calling him “Little Marco.” The reason: Rubio ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries. Trump never fully forgave him, and that loss was a hard blow to Rubio’s presidential ambitions. Still, during this second presidency, Trump chose Rubio as secretary of state, and Rubio endured the insults stoically to reach the post — even taking a jab from Trump during the 2025 State of the Union address. In Washington hallways, aides reportedly bet that if Trump began firing people, Rubio would be the first to go.
Early in the term, Rubio privately lamented that despite being the nation’s top diplomat, the two major foreign policy portfolios had been handed to special envoy Steve Witkoff — a golf companion of Trump’s — and to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. More recently, Rubio began to look presidential for 2028 after a well-received turn standing in for then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt, deflecting press questions with the polish of a career politician — a manner that stood out in a cabinet where shouting has become the norm. Trump himself, when asked about possible successors, named Rubio as an option, along with Vice President JD Vance.
The leak also lands at a sensitive moment: on Wednesday, Vance moved to distance himself from the election defeat by pointing to the Iran war, which ultimately falls under the State Department, while saying nothing about his role leading the mediation group pursuing a peace deal, ara.cat reported. If Rubio left the administration, he would still have some room to build a political campaign by attacking his opponent and distancing himself from Trump.
Hegseth Faces Impeachment Pressure as Republicans Look for a Fall Guy
Meanwhile, the fall of one of the administration’s biggest names is taking shape: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Since Trump acknowledged that the Iran war probably contributed to the election defeat — while maintaining that his own unpopularity had nothing to do with it — Republican lawmakers have seen in Hegseth the scapegoat they need, ara.cat reported. Dissident Sen. Thomas Massie has already announced a plan to seek Hegseth’s impeachment. The situation has reached the point where Hegseth posted a video saying it did not work on Trump and will not work on him.
Related reading
