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Marco Rubio set to bask generously in ‘MAGA halo’

October 15, 2025 | | Print Article

From “Little Marco” to the State Department’s GOAT, an evolving relationship with the president and growing workload signaled a promising future for the fourth in line to the Oval Office.

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his purpose-driven administration has seen the America First agenda applied both at home and abroad. Integral to the mission, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s key role in foreign policy and beyond found his former chief of staff suggesting that the chief diplomat is in a prime position to benefit from the “MAGA halo.”

Speaking with The Hill, Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign Chief of Staff Matt Terrill expressed, “The reality is that what President Trump has right now is a grip on the Republican Party, and the people who are around President Trump, right now, they’re going to have the MAGA halo.”

“This is Trump’s party, so I think the people in the administration kind of have that MAGA halo that President Trump provides. I don’t see that changing,” he went on.

The managing partner of the public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies brought up the many hats that Rubio has been tasked to wear by the president in addition to leading the State Department, like interim national security adviser and acting archivist of the United States, as he suggested, “I think what happened here is he got to know and trust him, particularly in his first term when they were working together on policy.”

While the numerous roles assigned to Rubio have become a meme, expanding beyond the administration to jest that the secretary may be tapped to take on jobs in foreign governments or with sports franchises, Terrill noted with candor, “When President Trump gives you more things to do, it means he has more trust and confidence in you.”

The growing stock for the former Florida senator was something even the president opined on this week when he addressed Israel’s Knesset. Contrasting the bitter rivalry of the 2016 presidential campaign, where he’d often referred to the then-lawmaker as “Little Marco,” with his current role — driving the Middle East peace talks on top of other negotiations around the globe while rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse like that of the U.S. Agency for International Development — Trump had nothing but praise for Rubio.

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“I have a prediction that Marco will go down — I mean this — as the greatest Secretary of State in the history of the United States. I believe that,” said Trump, who added, “He and I, you know, we really fought it out. You remember? He was tough. He was nasty. Who the hell thought this was gonna happen, Marco, right?”

As had been reported, it was Rubio who’d kept the president apprised of the status of talks in the Middle East ahead of the announced peace agreement. Meanwhile, the secretary had steered the praise back toward Trump on Monday with a post celebrating the release of the surviving Hamas hostages and the signed deal toward stabilizing the region.

“Some serve a lifetime in public office and never experience a day like today. In time history will detail the full story of how today was made possible,” wrote the diplomat as others foresaw a future as next in line to the presidency. “But for now all Americans should at least know this, that today would not have happened without @potus doing some pretty extraordinary things.”

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Kevin Haggerty
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