Venezuela helps vault Rubio to quarterback of Trump’s foreign policy team

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a football fan — he played in college, supports the Miami Dolphins, and his son is a running back for the University of Florida Gators. Now, he is quarterbacking President Donald Trump’s foreign policy team as it navigates particularly turbulent times, notably in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America, longtime core interests of the child of Cuban immigrants and former Florida senator.

As the Trump administration has alarmed much of the world with its stunning military operation that captured now-former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its threats to potentially annex Greenland by force, Rubio has emerged as a voice of relative calm.

In public comments and private briefings to lawmakers, he has toned down bombastic remarks from the president and other top officials even as he offers a full-throated defense of Trump’s more audacious plans. Still, he had a key role in one of the most assertive actions — Maduro's ouster — after long pursuing leadership changes in Venezuela and Cuba, countries close to him personally and politically.

“We always prefer to settle it in different ways,” Rubio said when asked by reporters this week about a military option in Greenland. “That included in Venezuela. We tried repeatedly to reach an outcome here that did not involve having to go in and grab an indicted drug trafficker.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch, one of his closest friends in the Senate, said Rubio's influence prompted the administration to action.

“I think all of us have been feeling that we can do a lot better in Latin America than we’ve been doing,” Risch told The Associated Press. “This is not an excuse, but a fact, and that is, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Aides to Rubio compare his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser to those of an empowered senior traffic cop, directing a small but influential field of Trump advisers, translating the president’s often broad and vague pronouncements into digestible, even if still controversial, nuggets that can be acted upon and explained.

One top aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to offer a personal assessment of Rubio’s role, described him as the “quarterback" of teams, which for Venezuela includes Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Vice President JD Vance. For fragile U.S.-led peace efforts in Gaza and Ukraine, that is Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt praised Rubio for advancing Trump’s foreign policy goals in his dual roles and added: “He is a team player and everyone loves working with him in the West Wing.”

People around him often remark that Rubio was made for this moment, which Risch said often prompts the secretary, also the interim leader of the National Archives and Records Administration, to joke that he is a really good archivist. Rubio himself jokingly dismissed “online rumors” that he might want to become head coach or general manager of the Dolphins, posting on social media on Thursday that his “focus must remain on global events and also the precious archives of the United States of America.”

Following the raid to extract Maduro from Caracas, Trump proclaimed that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela but offered no clarity on what that would actually mean, leaving many to wonder if the administration planned an Iraq or Afghanistan-type of occupation. Rubio stepped in to allay those concerns, saying the U.S. would not govern day-to-day but use its leverage through oil sanctions and the threat of potential additional military action to influence Venezuelan leaders.

He also sought to temper blustery rhetoric and the White House refusal to rule out a military operation to take over Greenland, saying Trump's plan is not to invade the island controlled by NATO ally Denmark but rather purchase it.

"That’s always been the president’s intent from the very beginning,” Rubio said Wednesday.

Likewise, it has been Rubio’s moment during closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill. While the Pentagon leadership has presented details about the raid, Rubio has fielded the questions and criticisms from lawmakers.

“There’s a reason the president relies on him for so many different things,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a fellow Florida Republican who has known Rubio for years. “Rubio’s a person who just solves problems.”

Rubio publicly outlined the three phases of the administration’s plan this week — sell seized Venezuelan oil for revenue to rebuild the country, restore other aspects of civil society and transition to a new government. Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's vice president, has taken over as interim president with America's blessing.

But Rubio’s strategy for the region is on the clock, and some in Congress aren’t satisfied. Lawmakers from both parties are demanding more details about the path ahead in Venezuela, and Democrats in particular want public oversight hearings and more robust debate.

“On the narrow question of Venezuela, Secretary Rubio knows better about what briefings and consultations and engagement with the senators needs to happen to get and sustain bipartisan support for military action, and I'm disappointed that that hasn’t happened,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who worked with Rubio for years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

For a politician who as a young senator was often seen as a man too much in a hurry, Rubio now has a short window to deliver.

“It’s not years, it’s months,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, another Florida Republican. “Six, nine months.”

In the early days of Trump’s second term, ousting Maduro was not a priority as the president and his national security team largely focused on Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war, Iran’s nuclear program and other day-to-day crises, according to a person familiar with internal White House discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Rubio, the person observed, was a key player in helping Trump fashion his policy in all those matters but seemed to be “husbanding his political capital” for Venezuela.

While Rubio could be more dispassionate in internal debates about other foreign policy issues the Trump administration was dealing with, he was notably more rigid about Venezuela and underscored that he saw Maduro “as an offshoot of the Castro movement,” the person said.

As a senator, Rubio depicted Venezuela as a vestige of the communist ideology in the Western Hemisphere and pushed for Maduro's ouster, advocated for economic sanctions, and even argued for American military intervention when many dismissed those views.

“I think that U.S. armed forces should only be used in cases of national security threats,” he said in a 2018 interview with Univision. “I think there is a strong argument that can be made right now that Venezuela and Maduro’s regime have become a threat to the region and to the U.S.”

Rubio has often tied his attention on the region to his own family history. His Cuban-born parents arrived in South Florida in 1956, a few years before Fidel Castro’s 1959 communist revolution, and he spent much of his life in Miami, where many Cubans sought refuge after Castro’s rise to power.

Criticism of Castro and other leftist leaders in the region won him support from many in the Venezuelan diaspora who made Florida their home to escape crime, economic deprivation and unrest under Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, who began his self-described socialist revolution in 1999.

After Trump defeated Rubio during the 2016 GOP primary, Rubio began to exert influence over U.S. policy toward Latin America as a shadow adviser. This rivalry-turned-partnership surprised many given that Rubio’s views initially appeared at odds with Trump’s “America First” approach and campaign promise for no more foreign wars.

But there appears to be little daylight now: Trump can be heard parroting the exact rhetoric Rubio used nearly a decade ago on Venezuela.

Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump, accompanied, from left to right, by Jared Kushner, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, not pictured, at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump listens to a question during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla., as Secretary of State Marco Rubio watches. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)

Secretary Marco Rubio meets with Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot at the State Department, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026 in Washington. (AP Phoro/Kevin Wolf)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his most substantial critique of U.S., Russian and other military incursions in sovereign countries, Pope Leo XIV on Friday denounced how nations were using force to assert their dominion worldwide, “completely undermining” peace and the post-World War II international legal order.

“War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading,” Leo told ambassadors from around the world who represent their countries’ interests at the Holy See.

Leo didn’t name individual countries that have resorted to force in his lengthy speech, the bulk of which he delivered in English in a break from the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic protocol of Italian and French. But his speech came amid the backdrop of the recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela to remove Nicolás Maduro from power, Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts.

The occasion was the pope’s annual audience with the Vatican diplomatic corps, which traditionally amounts to his yearly foreign policy address.

In his first such encounter, history’s first U.S.-born pope delivered much more than the traditional roundup of global hotspots. In a speech that touched on threats to religious freedom and the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and surrogacy, Leo lamented how the United Nations and multilateralism as a whole were increasingly under threat.

“A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies,” he said. “The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.”

“Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion. This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence,” he said.

Leo did refer explicitly to tensions in Venezuela, calling for a peaceful political solution that keeps in mind the “common good of the peoples and not the defense of partisan interests.”

The U.S. military seized Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, in a surprise nighttime raid. The Trump administration is now seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government. The U.S. government has insisted Maduro's capture was legal, saying drug cartels operating from Venezuela amounted to unlawful combatants and that the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them.

Analysts and some world leaders have condemned the Venezuela mission, warning that Maduro’s ouster could pave the way for more military interventions and a further erosion of the global legal order.

On Ukraine, Leo repeated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire and urgently called for the international community “not to waver in its commitment to pursuing just and lasting solutions that will protect the most vulnerable and restore hope to the afflicted peoples.”

On Gaza, Leo repeated the Holy See’s call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and insisted on the Palestinians’ right to live in Gaza and the West Bank “in their own land.”

In other comments, Leo said the persecution of Christians around the world was “one of the most widespread human rights crises today,” affecting one in seven Christians globally. He cited religiously motivated violence in Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Sahel, Mozambique and Syria but said religious discrimination was also present in Europe and the Americas.

There, Christians “are sometimes restricted in their ability to proclaim the truths of the Gospel for political or ideological reasons, especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family.”

Leo repeated the church’s opposition to abortion and euthanasia and expressed “deep concern” about projects to provide cross-border access to mothers seeking abortion.

He also described surrogacy as a threat to life and dignity. “By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family,” he said.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)