Bloomberg This Weekend Sep 20, 2026
With Eric Martin, State Department and foreign policy reporter at Bloomberg News
Marco Rubio is running the State Department and the National Security Council at the same time, which nobody has done in 50 years.
The charge against him is that the Secretary of State has abandoned the positions Senator Rubio held. Eric Martin, who spent a year and a half traveling with him for a Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, reports something narrower: the parts of the job Rubio cares most about, Venezuela and Cuba, are the same ones he pushed in the Senate, and it is the multilateral ones he has dropped.
"He's certainly been working behind the scenes on the planning for whatever comes next with Cuba, including in these many months the squeezing of the island's regime via increased sanctions."
Eric Martin, State Department and foreign policy reporter at Bloomberg News, on Bloomberg This Weekend, has been to more than 20 countries with Rubio over the past year and a half and interviewed him by phone on 11 September for the cover story he wrote with Nancy Cook.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 5 moments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Rubio holds two jobs no one has combined since Henry Kissinger, and told Martin the pace makes it a round-the-clock workload
Venezuela is the file he owns, and Martin calls the raid that put Nicolás Maduro in a Brooklyn prison the administration's most important foreign policy move with the MAGA base
On Iran, he deliberately let the vice president be the public face of the negotiations, which Martin's reporting says he read as a political signal
Behind the scenes he is running the interagency process, organizing daily calls and working the Gulf allies
Republican donors including Ken Griffin are already rooting for him for 2028, even as he says he would back J.D. Vance
1. The Meme He Liked
The segment opened on the internet's running joke that Marco Rubio does every job in the administration. Asked whether the Secretary has seen it, Martin said he had — and that the answer says something about the man.
Traveling with him, the first thing that shows is the humor
He has a great sense of humor. That's something that comes out in the reporting for our story.
Eric Martin
He has taken the joke well, and people around him have watched him do it
And so I've actually spoken with some people who have seen his reaction to this meme frenzy, and he's really been good natured about it, taking it seriously.
Eric Martin
A host added a detail from the reporting: the White House gave Rubio a framed image of the memes, signed by members of the administration.
2. Venezuela And Cuba
The follow-up was the substantive one. The former Treasury Secretary had said earlier in the same program that Rubio is involved in the Middle East but not front and center. So where is he front and center?
Venezuela, and the raid that landed Maduro in Brooklyn
Well, he's been absolutely leading on Venezuela, which has been, in terms of the way that the MAGA base has responded to things, perhaps the most important foreign policy initiative of the Trump administration in January 3rd, operation raid that got Nicolas Maduro into a prison here in Brooklyn.
Eric Martin
And Cuba, where the work is sanctions and planning rather than headlines
And he's certainly been working behind the scenes on the planning for whatever comes next with Cuba, including in these many months the squeezing of the island's regime via increased sanctions.
Eric Martin
3. Why He Stepped Back
On Iran, Martin's reporting is that the absence from the public negotiations was a choice rather than a sidelining.
He let the vice president take the public lead
On Iran, our reporting has found that he's been taken a little bit of a step back and allowed certainly the vice president to be the public lead of negotiations.
Eric Martin
The reason was the signal it sends about how senior the US side is
Our reporting found that he really saw that as important, as an important political signal, understood the importance of having the second highest U.S. Official, second highest ranking official leading those negotiations
Eric Martin
That does not mean he is out of it. Martin listed the work that does not make the television pictures.
The allied diplomacy and the interagency machinery are his
But Rubio has certainly been behind the scenes playing an important role, talking to allies. He went to the Gulf and to a GCC leaders meeting in June, he's also been organizing daily calls, leading the interagency process as national security advisor.
Eric Martin
4. Two Jobs Since Kissinger
Martin interviewed Rubio by phone on 11 September, and the thing Rubio kept returning to was the historical oddity of the arrangement and what it does to a day.
The last person to hold both jobs at once was Kissinger
And it was something I had a chance, I actually was able to speak with him, had a phone interview with him last Friday, Friday, I guess, September 11. And that was one thing that he talked about was just how nobody in 50 years, nobody since Kissinger has had both of these jobs, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, at the same time, and how things move at such a different speed now that it's really a 24-7 workload for him.
Eric Martin
Martin's aside was that the same is true of the reporters covering him.
5. Senator Versus Secretary
The sharpest question was the criticism: Secretary Rubio is not Senator Rubio, who defended multilateral organizations and USAID. The host read back the answer Rubio gave Martin for the article, which was that he is in a different role, a different job, with different responsibilities, and noted that Bloomberg had taken it to John Kerry, who agreed the job is to carry out the president's policies.
Asked whether that produces any internal conflict, Martin said his interview did not find one, and explained the distinction Rubio draws.
A senator advocates for constituents; the executive branch is a different function
It's really an understanding and acceptance of when he was in the Senate for 14 years, he was representing the residents of Florida, his constituents in the state of Florida. And so in the Senate, you're more advocating for something, of course, for residents of Florida, many of whom are immigrants from Latin America.
Eric Martin
The continuity Martin points to is regional and personal rather than institutional.
The Latin America fight is the through line from state office onward
The fight that he has led and continued to lead consistently from the Senate to the executive branch against the communist regimes, socialist regimes in Venezuela and in Cuba, of course, the country of his parents' birth. Those are issues that have been a through line throughout his public career, even when he was in state office in Florida.
Eric Martin
What has changed is his willingness to carry decisions he did not make, the thing Kerry described as the job, and the reporting is that it has bought him standing.
The compliance is what earned him admirers, including among donors
Rubio's faithfulness in doing that and his effectiveness in doing that has won him a lot of admirers in the administration as well as among Republican donors.
Eric Martin
Ken Griffin among them, with 2028 in mind
That was something that came out in our reporting about the number of donors such as Ken Griffin and others who are really rooting for Marco Rubio as a potential candidate for 2028. Even as he says that he has no plans to run, that he supports J.D. Vance if J.D. Vance is planning to run.
Eric Martin
Bonus Insights
Rubio does not speak in this segment
He is the subject of the reporting, not a guest. Every quotation of him in the conversation came second hand, through the article or through the host reading it back.
The episode is a compilation, and this was the last of four conversations
The same program carried an interview with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, one with Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari on the mediation effort, and one with Qatar Airways Group chief executive Hamad Ali Al-Khater on fuel costs and fleet expansion. Each is covered separately.
The reporting itself is the product being discussed
The cover story, written with Nancy Cook, runs in the October issue of Bloomberg Businessweek under the title the host gave on air — Trump's Unapologetic Emissary.
Martin's bottom line is that Rubio has not switched sides so much as narrowed his ambit: he spends his own capital on Venezuela and Cuba, executes the president's policy everywhere else without public friction, and that combination is what has Republican donors talking about him for 2028.
Books & Resources Mentioned
Marco Rubio Remakes Himself as Trump's Unapologetic Global Envoy (The Bloomberg Businessweek cover story Martin wrote with Nancy Cook, built on a year and a half of travel with the Secretary and a phone interview on 11 September)
Bloomberg Businessweek (The magazine carrying the cover story in its October issue)
USAID (Named as one of the institutions Senator Rubio defended and Secretary Rubio has not)
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