Donald Trump named Florida Senator Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making the former sharp critic the new administration’s choice as its top diplomat.
US president-elect Donald Trump has named Marco Rubio as his choice for secretary of state.
Here are five things to know about the Republican from Florida, now in his third US Senate term.
Son of Cuban immigrants
Rubio, 53, was born in Miami and still calls the city his home. His father was a bartender and his mother a hotel maid.
In his first Senate campaign, he repeatedly reminded voters of his working-class background and “only in America” story as the son of Cuban immigrants who became a US senator.
He is Catholic. But Rubio spent about six years of his childhood in Las Vegas, where he was baptised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and attended Mormon services. The family moved to the city when Rubio was eight and his parents found jobs in the growing hotel industry.
They returned to Miami when he was 14.
Played college football and married a pro cheerleader
Rubio is a huge football fan who had dreams of making it to the NFL when he played in high school. But he only had solid offers to play from two colleges.
He chose little-known Tarkio College, located in a town of fewer than 2,000 people in the rural northwest corner of Missouri. But as the college faced bankruptcy and he suffered an injury, Rubio gave up football and transferred to a Florida school. He graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami Law School.
He became engaged to Jeanette Dousdebes, and she tried out and made the Miami Dolphins cheerleading squad. They married in 1998 and have four children.
Was almost Florida’s attorney general
He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, where he served as majority leader and speaker.
In 2010, he was a longshot candidate for the Republican Senate nomination against Governor Charlie Crist.
Although party leaders urged him to drop out and run for attorney general, with promises to clear the field for him, Rubio resisted, feeling he couldn’t back out after committing to the Senate race.
He stayed in, won his first term, and was reelected in 2016 and 2022.
Ran for president, and tangled with Trump, in 2016
Rubio entered the 2016 presidential race, facing a crowded Republican field, including Donald Trump.
He won Minnesota, as well as Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, but was defeated by Trump in his home state of Florida, where Trump secured 45.7% of the vote to Rubio’s 27%.
During the campaign, the two exchanged insults, with Trump calling Rubio “Little Marco” and Rubio calling Trump a “con artist” and mocking the size of his hands.
However, their relationship improved once Trump became president. Rubio downplayed his 2016 comments, calling them part of the campaign, and remained close to Trump, even campaigning alongside him in the final stretch of the race.
Often talks about foreign threats, especially from China
Marco Rubio gained national attention in 2010 by riding the tea party wave, campaigning against President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress for their economic policies.
As vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio now often discusses foreign military and economic threats, particularly China. He warns that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are increasingly partnering against the United States.
“They all share one goal, and that is, they want to weaken America, weaken our alliances, weaken our standing and our capability and our will,” he said in a speech last March.
