U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 5, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in great shape as he heads into an important meeting Thursday at the Vatican aimed at easing tensions with Pope Leo XIV.
He may not have answered well when asked to name his DJ, but Rubio was otherwise calm, cool, and collected during his stand-in appearance at Tuesday’s White House press briefing, which led to #Rubio2028 trending on X.
It was a good day for Rubio. Despite President Donald Trump’s declining approval ratings, the continuing Iran war and rising gas prices, Mr. Rubio has emerged as a rising star and appears to be distancing himself from Vice President J.D. Vance, another likely 2028 candidate.
“Rubio is happy as a pig in this White House press conference. (Vice President) @JDVance, Marco wants the top job and is coming for your (very unpopular) a,” Pod Save America co-host and former press secretary to President Barack Obama Tommy Vieter wrote about X as Rubio held court from the podium in the White House press room.
Rubio, who represented Florida in the U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2025 and unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, served as White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt’s press conference fill-in. She is on maternity leave, and administration officials will take turns assisting her in her absence.
It was a deceptively effortless performance from the Trump critic-turned-ally (previously referred to disparagingly by the president as “Little Marco”). He made a name for himself in the second Trump administration by wearing many hats. At various points during his tenure as head of the State Department, Mr. Rubio served as acting national security adviser, acting U.S. archivist, and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Rubio showed off more of his range over the weekend, with the moment he served as a DJ at a family wedding captured in a video shared with X. When asked by a reporter at the press conference for his DJ’s name, Rubio responded, “My DJ’s name? You’re not ready to accept my DJ’s name.”
Mr. Rubio met for nearly an hour, cracking jokes and switching seamlessly into Spanish, deftly answering questions from reporters about the war, gas prices and ongoing tensions with Cuba.
He cited 1990s rap lyrics, calling Iran’s leaders “crazy brains” (Cypress Hill) and telling them to “check yourself before you destroy yourself” (Ice Cube). But by and large, he distilled the Trump administration’s sometimes confusing messages on the Iran war in an easy-to-understand manner.
And although the president rejected efforts to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz hours after Mr. Rubio touted it to reporters, Mr. Rubio’s performance drew rave reviews mainly from the political right.
“Marco Rubio is showing the country and the world what we’ve known about him for decades! Rubio is one of the most eloquent, articulate, and incredibly talented politicians of our time. President Trump has made great choices in him, and he proves it every day!” Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Jimenez posted on X.
Vance. Meanwhile, he is about 1,000 miles away, visiting Iowa for the first time since becoming vice president.
Mr. Rubio’s appearance in the Hawkeye State, where he visited to support Republican Representative Zach Nunn, who is embroiled in a tough re-election battle, was different from Mr. Rubio’s appearance in Washington.
A video of Mr Vance wandering into the speech page and forgetting the name of Mr Nunn’s challenger went viral on social media.
Sarah Longwell, a political commentator and publisher of anti-Trump conservative news site Bulwark, leads weekly focus groups that regularly ask Republicans who they want to inherit the party in 2028.
She wrote in The Atlantic this week that more and more members of these groups are expressing a preference for Rubio over Vance.
“While Mr. Vance may seem like the more natural MAGA successor, many Trump supporters see Mr. Rubio as a stabilizing force who will fare much better than many of his colleagues in the administration, including the vice president,” Longwell wrote.
Rubio is currently heading to the Vatican to meet with the first American-born pope, who has criticized some of the Trump administration’s policies. Rubio and Vance are both Catholics. Rubio was raised Catholic, but Vance converted as an adult.
President Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the Pope, saying Monday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show that the pope’s views on foreign policy “put many Catholics at risk.”
Rubio denied at the press conference that the trip was not aimed at repairing relations.
“This is a trip that we have been planning for some time and obviously there have been some events. There is a lot to discuss with the Vatican,” he told reporters.
