Finally, here is another oft-heard observation about Rubio. Some of the worst decisions made in his ever-expanding fiefdoms (hiring a racist lunatic Duginist to gut the Global Engagement Center, sanctioning former EU officials and disinformation experts, possibly granting visas to Duma deputies to make Rep. Ana Paulina Luna look even more of a twit than she already does) are said to be compromises he has had to make to remain within the good graces of the MAGA ideologues and to keep his own preferred functionaries from being ousted. Rubio’s relationship with Susie Wiles here is key. And it’s no coincidence he was one of the few figures she didn’t disparage in that Vanity Fair piece.
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) Jan 14, 2026
Day: January 13, 2026
The Europeans, perhaps a little too wishfully, agree with this assessment. They are trying to mitigate the damage the U.S. is doing to transatlanticism and NATO and the European Union and can’t afford to adopt the oppositional stance of American political actors. This frustrates many in America’s commentariat, myself included sometimes. But one understands their imperative. They reckon this White House is better with Rubio in it than not. Meanwhile, career Foreign Service types and Democrats who got on with Rubio in the Senate and voted to confirm him as Secretary of State see only a cynical opportunist who gutted USAID, betrayed Venezuelan dissidents by cozying up to Rodriguez, and is maybe about to sign off on the illegal annexation of Greenland. The Second Coming of John McCain this is not.
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) Jan 14, 2026
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s former foreign minister (and a keen student of U.S. politics as I discovered when I met him in Kyiv), sees Rubio as a bulwark against this administration’s worst pro-Kremlin tendencies. Kuleba is not alone.
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) Jan 14, 2026
There are two prevailing views of what Rubio represents in this administration. The first is that he sold his soul to MAGA and became an enthusiastic executioner of Trump’s agenda. All spheres of influence and gimme gimme militarism. Gone is the internationalism of the pre-Trump era Republican. Anakin gave in to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader. The second view is that Rubio sold his soul to MAGA but still tries to blunt the edges of Trump’s agenda and even sneaks in some of his old foreign policy agenda whilst somehow staying in Trump’s good graces — Thomas Cromwell in the Tudor court or a wily Politburo member trying to survive the purges. Going after Maduro but making it about oil and narco-terrorism rather than democracy and human rights is one way to do it. Praising Trump to the point of narcolepsy and quietly preempting the wholesale forfeiture of Ukrainian territory to a weakened Russia is another way.
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) Jan 14, 2026
Railside loading infrastructure at the expansive plant, likely filled with volatile manufacturing products, is ablaze.
POV: (47.233136, 39.599747)
Area burning: (47.250476, 39.594826) pic.twitter.com/x0IXdpmJGm— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) January 14, 2026
BREAKING: Multiple Americans who were detained in Venezuela have been released, the Trump administration said. https://t.co/dQcJWRuAnU
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 14, 2026
Wild how deep Cold War spycraft ran – even JFK and RFK were in the loop on CIA counterintelligence ops like a French Embassy break-in for document removal. It shows how allies and espionage overlapped back then – trust, but verify… always. #JFK #CIA #ColdWar nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b…
— Robert Morton (@Robert4787) Jan 14, 2026