The Senate voted on Monday to confirm Marco Rubio as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, the first high-level Cabinet official for the new administration to be approved by the chamber.
The confirmation vote took place just hours after Trump was sworn in as president. The overwhelmingly bipartisan vote was 99 to 0 with no senators voting against the nomination.
Rubio has served as a Republican senator from Florida since 2011, and his nomination drew strong support from a number of Senate Democrats, who called their colleague highly qualified for the role.
Rubio went from Trump adversary to ally in recent years in a remarkable political turnaround. Now, he will play a key role as a high-ranking official in Trump’s new administration.
The two had a bitter rivarly during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, with Rubio calling Trump a “con artist,” while Trump derisively called him “Little Marco.”
After his failed GOP presidential primary bid in 2016, Rubio sharpened his foreign policy credentials as the leading Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, while building relationships in his party and across the aisle. More here