A U.S. senator has sharply criticized Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, for acting as if he had lost parts of his brain.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who worked with Rubio on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blasted Rubio for backing Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a tense meeting in the Oval Office.
“What we’re seeing is a major shift,” Van Hollen told CNN. “President Trump no longer believes that the United States should lead in defending freedom, the rule of law, and democracy, even though we haven’t always been perfect at it. He’s throwing all of that away. He seems to see himself more like Putin or Xi, a strongman who will turn his back on our allies when it suits his personal interests. To me, that’s not ‘America first,’ it’s America stepping back.”
Van Hollen, who had voted to confirm Rubio as Secretary of State, now regrets that decision.
“I regret that vote,” Van Hollen said. “Senator Rubio used to understand that Putin and Russia were the aggressors. He didn’t call Zelensky a dictator. But now, it’s like he’s had a total lobotomy or something. I’m not sure what happened. He let Elon Musk essentially take control of the State Department. We saw Musk’s efforts to undermine USAID – that was his initiative. Now Rubio is just repeating whatever Trump says. If Rubio took this job just to follow Trump like that, I’m really disappointed. It seems like that’s the path he’s on.”
Watch the segment below:
