Pro-life Sen. Marco Rubio unanimously confirmed as Secretary of State for Trump administration

UPDATE, 1/20/25: ABC News reports that Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate to serve as the next Secretary of State for the Trump administration. All of the senators, including Rubio himself, voted to confirm him for the job. The outlet notes that Rubio is now the “first confirmed member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet in his second administration” and that “Rubio’s experience as the top Republican on Senate Intelligence Committee gave his resume the necessary credentials to earn the public backing of a number of Democrats.”

He is expected to make a speech on Tuesday and also to meet with foreign ministers from India, Australia, and Japan, three countries seen as “critical to countering China’s influence in the Pacific.”

According to Fox News, during his confirmation hearing last week, Rubio said that the job of ensuring America’s interests will be a “top priority” which necessitates a “strong and a confident America that engages in the world, putting our core national interests, once again, above all else.”

11/26/24: Marco Rubio has been selected by Donald Trump to serve as his Secretary of State; if confirmed, he would be the first Latino secretary of state. Rubio is a longtime pro-life advocate.

During a 2016 Senate debate, he spoke passionately about the importance of protecting life, saying that abortion is “not an easy issue,” noting, “You talk about a 16‑year‑old young girl in a crisis pregnancy or a Zika case, people sometimes on my side of the debate act like that’s just a no‑brainer. It isn’t. It’s a difficult and painful issue. It’s also a difficult issue, by the way, because it involves two competing rights: the right of a woman to choose what to do with her body — that is a real right, and I recognize that — but in this case, there is another right, and that is the right of an unborn child to live.”

He added that in such a scenario, he feels “deeply and passionately” that “… as a policy maker, these two rights are now in conflict and… if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life…. I believe that all human life is worthy of the protection of our laws and I respect the people that have reached a different conclusion on this issue, but this is how I passionately feel.”

Recently, Rubio spearheaded a senatorial effort asking the EPA to investigate the environmental affects of mifepristone, one of the drugs used in the abortion pill regimen, on our nation’s water supply. He also introduced a bill attempting to block Biden from declaring a public health emergency after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade. Rubio also released a memo in January of this year regarding what he sees as a “winning pro-life strategy.” It outlines compassionate, pro-family policies to better support women and families, exposing extremism on abortion, and introducing limits on abortion.

READ: Sen. Marco Rubio slams pro-abortion senators after Senate fails to vote to protect life

In a statement, Rubio responded to being selected by Trump to be part of his incoming administration. “Leading the U.S. Department of State is a tremendous responsibility, and I am honored by the trust President Trump has placed in me,” he said. “As secretary of state, I will work every day to carry out his foreign policy agenda. Under the leadership of President Trump, we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else. I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the U.S. Senate so the president has his national security and foreign policy team in place when he takes office on January 20th.”

Rubio seems to be a less controversial pick for Trump’s cabinet, as several Democrats have already openly endorsed him. John Fetterman announced he would vote yes on his confirmation during a Fox News Sunday appearance, while Adam Schiff praised him on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I think Marco Rubio is enormously well-qualified for the job for which he’s been nominated,” Schiff said. “I still want to ask questions; I’m not going to completely pre-judge even him, but he’s unquestionably qualified.”

Though the Secretary of State largely deals with foreign policy, he or she can still affect abortion; in Trump’s first term, for example, he not only reinstated, but expanded, the Mexico City Policy, which bans the United States from funding international organizations that promote abortion. Conversely, Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, labeled abortion as a “human right” and threatened that the State Department would be monitoring access to it around the world.

Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.