If Ru­bio wants to run for pres­id­ent in 2020, it would be very dif­fi­cult for him to do so without hold­ing any prom­in­ent statewide elec­ted of­fice. Hav­ing only one term on the Sen­ate un­der his belt and four years out­side of of­fice is an aw­fully thin start­ing point to mount a second pres­id­en­tial bid. There will be oth­er newly-elec­ted gov­ernors and sen­at­ors who will emerge on the na­tion­al radar. And with the Flor­ida gov­ernor race un­likely to be an op­tion—Ag­ri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er Adam Put­nam is pop­u­lar and the odds-on GOP fa­vor­ite—the only op­tion for him to re­main polit­ic­ally rel­ev­ant is to pur­sue a second Sen­ate term.

So it’s not all that sur­pris­ing that, even with his pres­id­en­tial cam­paign well be­hind him, Ru­bio is start­ing to sound more like a politi­cian again. He’s warmed up to Don­ald Trump, say­ing he’d be “honored” to speak on his be­half at the con­ven­tion des­pite hold­ing deep re­ser­va­tions about his cre­den­tials to be com­mand­er in chief. Trump, in turn, tweeted out en­cour­age­ment for Ru­bio to run again for his Sen­ate seat. From Trump’s per­spect­ive, this sounds like a clas­sic ex­ample of the “art of the deal”: Ru­bio softens his op­pos­i­tion, and Trump gives him an open­ing to keep his polit­ic­al ca­reer go­ing.

Keep in mind: Nearly every Re­pub­lic­an sen­at­or on the bal­lot in 2016 has made peace with Trump, even John Mc­Cain (whom Trump in­fam­ously mocked at the start of his pres­id­en­tial cam­paign). If Ru­bio de­cided to change course and pur­sue a Sen­ate bid in 2016, he’d need some sup­port from the pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee who crushed him in his home-state primary.