Marco Rubio is on resignation watch from both sides of the Atlantic in the expectation he will quit to launch a bid to be the next US president, The Independent can reveal.
Insiders say the US secretary of state and White House national security adviser is preparing for the race to be the Republican nominee in November 2028, with Vice President JD Vance currently his main rival.
Even before the disastrous midterm results – resulting in the Republicans losing control of both the House and the Senate – senior party sources in the US and senior figures in the UK government told The Independent that Mr Rubio could quit his senior role in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The sources doubled down on that expectation, after the midterms gave a damning indictment of the Trump presidency, with the Democrats seizing Republican strongholds such as Kansas and Texas.
Mr Rubio is one of up to five members of Mr Trump’s current cabinet who are thought to be preparing to “run for the hills” in the aftermath of the midterms humiliation.
One Washington insider told The Independent that Mr Rubio needs to “distance himself from the Iran war and pin that one on Trump”.
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