Former US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was sworn in Monday afternoon as America’s first Cuban American Secretary of State, the 72nd individual to fill the position. The former lawmaker served as a senator for 14 years.
Rubio was sworn in by Vice President JD Vance following his unanimous confirmation by the Senate, with a bilateral vote of 99-0, the first federal official to be sworn in by the new vice president. Rubio is also the first Trump Cabinet nominee to be confirmed.
During his Senate confirmation hearings last Wednesday (Jan. 15), Rubio told lawmakers that the US should revoke the visas of any “supporter of Hamas” in the country.
“If you apply for a visa to come into the United States and in the process of being looked at, it comes to light you’re a supporter of Hamas, we wouldn’t let you in,” he said.
“Now that you got the visa and [are] inside the US and we realize you’re a supporter, we should remove your visa. If you could not come in because you’re a supporter of Hamas, you should not be able to stay. That’s how I view it,” he told his former colleagues.
Rubio also told the senators that he will back the efforts of President Donald Trump to expand the Abraham Accords his administration launched in the waning days of his first term in office. The Accords created a new Circle of Peace in the Middle East, normalizing relations between Israel and four of its neighbors — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
The new Secretary of State has a long and strong history of supporting the State of Israel.
This past April, the then-Senator and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee visited Israel, telling a local news outlet that while all eyes in the US were on Gaza, the threat from Hezbollah to Israel’s north was only growing. He also called for greater American awareness of Middle East challenges, particularly those affecting US troops.
“One of the things that drove me to visit here is I don’t think enough attention is being paid in the United States to what’s happening in the north of Israel, where tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes, where kids have had to leave school, because of a situation there with Hezbollah, which of course has increased since what happened on October 7th.
“Even as the situation in Gaza continues to unfold and the Israelis are going to do what they need to do in order to make sure that Hamas is no longer a threat, we have this looming situation in the north of Israel with Hezbollah and that’s going to have to be addressed,” Rubio emphasized.
“What happened on October 7th with Gaza can never happen again, much less in the north, and it’s a situation Israel is going to have to confront,” he warned, adding that the ideal situation would see the created of a demilitarized buffer zone within the south of Israel.
Late last year, Rubio told a reporter at the Capitol who asked about his position on a ceasefire with Hamas, “Are you filming it? I want you guys to get this. I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes — and I hope you guys post that.
“Hamas should stop hiding behind civilians, putting civilians in the way. Hamas knew that this was gonna lead to this so Hamas has to stop building their military installations underneath hospitals.”
