President Donald Trump focused heavily on domestic issues during his State of the Union address, but his closest diplomatic lieutenants were rhapsodized.
The president praised his international surrogates, special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but saved the highest praise for “the man they report to”: Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“You have done a great job — a great secretary of state,” Trump said. “I think he’ll go down as the best ever.”
The president reminded attendees that Rubio was confirmed with a 99-0 vote from the Senate before recalling a conversation he had with his chief diplomat about Democrats’ changing attitudes.
“Some of the Democrats are now saying, ‘I can’t believe we approved that guy.’ Well, he said, ‘It’s an honor that they feel that way,'” Trump told the audience.
It is a long way from the days leading up to Trump’s 2016 election, when Rubio called the then-candidate a “con artist” and received the “Little Marco” nickname in return.
Together with Witkoff and Kushner, Trump’s real estate pal and son-in-law, respectively, Rubio has become one of the few members of the administration that Trump explicitly trusts to stand in his place amid the most tense negotiations.
Trump thanked the trio for their help in resolving the conflicts and potential conflicts that his administration has taken credit for quashing, including: Cambodia and Thailand; India and Pakistan; Kosovo and Serbia; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; Armenia and Azerbaijan; the Congo and Rwanda.
“And of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level — it’s just about there,” Trump said.
Notably absent in the praise of diplomacy was Vice President JD Vance.
The president contrasted Rubio with Vance during a speech at the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” last week.
“JD has been great — gets a little bit tough on occasion. We’ve got to slow him down just a little bit on occasion, he says his mind,” Trump joked. “Then we have the opposite extreme … Marco does it with a velvet glove — but it’s a kill. The result is the same, they do it very differently.”
Earlier in the address, Trump announced Vance would spearhead a nationwide anti-fraud initiative.
Earlier in the speech, while ruminating on the Supreme Court’s ruling against his tariffs, Trump said he would not have been able to broker peace in foreign conflicts without the threat of tariffs.
His administration indeed frequently used the threat of economic penalties to pressure smaller, poorer nations to the negotiating table, such as when he warned India and Pakistan that insurmountable tariffs were forthcoming if the possibly nuclear conflict was not immediately de-escalated.
SCHUMER SAYS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MUST ‘MAKE ITS CASE’ AFTER RUBIO BRIEFING ON IRAN
“I said I was going to put 250% on each country, which means you’ll never do business. … That’s a nice way of saying we don’t want to do business with you,” Trump recalled in October 2025.
Trump told attendees of his address, including the Supreme Court justices, that he will be continuing his use of tariffs through other legal avenues, through which “congressional action will not be necessary.”
