Marco Rubio’s 2 roles diminish Trump control, says John Bolton

For the first time since Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, the same person will simultaneously serve as both Secretary of State and national security adviser.

Marco Rubio has been tapped to serve as interim national security adviser after President Trump announced that Mike Waltz, who held the role, has been nominated to represent the U.S. at the United Nations.

This comes after Waltz inadvertently added The Atlantic‘s editor-in-chief to a group chat where sensitive information was shared about March strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. Vice President Vance denies that the move is a “firing.”

Before Rubio, Henry Kissinger led both the State Department and the National Security Council for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Kissinger was hugely influential in shaping the post World War-II era of global politics.

If President Trump believes the move gives him more control, he is “dead wrong,” his former national security adviser John Bolton told Morning Edition. The move may actually be “diminishing” his own control over the State Department and the various national security agencies, Bolton continued.

And while it puts Rubio in an advantageous position, Bolton said it won’t be easy.

“There’s some overlap between those jobs, inevitably. But they are so fundamentally different that I think…that no one individual can really handle them, particularly given the threats and challenges we face in the world today,” Bolton said, noting he was not intending to criticize Rubio.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

The Secretary of State is charged with being the lead diplomat for the United States, running a 75,000-person department with embassies and consulates all over the world, and really trying to achieve through diplomacy what the country’s foreign policy objectives are.

Moreover, the whole idea that the secretary of state – really almost alone – should be by the President that much time, I think, will diminish the president’s capacity through the bureaucracy to keep control of the State Department and keep control of the other agencies, too. All of these jobs are more than full time. And when you diminish one aspect of one of the jobs, you’re going to tilt the system in a way that’s ultimately disadvantageous to the president, even though he may not see it that way and probably disadvantageous to the country, too.

The president will decide one way or the other. If that’s what he wants to do, his decision will prevail, but he can either make a spur of the moment decision, which is Trump’s typical style, or he can make an informed decision. And downplaying the role of national security adviser, I feel, will lead to more displays of fealty by Trump’s staff, but fewer informed decisions.

Julie Depenbrock produced the radio version of this story.