Rubio takes on more visible role in Trump administration with Pope Leo meeting, press room briefing

[0:00] Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Vatican today to meet with Pope Leo after President [0:06] Trump's continued criticism of the head of the Catholic Church. U.S. officials say the two [0:10] discussed the war in the Middle East and, quote, topics of mutual interest in the Western [0:15] Hemisphere. So for more, let's bring in our reporter panel. White House reporter for Politico [0:20] Sofia Kai is here, along with congressional reporter for Semaphore Nicholas Wu. Guys, [0:25] great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. I want to talk about Rubio this week. He was at [0:33] the Vatican today, as we saw, but Sofia earlier this week, he was at the White House, at the podium [0:38] in the press briefing room. I know you were there. Tell us a little bit about what you made of that [0:44] performance and what it might tell us. That was kind of his moment, although he didn't ask for it. [0:50] We know it was an impromptu thing. The White House sort of called him up and said, can you do this? [0:55] Yes, and he showed up for about 50 minutes. He engaged with us on some important issues around [1:00] the war, around China, around Venezuela and Cuba. But he also kept it light. He made several jokes [1:09] with reporters, made some hip-hop references, and he was generally pretty well-received. I should say [1:15] that this was the moment that really made it more okay for people to start talking about him as a [1:23] 2028 contender. Just last month, we had some reporting that some very senior White House [1:29] officials started to see Rubio as a serious 2028 contender. And it's different than last year, [1:37] where MAGA, the MAGA base, didn't always take Rubio as seriously. He saw him as the establishment. [1:44] And the only serious presidential Trump successor would be J.D. Vance. I think now it's very different. [1:52] Of course, it's up to Trump who he wants to endorse, if he endorses anyone. But Rubio has had [1:59] quite a run this week. Yeah, I mean, Trump is certainly the wild card here. But it was [2:03] interesting to see Rubio put out clips of that performance and kind of, you know, [2:09] not monetize it, but get it out there in the public. I mean, Nicholas, we were talking also [2:14] earlier this week about J.D. Vance, who is the current vice president. He's out in Iowa. I mean, [2:19] nobody goes to Iowa by mistake. We all know that. Campaigning for other candidates there. [2:23] But what do you make of this kind of emergence that we're seeing of these two administration [2:30] officials potentially vying to kind of take the Trump mantle? We're seeing the very early stages [2:36] of the shadow of 2028 primary. Very, very subtle, right? Like, you know, J.D. Vance was in Iowa to [2:41] campaign with a purple district congressman, Zach Nunn, who faces a very tight race, and to meet [2:46] voters there. People who also conveniently could vote for him in a couple of years. Now, at the same [2:51] time, the struggle for people like Vance and Rubio is to try to make their own profile, while at the [2:56] same time, not overshadowing the president himself. Yeah, that's always the biggest challenge here. [3:01] Speaking of other people in the administration, Howard Lutnick was on the Hill this week to [3:05] give a deposition to the House Oversight Committee. I know you've been covering this a lot. I mean, [3:10] this was the highest profile member of the administration that we've seen come before the [3:16] committee. This apparently was the very first sitting cabinet secretary to go for a deposition [3:20] or an interview with any congressional committee in U.S. history. And so, you know, it's not clear [3:25] exactly how far the ball was advanced with this interview. Lutnick said that he, you know, he's [3:30] not been accused of doing anything wrong. He said that he didn't see anything untoward with Jeffrey [3:33] Epstein, and he laid out a lot of the timeline. But Democrats hinted that if they take back the [3:38] gavels next year, they will further investigate this. Yeah, something we could see more of as this [3:43] goes on. Sophia, I want to talk a little bit about some new reporting today that Kamala Harris, [3:48] the former Democratic nominee, says that she wants the DNC to release their autopsy of her own [3:55] loss. I mean, it's really stunning to me that they haven't done it. What's going on there? [4:02] You know, you see these calls among members of the base asking for this autopsy to come out. [4:08] There's been a resistance to releasing it. What should we make of it? [4:10] I think people want closure. You know, for months after the 2024 election, there is a sense of [4:17] just being in a daze. You know, and we kind of heard that from Democratic operatives across the [4:22] country now as the Democratic Party is trying to figure out what's next and what does the next [4:28] two years, the next six years look like for them, there is this sense of like, well, let's figure out [4:34] what went wrong. And for Republicans, there is a lot that has been learned from previous autopsies, [4:42] right? This notion in the 2000s that the Republican Party needed to become more diverse, [4:47] needed to have multicultural voters and to be a bigger tent umbrella. Like, and there were serious [4:54] improvements that came as a result of that. I think Kamala Harris obviously is considering [5:00] another run. And I think she'll have to answer the questions of what went wrong if she's going to [5:05] run for anything. And so that is why she is asking for that to come. And, you know, we don't know what's [5:12] been in it. We don't know if it's been finished. We don't know very much about this alleged autopsy [5:18] at all. More questions about not releasing it than actually just moving ahead. Well, a lot of [5:23] 2028 on the horizon. We got to get through the midterms first, but glad to have you both covering [5:27] this for us. Sophia Nicholas, thank you very much for your time.