President Trump has formally made Secretary of State Marco Rubio his national security adviser, ending 16 months of Rubio holding the job on an acting basis — making him only the second person in U.S. history to run both the State Department and the National Security Council at once.
Why it matters: The only other official to hold both jobs simultaneously was Henry Kissinger under Presidents Nixon and Ford in the 1970s, during the opening to China and shuttle diplomacy after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War — a concentration of foreign-policy power most administrations since have deliberately avoided, per the Washington Examiner.
Driving the news:
Trump signed the commission formalizing Rubio as national security adviser this week; Rubio had held the role on an acting basis since May 1, 2025.
Rubio stepped into the acting NSA job after Michael Waltz left for UN ambassador, following the controversy over a journalist inadvertently added to a Signal group chat discussing military operations.
Rubio is now only the second person after Kissinger to hold Secretary of State and national security adviser at the same time, per Fox News.
Rubio has previously juggled up to four titles at once — State, national security adviser, acting USAID administrator and acting National Archivist — but has since handed off the USAID and archivist duties.
By the numbers:
16 months — how long Rubio served as acting national security adviser before Tuesday's permanent appointment.
2 — people in U.S. history to hold Secretary of State and national security adviser at the same time: Kissinger, then Rubio.
100-0 — the unanimous Senate vote that confirmed Rubio as Secretary of State in January 2025.
The bottom line: Rubio now has more unified control over U.S. foreign policy than any official has held in half a century — a bet by Trump that centralizing State Department and National Security Council decision-making under one loyalist outweighs the reasons most presidents have kept the jobs separate.
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