MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on “clean-up duty” Thursday at his meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican, following weeks of back-and-forth between the first American-born pontiff and President Donald Trump over the war with Iran.
Earlier this week, Rubio was asked whether his visit was an attempt to “smooth things over with the pope.” The secretary of state said the meeting had been planned earlier but acknowledged “obviously we had some stuff that happened.”
Last month, Trump took aim at Leo in a series of Truth Social posts, calling the pope “WEAK on crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy” after the Catholic leader criticized the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
“Whatever lame excuse Rubio came up with for Trump’s bizarre obsession with attacking the pope over and over and over again is just the latest humiliation for the secretary of state forced to navigate Trump’s daily reversals on the status of the war with Iran,” Wallace said.
Thursday’s meeting was not Rubio’s first embarrassment, according to the “Deadline: White House” host, in a “busy week” for the secretary of state. On Tuesday, Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, took questions about the war at a White House press briefing, which Wallace said she “watched with a little bit of amusement.”
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Wallace said the former senator “seemed to really relish being behind the podium” and appeared to “rise to the two roles he has.” However, Rubio’s success didn’t last long.
During the briefing, he defended the administration’s “Project Freedom,” a U.S. military effort to guide commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz. However, just a short time later, Trump announced on social media that the operation had been put on pause.
Wallace said Trump reversed on the “very policy that Rubio had been out there” defending “with a puffed-up chest and some well-rehearsed lines,” adding that the president had once again “made a fool” of his own Cabinet official.
You can watch Wallace’s full commentary in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”