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00:00Next, it's predicted Donald Trump is to name Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State.
00:05The word from insiders at Mar-a-Lago is that it's a done deal awaiting public announcement
00:09this Tuesday.
00:10The appointment of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to serve as the next Homeland Security
00:15Secretary is another strong rumor.
00:17But for more on Rubio, who's set to become the face of America abroad, here's Eliza Herbert.
00:26The election was at the heart of Trump's election campaign.
00:29You see it, the criminal invasion, horrible, some horrible, deathly people.
00:35And it is already shaping up to be at the heart of his next term in office.
00:39Stephen Miller, a loyal Trump ally, was the architect of the vast anti-immigration crackdown
00:44during the President-elect's first term.
00:47He will now be his new Deputy Chief of Staff, bringing with him a fixation on national identity.
00:54The reality is, is that the foreign-born population into our country has quadrupled
00:59since 1970.
01:00That's a fact.
01:01The burning issue of border control will be entrusted to immigration hardliner Tom Homan,
01:06who will take the reins as Trump's quote, border czar.
01:10The former police officer was also a key senior immigration advisor during Trump's first term.
01:16He will be tasked with carrying out Trump's promise of the largest deportation effort
01:20in the history of the United States.
01:24Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?
01:28Of course there is.
01:32Families can be deported together.
01:34The new administration is also set to include staunch supporters of Israel, such as Elise
01:39Stefanik, Trump's pick for the new United Nations ambassador.
01:44She has previously criticised the organisation over what she sees as a lack of support for
01:49Israel's war in Gaza, and garnered international attention recently when she questioned
01:54university presidents over their handling of anti-Semitism during campus protests.
02:00According to the New York Times, the new Secretary of State is expected to be Florida Senator
02:05Marco Rubio.
02:06This is him last year when responding to whether he would call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
02:11Are you filming it?
02:13I want you guys to get this.
02:14I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on.
02:18These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes and I hope you guys post that.
02:23And the person expected to oversee national security policy is Michael Waltz, a Florida
02:28representative who has made a name for himself for his virulent criticism of China, a country
02:33often singled out by Donald Trump.
02:37Let's get some further analysis of the possibility of Marco Rubio becoming the US Secretary of
02:42State.
02:43Our guest, Sean Forman, political science professor at Barry University in Miami, Florida.
02:48Sean, thanks for joining us here on France 24.
02:50We appreciate your time.
02:51We just had Marco Rubio there in an archive clip saying that he wants to see Hamas destroyed.
02:59So I can imagine Benjamin Netanyahu must be smiling at the prospect of working with Rubio.
03:06Well good evening.
03:07Thanks for having me on.
03:08Yes, I think the election, the re-election of Donald Trump to a new term in the United
03:13States does have Benjamin Netanyahu very excited and seeing who Donald Trump is naming as his
03:21picks for his national security team makes him even more excited.
03:26Marco Rubio is known to be a war hawk and the quote you played there encapsulates that
03:32perfectly.
03:34That's not a misstatement.
03:36That's the way Marco Rubio has spoken for years, particularly being strong and aggressive
03:41in his support of Israel.
03:43And in terms of the globality of the people named so far, really a tough line on immigration
03:49is to be expected, which of course was Trump's policy.
03:52Yes, I think if we look at the U.S. election results, most people think that the economy
03:59and people's views of inflation and prices were really what drove the election.
04:06Many people also say that they were they were underwhelmed with Kamala Harris and Democrats
04:11messaging.
04:12But I think running through all of that was the issue of immigration.
04:17That has been a big topic of discussion in the United States for years as one of our
04:22fault lines.
04:23So no doubt about it, with a clear election for Donald Trump, that he will select people
04:29that go along with his talking points.
04:33Most of all, his policy advisor, Stephen Miller, is the person who came up with the mass deportation
04:40plan in the past.
04:41So putting him in that position is a signal this is going to happen.
04:45Marco Rubio from Miami is a Cuban-American.
04:48He's a Latino, Spanish-speaking person.
04:52So Marco Rubio will be under a lot of pressure to slow down or to humanize this process.
05:00But it seems like, again, the Trump administration will have a hard line on immigration, will
05:06look to shut the southern border and may even do mass deportations.
05:10Indeed.
05:11I mean, the clip from Tom Homan in the report we've just played had him saying, yes, there's
05:16a way to stop families being split.
05:17That's deport the families all together.
05:19Are we likely to see, do you think, those images of families being split up, children
05:23being put into into cages?
05:25Is this likely to happen again, as it happened in the first Trump presidency?
05:30I suppose it is, if that's the plan that they go forward with.
05:35Again, they're telling us what they say they're going to do.
05:39Now, when it comes actually time to try to round up tens of thousands of people and how
05:47you store them, how you process them, how you send them back to their country of origin,
05:53all that's going to take time and money.
05:56And it's going to be very delicate.
05:57But I think we could see those images.
06:00You know, again, on the selection of Marco Rubio, it's interesting because Marco Rubio
06:04back in 2012 was one of the U.S. senators that was part of a bipartisan deal trying
06:09to come up with a framework to fix immigration, to legalize the people who were here undocumented,
06:17to allow them to stay and become legalized in 2012.
06:21That plan didn't pass.
06:22And in fact, our country has gone even more hard line to the point now where the plan
06:27is, you know, round up and deport people here without proper papers.
06:32So no matter how they do it, it's not going to look good on video.
06:36Sean, how's it going to work between Marco Rubio and Donald Trump if indeed that goes
06:40ahead?
06:402016, Rubio was, well, he said some very, how can I put it?
06:45I'll be diplomatic, unnice things about Donald Trump.
06:48And Donald Trump, you know, he returned the compliment in many ways in spatefuls talking
06:53about little Marco and all that kind of stuff.
06:55They made friends or they made up.
06:57But is this basically the truth about this is that their relationship looks to be as
07:03though it might be something that's quite volatile?
07:06I think it is.
07:07Every relationship with Donald Trump is quite volatile.
07:10That's what we've learned.
07:11He likes you when he likes you.
07:12And when he doesn't, he will make it known.
07:14He will put it on social media.
07:16He will cancel you from his administration.
07:19He'll try to get you canceled in public.
07:21So, yes, I think Marco Rubio in 2016 was the first one to try to take on
07:27Trump directly with insults.
07:29But little Marco was put in his place and he was vanquished from the presidential election.
07:34And instead, he became a right hand man, a lieutenant in the first Trump administration.
07:38And now he's going to have an even bigger role now.
07:40So I think as long as they're getting along and they're on the same page, everything's
07:44great.
07:45But that could change in a minute's notice, just like anybody with Donald Trump.
07:48As you pointed out, Rubio is of Cuban heritage.
07:51It doesn't mean to say that if you are Cuban, your chances of getting to the United States
07:54have improved, does it?
07:56No.
07:57In fact, they may not improve.
08:00For many years in the United States, we had a policy where if you came from Cuba, as long
08:05as you touched U.S. soil, you would get an asylum claim and you could stay.
08:09That was the so-called wet foot, dry foot policy.
08:12Didn't apply to people from other countries.
08:14When Barack Obama was president, he changed that so that you don't get automatic asylum
08:19coming from Cuba.
08:21And even though Marco Rubio is of Cuban heritage, he's favorable towards Cuban American people.
08:28He's not at all favorable towards the Cuban regime.
08:31And he will certainly have a hard line there and not make it easy for people to migrate
08:36from Cuba this way, because it's all part of trying to fix the system, regularize immigration,
08:43but also try to change the regime in Cuba.
08:46So I don't think we're going to see any softening on policy.
08:49In fact, we're going to see an even tougher stance from a Trump-Rubio administration.
08:53That is something that, of course, Trump has promised when he was doing his, well, his
08:59acceptance speech.
09:00We can call it that.
09:01It wasn't yet at that point that he could be accepting it, but certainly looked like
09:05it was all beyond Kamala Harris.
09:08I think the first policy thing he mentioned was borders.
09:10Then it was immigration.
09:11That was the thing.
09:12And then it was economy.
09:14I mean, clearly, Rubio going around the world, representing the USA, the face of American
09:19diplomacy.
09:20Does he have the pedigree?
09:21Final question.
09:22Does he have the pedigree?
09:23I believe he does.
09:24Real quick on the immigration.
09:25I'm in Miami.
09:26I'm in Florida.
09:27We know about the border states.
09:28But immigration became an issue in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan.
09:33That's in the north.
09:34That's why Trump won.
09:36But I do think Marco Rubio has been a senator since 2010.
09:39He was a state representative before that.
09:41He's a student of foreign policy.
09:43He's been on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees.
09:48He's traveled the world.
09:49He knows Latin American politics as well as European.
09:52So I do believe he has the pedigree and the experience.
09:54He's not a token pick as a Cuban-American from Miami.
09:58This is a guy who has experience in the U.S. Senate for 14 years now, and he's ready to
10:03be U.S. Secretary of State.
10:04If selected, he'll be approved easily by the U.S. Senate, and he'll have that job.
10:10Sean Foreman, political science professor at Barry University in Miami, Florida.
10:13Thank you very much for joining us and sharing your knowledge of Marco Rubio, the possible
10:20pick for Donald Trump to be his secretary of state.
10:23We await, of course, the confirmation of that.
10:25But thank you to Sean Foreman for joining us.
10:28Pleasure to speak to you, Sam.
10:29Thank you very much.
10:30Time for a very short break.
10:32After that, the news continues.
10:33Stay with us.