Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s approval rating ticked up in a late December Daily Mail poll, making him President Donald Trump‘s most popular Cabinet member.
Overall, the former Florida senator had a net rating of +6, with 39 percent saying the approve of the job Rubio is doing compared to 33 percent who disapprove.
The Daily Mail poll, conducted by J.L. Partners, found that Attorney General Pam Bondi was the least popular Cabinet member, but even her numbers were barely underwater, coming in at a net negative-one rating.
Rubio’s net approval number was the highest it’s been all year, as he previously only got up to a plus-3 in late April.
In the run-up to the poll being conducted on December 20 and 21, Rubio was quoted as saying he’d get out of Vice President JD Vance‘s way if the VP decided to run for the White House in 2028, decreasing the chances of a high-profile MAGA showdown.
‘If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee,’ Rubio told Vanity Fair. ‘And I’ll be one of the first people to support him.’
Trump hasn’t officially backed Vance for the 2028 Republican nomination, though he has floated Vance and Rubio being a dynamic duo.
After polling had concluded, Rubio was portrayed as the more experienced hand in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, with NBC News reporting on December 22 that there had been some clashes between Rubio and Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) has become President Donald Trump’s (left) most popular Cabinet member, including to the Daily Mail’s late December poll
The report also details some security lapses on Witkoff’s end, as the special envoy has been flying around to negotiate peace deals on Trump’s behalf using his personal plane.
The State Department’s official line was that the two men had a ‘close working relationship’ and were ‘personal friends,’ but sources told the network that Witkoff had done things like schedule a meeting with the president of France without initially inviting Rubio.
It’s an almost unheard-of scenario that a businessman with no foreign policy experience would get a one-on-one meeting with a head of state over the U.S.’s top diplomat.
In the end, Rubio was included in the meeting and the State Department’s spokesperson told NBC that ‘any insinuation that Special Envoy Witkoff was blocking the Secretary of attending a meeting in Paris is absurd.’
Witkoff and Rubio’s views on ending the war in Ukraine also differ, with Rubio supportive of the US causing Russia economic pain to get the Kremlin to the negotiating table.
Witkoff has been criticized for having too light a hand with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
‘He’s a gift to the Russians,’ one congressional official told NBC about Witkoff.
The New York Times also detailed Rubio’s role in trying to conclude the conflict in a story published Tuesday.
After polling concluded, NBC reported on some clashes between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (pictured), who are both trying to end the war in Ukraine
In March, Rubio had asked members of a Ukrainian delegation to draw on a map the borders they could live with.
‘I want to know what your absolute bottom lines are; what do you have to have to survive as a country?’ the Secretary of State said.
One American called it a breakthrough moment, saying it was ‘the first time that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, through his people, said, in order to reach peace I’m willing to give up 20 percent of my country.’
If Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to the boundaries or other parts of a deal etched out – including that Ukraine couldn’t become a NATO nation but could join the European Union – ‘then he has a Donald Trump problem,’ Rubio reportedly told Ukrainian officials.
When meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov for the first time, The Times said, Rubio channeled the classic American movie, The Godfather.
He recalled the scene in which Vito Corleone tells his son: ‘I spend my life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men.’
Rubio told the Russians that, as nuclear powers, the U.S. and Russia needed to communicate.
Lavrov reportedly broke into a smile.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) in a handout photo during their meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in February
But a September incident showcased how difficult it has been for the U.S. to negotiate with the Russians, as Lavrov informed Rubio that he believed Trump had made a commitment to Putin during their Alaska meeting to force Zelensky to give up most of the Donetsk region.
Lavrov sent a letter to Rubio demanding that Trump publicly acknowledge that.
U.S. officials told the Times that while Trump reacted positively to Putin’s pitch to end the war in Donetsk, the president made no such commitment.
On top of that, U.S. officials were told that Putin hadn’t authorized such a letter, that it was a Lavrov power play.
Amid this drama, Trump finally green-lit more sanctions on Russia.
Daily Mail’s December polling found that voters felt the most negatively about the idea of Ukraine having to give up territory currently not held by Russia as part of an agreement to end the war.
They were lukewarm on the idea of the U.S. lifting sanctions on Russia as part of the peace deal, with 32 percent finding it acceptable and 33 percent finding it unacceptable.
Polling consisted of 1,000 registered voters online and was conducted December 20 to 21. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
It comes as Zelensky said Ukraine was only ‘10 per cent away’ from a peace deal in his New Year address.
But the Ukrainian president also insisted he would not sign a ‘weak’ deal at any cost in the 20-minute speech.
The final part of the agreement will ‘determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe’ and ‘save millions of lives’, Mr Zelensky added.
And his reservations remain around ceding territory to Russia in eastern Ukraine, which Mr Zelensky warned will embolden Vladimir Putin.
He said: ‘We want the war to end – not the end of Ukraine. Can Russia end the war? Yes. Does it want to? No. Can the world force it to? Yes – and only that way will it work.
‘Signatures under weak agreements only fuel war. Either the world stops Russia’s war, or Russia drags the world into its war.’
Ukraine is expected to resume negotiations with US and European officials tomorrow, while the UK-led Coalition of the Willing is expected to meet on Sunday.
Mr Zelensky is seeking to secure stronger security guarantees from the US as part of a negotiated peace settlement. It comes as Western intelligence sources dismissed Kremlin claims that Ukraine launched a drone attack on Putin’s Black Sea hideaway.
