Secretary of State Marco Rubio is one of the great chameleons of American politics. Although he’s not the only Republican to undertake a personal makeover to survive in the Trump-dominated Republican Party, he’s one of the most extreme examples.

Rubio went from being one of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s biggest advocates in the U.S. Senate to cheering on its destruction at the hands of Elon Musk, Russell Vought and the destructive DOGE brigade.

That came after an earlier shift — from calling President Trump a “con man,” a “lunatic” whose rhetoric models “third-world strongmen” and a “serious threat” to our country, to joining the parade of Republican officials trading in their principles to stay in the good graces of the party’s vindictive new boss.

Now, with an eye toward 2028, Rubio may be attempting his most impressive performance yet.

Earlier this month, Rubio took a turn at the White House briefing room podium, filling in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave. In response to a softball question lobbed by a correspondent from the Christian Broadcasting Network about his faith and hope for America, Rubio gave an eloquent response.

“We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything; where you’re not limited by the circumstances of your birth, the color of your skin, or your ethnicity,” he said. “But frankly, it’s a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential.”

He went on to describe our history as “one of perpetual and continual improvement, where each generation has done its part to bring us closer to fulfilling the vision that the founders of this country had upon its founding.”

Right-wing pundits swooned, and Rubio’s staff quickly turned the video into a virtual campaign ad.

Time for a reality check: Rubio has been an active participant in Trump’s relentless campaign to prevent the U.S. from being the country he described.

Together, they have slammed the door to legal immigrants and refugees — with the glaring exception of white South Africans. They are trying to force out more than a million people who entered the country legally seeking asylum because their home countries were deemed too dangerous to return to. They are aggressively dismantling efforts to expand opportunity to people who suffer the consequences of generations of discrimination based on skin color and ethnicity. Women and people of color have been disproportionately harmed by DOGE’s chainsaw cuts and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ideological purges.

It is true that U.S. history is in part the history of people overcoming great challenges to move our country closer to its stated ideals. Americans should be proud of that history. But Trump is trying to erase it and move the country backward.

MAGA leaders mock the idea that diversity is a strength. They stoke racial grievance. They are dismantling the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement along with constitutional checks and balances that protect the rule of law.

Rubio’s comments are, simply put, industrial-grade Trumpian gaslighting. Rubio has proved himself adept at that, repeatedly insisting — against overwhelming evidence — that nobody died due to the sudden, massive, disruptive cuts to U.S. foreign aid.

So he has demonstrated the requisite ability Trump demands to lie shamelessly. But will it work?

Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric has emboldened far-right voices promoting nativism, white supremacy and white nationalism. Is Rubio betting on the fact that MAGA voters are tiring of the Trump administration’s crassness and cruelty? I have my doubts.

As vice president, JD Vance has been the presumed Republican frontrunner for 2028 and generally topped early opinion polls. But one recent poll showed Rubio surging into the lead.

The next presidential election is a long way off. It is not clear how Rubio could even try to bridge the divide between his recent rhetoric about America as a land of expansive opportunity with the reality of the Trump administration’s backward-looking, progress-reversing agenda.

Rubio included images of Trump in the campaign-style video he made after his White House remarks, a sign that he is willing to take on the challenge of portraying the administration’s efforts to reverse more than half a century of civil rights gains as compatible with his rhetoric about “perpetual improvement.”

That’s more than putting lipstick on a pig. “He’s trying to put an aspirational mask on grievance,” Republican strategist Mike Madrid told Vox. “He’s trying to put a forward-thinking, shining-city-on-a-hill veneer on top of a pile of hate and division.”

That is a tough sell, even for a well-practiced chameleon.

Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.

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