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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

Welcome to the third installment of “What do they want?” Today we’ll look at Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, seems like he’s been around forever. He turns 50 at the end of May, and he’s already running for a third Senate term. Rubio is a career pol; the Florida Republican has spent nearly half his life in public office, and it’s the only occupation he’s had since graduating law school in 1996.

The big question facing Rubio revolves around his race next year, both before and afterward. Who will he face in his 2022 Senate race? And then, perhaps more importantly, what does Rubio do if he wins? Does he make another bid for the White House, or does he bide his time in the Senate, where he’s already more than halfway up the seniority list?

Rubio’s problem, of course, is that there’s already several Florida Republicans who may want to be president in 2024. Leading the list is former President Donald Trump, who keeps talking like he could run again. And if Trump doesn’t run, there’s Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and fellow GOP Sen. Rick Scott who could be candidates instead. Rubio — who was crushed by Trump in 2016 — said he’s not thinking about a presidential run when we spoke to him last week.

"It’s possible that at some point in the future, down the road, two, four, six, eight, 10 [years], I don’t know when, that I will find myself in a position and want to pursue it, because I’ve done it in the past,” Rubio said. “But I can’t tell you that today because I can’t tell you what my life looks like, what the country looks like, the party looks like.”

When asked whether it’s a problem for him that DeSantis and Scott are from his home state, Rubio didn’t really answer that either.

“First of all, if we’ve learned nothing over the last two years, it’s that the future is unpredictable, it takes all kinds of twists and turns,” Rubio said. “I certainly learned that myself living life. You can sort of be prepared for the future, but you can’t necessarily plan for it because you just don’t know what’s going to happen in my life or anybody else’s life.”

For his part, Scott downplayed whether having Rubio and DeSantis in the same state is an issue. “I think Marco has done a really good job as a U.S. senator, and he’s going to do a really good job on his reelection,” Scott said. Scott is serving as NRSC chair this cycle.

We spoke to some other potential 2024 Republican candidates about this “Florida Triangle” as well. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) acknowledged “It would certainly complicate things if we have three Floridians all at the same time.” Asked if Rubio remains viable as a presidential candidate, Cruz added: “That’s a question for voters to decide.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he thinks Trump will run for president again in 2024. When pressed on Rubio, Hawley added that he “didn’t have any idea what Marco’s intentions are or not. But I enjoy working with him.”

Let’s get back to Rubio and the 2022 Senate race. Ivanka Trump was briefly floated as a possible GOP primary opponent, but she made clear she wasn’t interested. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, another Trumpworld figure, also signaled she wouldn’t challenge Rubio. And Trump publicly endorsed Rubio on April 9, so there seems little chance of a significant challenge from his right.

For Democrats, both Reps. Val Demings and Stephanie Murphy are considering running against Rubio next year. However, Demings could run against DeSantis for governor, while Murphy may end up targeting Scott in ‘24 instead.

“Someone is going to run,” Rubio said. “I’m not in some hard red state where you’re not going to get challenged by a serious opponent. But in the end, I don’t think there’s been a member of Congress over the last four to six years who’s been more effective than we have.”

You hear this a lot from Rubio and his aides — “effectiveness.” And he appears to be an effective senator (here’s a report his office put on this.). Rubio brags about his constituent services. Rubio was co-author of the PPP program, one of the big federal successes of 2020 which saved millions of small business jobs during the pandemic. He’s helped steer hundreds of millions of dollars toward restoration of the Everglades, another key issue in Florida, and is asking for billions more. He has seats on Appropriations, Foreign Relations and Intelligence — a pretty nice committee line-up. Rubio has long been very vocal about the economic, military and technological threats posed by China, a huge topicright now. Here’s a 2019 speech Rubio gave on China.

So why not run for Senate Republican leadership? Rubio, after all, was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives before he ran for the Senate. Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the current GOP Conference chair, said with a laugh he thinks Rubio “is very thoughtful, very talented, I think he’d make a great president.” But, Barrasso added, “The path that he’s on in the Senate is a national leadership position as an individual with very good ideas for the country.”

A quick programming note: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will join us Tuesday morning at 11:30 a.m. for a Punchbowl News pop up conversation. We’ll talk all things infrastructure from how he sees the package coming together to his role in helping sell it to the American people and lawmakers. Register!

AUDIENCE OF ONE

Lincoln Project puts up a McConnell vs. Trump ad on Fox in Palm Beach

The Lincoln Project is putting up this ad, seeking to tweak former President Donald Trump over losing to the “swamp” and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. This is running today on Fox and Fox Business in Palm Beach. It’s just an $18,770 buy. Get it? This is like sending Trump a text saying “Watch this.”

DEMOCRATS OR LIZ CHENEY?

NRCC fundraises against Trump opponents. Et tu Liz Cheney?

Check out this fundraising appeal from the NRCC. Kind of awkward for House Republicans to be campaigning on standing with former President Donald Trump when their No. 3 leader — Liz Cheney of Wyoming — is vowing to campaign on her vote to impeach Trump!

DOWNTOWN MOVES

Top Duckworth aides depart to start new firm

Three top aides to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) are leaving to start a political consulting and government relations firm called Magnify Strategies. 

Kaitlin Fahey, Duckworth’s chief of staff, Paul Kohnstamm, the senator’s operations director and Leah Israel, a fundraiser who was chief development officer for the 2020 convention, are starting the firm together. They are going to be working on Duckworth’s re-elect — she’s up in 2022 — and other Illinois campaigns and business efforts. They plan to work on campaign and paid media, coalition building and issue campaigns, government relations and advise on political and philanthropic giving.

MOMENTS

8 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing. 

8:40 a.m.: Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will leave the White House for Andrews where they will fly to Newport News, Va.

9:50 a.m.: VP Kamala Harris will hold a ceremonial swearing in for Bill Nelson as NASA administrator. 

10:30 a.m.: The Bidens will visit Yorktown Elementary School.

11:35 a.m.: The Bidens will leave Newport News for Chesapeake, Va., where they will visit an HVAC workshop at Tidewater Community College. 

1:30 p.m.: Biden will speak. … Harris will hold a ceremonial swearing in for Samantha Power as USAID administrator. 

2:30 p.m.: The Bidens will leave Chesapeake for Norfolk, where they will fly to Andrews. 

4 p.m.: The Bidens will arrive back at the White House. 

Week ahead: Tuesday: Biden will speak about Covid-19. Wednesday: Biden will speak about the implementation of the American Rescue Plan. Thursday: Biden will travel to Lake Charles, La., to talk about the American Jobs Plan “and its investments in water infrastructure.” He will also tour the Carrollton Water Plant in New Orleans. Friday: Biden will speak on the economy and travel to Camp David, where he’ll stay for the weekend.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe,” by Apoorva Mandavilli: “Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives.

“Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

“Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

“How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.”

→ “Why Biden’s Plan to Raise Taxes for Rich Investors Isn’t Hurting Stocks,” by Matt Phillips

→ “How the A.T.F., Key to Biden’s Gun Plan, Became an N.R.A. ‘Whipping Boy,’” by  Glenn Thrush, Danny Hakim and Mike McIntire in Martinsburg, W.Va.

WaPo

→ “Many police officers spurn coronavirus vaccines as departments hold off on mandates,” by Isaac Stanley-Becker

→ “Democrats face growing list of swing-district retirements, dimming midterm prospects,” by Michael Scherer

WSJ

→ “New York Faces Likely Congressional Redistricting Fight After Latest U.S. Census,” by Jimmy Vielkind: “If map makers wish to avoid conflict among incumbents, they could carve up the state’s 23rd Congressional District, which runs along the Pennsylvania border. Republican Rep. Tom Reed, who has represented the area since 2010, said he wouldn’t seek re-election and will leave office at the end of 2022.”

→ “From Apple to Domino’s Pizza, U.S. Companies Scramble to Meet Surge in Demand,” by Thomas Gryta and Theo Francis

→ WSJ Editorial Board: “Capital Gains and Tax ‘Fairness’”

AP

→ “Russia, facing lags, turns to China to produce Sputnik shots,” by Huizhong Wu and Daria Litvinova

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images