White House Torches Talk of Hegseth and Rubio Exits After Midterm Shellacking

Marco Rubio isn't packing up his office. The secretary of state shot down reports he's eyeing the exit ahead of a 2028 presidential run, telling The New York Times that staying in the administration until the end of Trump's term has always been the plan. The White House and the State Department backed him up, dismissing the speculation as fake news after this week's midterm losses.

Rubio brushed the chatter off with a joke. He told the Times he loves the work and gets a kick out of the endless talk that he's about to quit. His line: when people say he's going to leave his job, he asks, which one?

Pete Hegseth is the one drawing the real heat. Trump and Vice-President JD Vance have both pinned the Republican wipeout — which handed Democrats full control of the House and Senate — on the Iran war, now grinding into its ninth month. That leaves the defense secretary in a far more uncertain spot than Rubio.

Trump says he's sticking with him. In a phone interview with ABC News, the president acknowledged he'd gotten calls about Hegseth but said he has every intention of keeping him. Speaking to reporters at the White House later Thursday, Trump declared that Hegseth has done a fantastic job.

The president rattled off what he counts as Hegseth's wins, pointing to the January arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the ongoing Iran war. For now, both men keep their jobs. How long that holds after a brutal election week is the question nobody in the administration wants to answer out loud.