Marco Rubio’s eight-year evolution on Donald Trump: From opponent to VP hopeful

CNN —

It was 2022 and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had just finished debating his Democratic opponent Val Demings when former President Donald Trump was on the line.

According to a source familiar with the conversation, Trump was calling to relish in Rubio’s performance, telling the Republican senator that he’d done well and offering to do whatever he needed in the closing days of his campaign to make sure Rubio went back to Capitol Hill.

Weeks later, Trump appeared at a massive rally in Miami, telling the audience, “You need Marco Rubio fighting for you in the US Senate. He is fantastic.”

It was a remarkable shift for two men who just six years earlier had been bitterly entrenched in a primary battle for the White House, but also reflects Rubio’s ultimate embrace of Trump, whom he learned to work with closely in his presidency.

For Rubio, the last eight years have been an education.

In failure. In humility. In navigating a Republican Party overtaken by Trump and a job he was once desperate to leave. The story of Rubio’s transformation is not entirely unique for a member of Congress or even a one time foe, but reflects the political reality that surviving in the party at odds with Trump is no longer an option for members who want a future beyond him.

And now, as he finds himself on the shortlist of candidates who could be selected as Trump’s running mate, Rubio’s evolution is both a liability and perhaps his greatest asset.

The Florida senator, who nearly left the body after he was defeated in the GOP presidential primary in 2016, has spent the last eight years rebuilding his image in the likeness of a populist in Washington. At the same time, he has sharpened his foreign policy credentials as the leading