Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s new assignment as President Trump’s interim national security adviser brings him deeper into an inner circle dominated by "America First" loyalists.

But that may not mean more clout on policy decisions.

“It doesn't signal greater influence over policy,” said Kori Schake, a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, of Rubio’s dual roles. “Secretary Rubio appears only to amplify the President's inclinations, not to influence them.”

Rubio’s supporters, including cautious Democrats, say he can still help mitigate what they view as the president’s worst impulses. But critics say he has given up the foreign policy principles he developed over 16 years in the Senate, in exchange for Trump’s temporary favor.

“In a normal administration, Republican or Democrat — and this is not normal — the double-hatting is impossible,” said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has advised secretaries of state in Republican and Democratic administrations.

“To add national security adviser to Marco Rubio, I think this makes this system, in many respects, even more dysfunctional.”

While Rubio held the rare distinction of being confirmed unanimously in the Senate, some of his former Democratic colleagues quickly started feeling regret as he did little to publicly push back on Trump’s turn toward Russia in the Ukraine war, while taking an........

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