'Just the latest HUMILIATION': Nicolle reacts to Rubio's Pope Leo CLEANUP VISIT after Trump attacks

0:00 Marco Rubio's had a busy week, but today he's on cleanup duty.

0:04 He's at the Vatican where he met with Pope Leo XIV,

0:07 the first American THE PRIVATE MEETING

0:10 COMES AMID UNPRECEDENTED PUBLIC ATTACKS FROM DONALD

0:14 TRUMP AGAINST POPE LEO WHO HAS BEEN

0:17 OUTSPOKEN ABOUT THE CHURCH'S OPPOSITION TO WAR.

0:20 WHATEVER LAME EXCUSE,

0:20 RUBIO CAME UP WITH FOR TRUMP'S BIZARRE OBSESSION WITH ATTACKING

0:25 THE POPE OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS JUST THE LATEST

0:29 HUMILIATION FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE FORCED TO NAVIGATE TRUMP'S

0:32 DAILY REVERSALS ON THE STATUS OF THE WAR WITH Iran.

0:35 Here's what the New York Times says about

0:37 Trump's latest rhetorical shift and how it underscores,

0:40 quote, how treacherous it is to speak

0:42 for a president who cultivates a bombastic and erratic style,

0:46 one that Trump insists keeps THE CASE, HOWEVER,

0:50 HE APPEARED TO BE THROWING OFF BALANCE HIS OWN SECRETARY

0:54 OF STATE WHO ALSO SERVES AS THE PRESIDENT'S NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR.

0:58 WE'RE BACK WITH DAVID I MEAN, DAVID,

1:01 I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF PUMPING UP YOU HAVE

1:05 TO DO OF DONALD TRUMP TO THINK THAT THESE ARE RHETORICAL SHIFTS.

1:10 I'VE COVERED HIM FOR NINE YEARS.

1:11 THESE ARE JUST BLURTS OF INSTINCT AND IMPULSE AND I

1:15 THINK SOME FEAR COMING OUT ON A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM.

1:19 WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1:20 WELL, YOU KNOW, I THINK HE'S USED

1:21 TO INTIMIDATING AND BLUSTERING HIS WAY THROUGH life.

1:25 And for years and years and years, politically in the United States,

1:29 he was able to get away with that quite a bit because in the Republican Party,

1:33 he didn't have any real opposition.

1:35 He could intimidate and bluster his way through

1:37 domestic American politics to a degree that, quite frankly,

1:41 has surprised me over these last 10 years.

1:43 Like you just bully your way through politics.

1:45 He's now learning that you just can't bully your way through all of life,

1:50 that people do to bully him out of that.

2:06 And I don't think there's any amount of cleanup that Marco

2:09 Rubio can do that will change the Pope's stance on this war.

2:14 I mean, the best he can possibly do, I would say,

2:17 is use whatever influence he has with Trump to dial back the temperature.

2:20 Because the one thing we know for sure is

2:23 that this pope is not going to stop talking about peace.

2:26 That is what he is going to do, and it's obvious it is flummoxed Trump.

2:31 It is obvious that he is now encountering people,

2:34 he is now encountering institutions

2:36 that are not yielding to him internationally.

2:39 They're not doing everything he asks,

2:41 and it's very clear that when that happens, he doesn't have a plan B.

2:45 His plan B is just to say, go back to plan A, except louder and more angry.

2:51 And that's just not going to work.

2:53 And what about Marco Rubio?

2:55 I mean, I think you were on covering

2:57 the Rubio press conference with our colleagues.

3:04 I watched with a little bit of amusement that he seemed

3:09 to HE SEEMED TO REALLY RISE TO THE TWO ROLES HE HAS.

3:14 HE SEEMED TO REALLY RELISH BEING BEHIND THE PODIUM AS A VERY CROWDED,

3:18 SMALLISH SPACE, BUT THE BRIEFING ROOM WAS packed.

3:22 And I was just telling the congressman a story.

3:24 I was at home and I saw the New York Times headline flash

3:28 that Trump had reversed himself on the very

3:30 policy that Rubio had been out there, you know, with a puffed up chest and some

3:34 WELL-REHEARSED LINES IN FRONT OF A BATHROOM MIRROR OR SOMETHING,

3:39 HE HAD MADE A FOOL OF HIM LIKE 110 MINUTES LATER.

3:41 WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF MARCO RUBIO?

3:44 YEAH, THIS IS THE CLASSIC CALCULATION

3:47 THAT REPUBLICANS have been making for 10 years.

3:51 In all likelihood, he's thinking to himself,

3:53 A, he's very frustrated that he was just contradicted, but B,

3:58 he's probably congratulating himself on navigating

4:01 the Trump administration well enough to be

4:03 in the positions of power he's in, to influence power in the way that he can.

4:07 This is the bargain Republicans have been making for 10 years.

4:10 And when you talk to Republicans, they'll say again and again, well,

4:13 you should be is that you're going to be

4:29 humiliated by your own boss again and again and again.

4:32 But here's what's interesting.

4:34 In this moment where Trump is acting erratically,

4:37 where he's contradicting his subordinates and he's he's.

4:41 I'm lurching from policy to policy in a weird way.

4:45 Amongst Republicans, Rubio's star is rising.

4:47 They see him as the most eloquent defender of the administration and J .D.

4:51 Vance's star is falling.

4:53 They do not see him as being a similar ambassador for Trump.

4:58 So it's a very strange situation.

5:00 On the one end, Rubio is being contradicted by his boss all the time.

5:04 On the other hand, his star keeps rising.

5:06 It's a it's a very strange place to be.

5:09 I mean, MAGA is a strange tent to be under in the first place.

5:15 You know, the we didn't talk about the probably

5:18 the most important party in this and that's Iran.

5:21 I mean, Trump is erratic in a way that we've

5:25 just started covering the frequency of the overnight posting,

5:28 the lack of sleep he's obviously getting, the lack of cohesion between his top,

5:34 national security advisor and the president.

5:38 The Iranians see all this, too.

5:40 I mean, what is sort of the intelligence

5:43 suggests the Iranians are thinking about America right now?

5:46 Well, you know, I'll tell you,

5:48 you don't need the intelligence to inform you on this matter, right?

5:51 Watch their Lego videos.

5:52 Well, you know, look, the Iranians as hideous as their regime is,

5:58 these people have been negotiating and outwitting

6:01 people in negotiations for 4 ,000 years.

6:04 And, you know, the idea that they don't look

6:07 at the fact that Donald Trump changes his rationale and his objectives,

6:11 and he's announcing that peace is at hand,

6:13 but by the way, I'm about to start bombing again.

6:15 The Iranians look at that and say we are now in charge

6:18 because we have a consistent strategy of keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed,

6:22 which is creating immense pain in Asia.

6:24 And by the way, for Americans, you think the Iranians don't understand what $1

6:28 .50 a gallon gas increase means to Americans?

6:32 They understand that.

6:33 And so don't believe for one second the way the stock market believes that, oh,

6:37 just because Donald Trump announces that the war is over, the market rises 600.

6:40 Baloney.

6:41 The Iranians are in charge right now because they control the Strait

6:46 of Hormuz and United States gas prices and world food prices.

6:49 So we are in for a long haul.

6:51 And Donald Trump is going to bluster.

6:53 And the more he blusters and backs down

6:55 and changes his mind and contradicts himself, you know,

6:57 you're worried about him contradicting his secretary of state,

6:59 the man contradicts himself twice a day.

7:01 The Iranians see we are now in YOU MADE A SIGH COMMENT BUT I'M JUST CURIOUS,

7:07 WHY DO YOU THINK THE MARKETS AND CPAC ARE

7:09 THE ONLY TWO INSTITUTIONS THAT BELIEVE EVERYTHING TRUMP SAYS?

7:11 YOU KNOW, IT'S MIND-BOGGLING TO me and it's and it's a confident you know

7:16 oil prices go up the market goes down the market you know and vice

7:19 versa right and that's what that is what is driving donald trump right now

7:23 eventually he's taking a very bad deal

7:25 because somehow even though he doesn't give a