The electoral defeat makes reconsider the loyalty to Trump within the government

WashingtonThe electoral defeat in the midterm elections has placed the Republican party in front of a mirror it had long avoided looking into: the reality beyond the White House. The fierce loyalty that Donald Trump has demanded and imposed on his own has resulted in a blindness regarding what has really been happening these past two years in the United States. The immediate reaction amidst the shock has been to intone a mea culpa while pointing at the president and thinking about how to prevent the necrosis from spreading. Not even 48 hours have passed, and there have already been the first resignations and also leaks about possible departures, such as that of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Sources close to Rubio have revealed that the current Secretary of State is considering whether he should leave the Trump administration after the fateful results of Tuesday evening, as cited by Bloomberg. The same outlet explains that the Hispanic politician is also considering his next steps for the future, and the possibility of leaving the executive branch now to still have a chance of running as a presidential candidate in 2028.

Furthermore, Rubio also faces the threat of possible investigations that the Democratic majority in Congress would most likely initiate regarding the extrajudicial executions on the alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Rubio is one of the few career politicians in the presidential cabinet – if not the only one – and he has spent years trying to build a career at the cost of swallowing many bitter pills: such as Trump himself. Before the tycoon began praising him for the success of the military incursion in Venezuela, the tycoon had always disparaged the Hispanic politician, whom he called Little Marco. The reason behind these slights was that Rubio competed with Trump in the 2016 primaries to be on the presidential ticket. And ever since then, the tycoon had never fully forgiven him for the clashes. That defeat was a hard blow to Rubio's presidential aspirations.

Despite this, during this second presidency, Trump ended up choosing Rubio as his Secretary of State. To reach this position, the Hispanic politician has had to stoically endure the insults of the Republican. Even at the beginning of this presidency, during the 2025 State of the Union address, Trump already threw a small jab at him. In fact, in the halls of Washington, people were betting that if the tycoon ended up making dismissals, Rubio would be the first to fall. During the first few months, it became known that the Hispanic politician was lamenting internally that, despite being the head of diplomacy, the two major foreign policy files had been handed over to special envoy Steve Witkoff – a great golf companion of Trump's – and to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law.

Despite the comments made in small circles in the capital, Rubio had held on and it seemed that he was finally beginning to reap some benefit. The Secretary of State began to look like a presidential candidate for 2028 after his stellar appearance as a substitute for the then-press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. The party base was captivated by the manners of a professional politician when it came to brushing off questions from the press. A style that would not have been extraordinary if it weren't for the fact that it is the exception within a presidential cabinet where shouting and thuggery have become the new normal.

Even Trump, when asked by the press about possible successors, had placed him as a possible option, as well as Vice President JD Vance. If Rubio were to leave the administration, he would still have enough leeway to build a political campaign attacking his opponent and distancing himself from the Republican.

Resignation at the Department of Justice

The first resignation following the election defeat, however, has come from the lower ranks. Loyalist Harmeet Dhillon has resigned as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, as announced by Attorney General Todd Blanche. The conservative lawyer was crucial in dismantling this division once Trump came to power, overseeing the layoffs of hundreds of career civil servants.

During the 18 months she has been at the helm of the office, Dhillon has been responsible for pushing the president's agenda by reorienting the priorities of the remaining lawyers so that they would align with the goals of the White House: the fight against what Trump calls the "woke ideology", the alleged anti-Christianity, and the pro-Palestinian struggle. Historically, this division had been dedicated to fighting against the discrimination of minority groups and the most vulnerable people in society.

A scapegoat?

Meanwhile, the downfall of one of the administration's big fish is also brewing: Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Ever since Trump himself acknowledged that the Iran war probably impacted the electoral defeat—even though he still thinks his unpopularity has nothing to do with it—Republican lawmakers have seen Hegseth as the scapegoat they need. Especially because it is already on the table that the new Democratic Congress, once it takes office in January, will very likely impeach Hegseth.

Trump's maverick senator, Thomas Massie, has already announced a plan to call for the impeachment of Hegseth. The situation is such that the Secretary of Defense himself has already posted a video saying: "It didn't work with President Trump. It won't work with me." Everything will depend on whether the American president ends up deciding that letting Hegseth fall might prove to be a way to appease the unrest among the base.