Joined by his wife Jeanette, the US Secretary of State spoke about family life, music, marriage and his eating habits in a wide-ranging podcast interview.
As US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is used to answering questions about wars, diplomacy and national security.
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But there's been a change of pace... In a wide-ranging interview on The Katie Miller Podcast with his wife Jeanette, the 55-year-old career politician touched on everything from Pop-Tarts and late rapper Tupac Shakur to college football and watching scary movies with his children.
There were other personal details revealed. Rubio is colour-blind, enjoys EDM, has a sweet tooth and, if he could assemble a dream political dinner party, would invite Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill.
The conversation offered a glimpse of Rubio beyond his polished political persona, as a husband and father with an eclectic playlist, a weakness for Pop-Tarts, and a wife who was not shy about correcting him.
Three decades of marriage
Rubio and Jeanette, who have been married for more than 30 years and have four children, frequently joked with each other during the interview.
Asked for the secret to a happy marriage, Jeanette began with "faith".
Rubio had another answer.
"Compliance. For the husband," he joked.
At another point, Rubio reflected on what he had learnt about family life as he got older.
"Probably one of the things I learned over time is you try to appreciate the moment that you are in right now because that moment is not going to come back," he said.
"Every stage and every season of life has its things that you should enjoy."
Jeanette Rubio calls out Marco's Pop-Tart habit
One of the exchanges that attracted attention online came when host Katie Miller asked Rubio whether he supported Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA.
"I'm in favor of MAHA. Like I think people should be healthy," Rubio began before Jeanette interjected.
"No, he's not," she said.
Asked what her husband eats, she replied: "Pop-Tarts. He eats all the things he should not be eating."
"No. I don't eat Pop-Tarts every day," Rubio replied, before adding, "The Pop-Tart is one of the great American innovations in the history of the world. It comes in a beautiful foil package."
Reaction on social media was mixed. Some viewers enjoyed the exchanges as light-hearted marital banter, while others focused on how often Jeanette corrected her husband.
One Instagram user commented “Wow, his wife is totally putting him down and corrects him on every question”, while another posted on X: "Watched the interview of Marco Rubio and his wife and one thing is crystal clear, she hates Marco!"
Later on, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth came up, although the story had little to do with politics.
Rubio recalled one of his dogs wandering over to Hegseth's home on the military base where they are neighbours, only to encounter the defence secretary's cats.
"I never took Pete for a cat guy," Rubio said.
Pete and Jen Hegseth appeared on Miller's podcast about eight months ago.
What Rubio says about Cuba’s future
The conversation briefly touched on politics, including Cuba, with Rubio saying he believes the country "will be on an irreversible path towards a much different future".
The son of Cuban exiles cautioned that change would take time.
"You can't have something in place for 70 years, it grows roots and then think overnight you're just going to rip out the whole thing and put something new into the ground," Rubio said. "There's a transition that has to happen, a process to get there."
He pointed to the experience of eastern European countries, saying it took several years for their political systems to change.
"Poland is probably the best example," he said.
The interview was conversational in tone, with no challenging questions, and focused largely on Rubio's personal life and views.
It is worth noting that podcast host Miller is married to Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.
