Long time observers, as the cliché goes, of US foreign policy barely recognize Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Marco Rubio since he joined the Trump administration and ditched his long held internationalism, and a particular contempt for Russia, in favor of Trumpism. So I suppose it was the next logical step in his out-of-body experience when an AI impersonator began contacting foreign diplomats and US politicians–at least three foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor–claiming to be Secretary Rubio. The Associated Press and the Washington Post reported this week that the State Department sent a cable warning US diplomats in early July that the scam messages were going out of over text, Signal–yes, they are still using it–and voice mail.
We don’t yet know what AI Rubio was saying, who is behind the campaign, and whether it was/is a prank or something more nefarious. But for allies and adversaries who are already learning to mistrust anything they hear from Trump’s Washington, this may be just one more day at the office. That may be the most frightening takeaway of all.
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Credit to ChatGPT for the not so great images. Irony is not (yet) in its toolkit.