Rubio takes on his most daunting role yet

President Donald Trump ordered the military operation in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro.

President Donald Trump ordered the military operation in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro. But in the aftermath, Marco Rubio is in the spotlight.

Tasked with overseeing the transition of a post-Maduro Venezuela, Rubio has stepped into his fourth — and potentially riskiest — Trump administration role, and the coming weeks and months could define his standing as one of the president’s top advisers. A fixation for Rubio for more than a decade, Venezuela has now become a high-stakes gambit for Trump that could shape his own legacy.

And at a news conference with Trump following the stunning capture of Maduro and his wife, an emboldened Rubio put other world leaders on notice they could be next.

“Don’t play games while this president’s in office because it’s not gonna turn out well,” Rubio said.

As Maduro and his wife were making their first court appearance in New York on federal narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges on Monday, the challenges of a U.S.-led transition were coming into focus. Rubio was already softening the president’s pronouncements that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for an unspecified period of time.