New reporting published Thursday indicates that one of President Donald Trump's most senior Cabinet officials may be preparing to step down. According to Republican insiders who spoke with the Independent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears positioned to leave the administration in order to shield himself from midterm backlash as he lays the groundwork for a 2028 presidential campaign.

The expectations took shape even before the midterm results came in. As the Independent reported, "Even before the disastrous midterm results — when the Republicans lost both the House and the Senate — senior party sources in the US and senior figures in the UK government told the Independent that Mr Rubio could quit his senior role in President Donald Trump's administration. The sources doubled down on the expectation after the midterms gave a damning indictment of the Trump presidency, with the Democrats seizing Republican strongholds such as Kansas and Texas."

Per the report, Rubio is one of up to five members of Trump's Cabinet thought to be preparing to "run for the hills" in the aftermath of the midterm humiliation. One Washington insider told the outlet that Rubio needs to "distance himself from the Iran war and pin that one on Trump."

Sources also indicated that Trump may lay the blame on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose impeachment is being called for even by members of his own party, while Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles have been identified as potential scapegoats as well. Any impeachment push against a Cabinet secretary would begin in the House, where Democrats are set to hold the majority after the midterms.

One insider described as an ally of Rubio argued that a departure is logical: "It makes complete sense for him to step down and leave the administration. Rubio is the leading candidate at the moment to be the [Republican] nominee. He's definitely ahead of [Vice President JD] Vance. But he cannot run while he is still secretary of state and being tied to the administration will only harm his prospects anyway." The jockeying is unfolding with roughly two years to go until the 2028 election.

Vance, for his part, was quick to blame the war in Iran immediately after the GOP's midterm loss, in a clear effort to distance himself from it. "The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone … The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night," Vance wrote in his scathing remarks. "Any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there."

Meanwhile, many have noted that Rubio has played a "quieter" role in the war, with others helming negotiations despite the fact that his position makes him the country's top diplomat.

A senior UK government source told the Independent: "We are looking to see what he will do after the midterms. It seems unlikely that he will stick around. He would make a strong presidential candidate and we expect him to run."

Another Republican source was more blunt: "Rubio will be gone after the midterms. There will be about four or five them running for the hills." As that source noted, "The country has completely turned against Trump. People cannot even say where Iran is on a map and do not get this war. The cost of gas has really p—— people off."

"Once the Democrats control the House and Senate we are just going to see attempts at impeachment and nobody wants to stick around for that," the source added. Attention now turns to whether Rubio follows through on the departure his fellow Republicans describe — and, if he goes, who Trump would put forward as the next secretary of state, a nomination that would need confirmation from a Senate that Democrats are set to control.