Donald Trump has now formally placed one of the White House’s most demanding national security roles on top of Marco Rubio’s already absurd pile of assignments. According to a U.S. official granted anonymity to discuss staffing moves, the president has appointed Rubio as his national security adviser.

The appointment makes permanent a job Rubio had performed in an acting capacity. It also raises an obvious question that Trump appears determined to ignore: How can one person competently perform this many major government jobs at the same time?

Rubio is already the secretary of state, a position that makes him the nation’s chief diplomat and puts him in charge of a sprawling international Cabinet agency. Under ordinary circumstances, that would be more than enough responsibility for any one official.

Trump, however, has repeatedly expanded Rubio’s portfolio, apparently finding it easier to stack new responsibilities on the same person than to display even a flicker of personnel creativity. The result has turned Rubio’s professional workload into something resembling a running joke.

Beyond serving as secretary of state, Rubio is the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is also the acting archivist for the National Archives and the chair of the administration’s preparations for World Expo 2035.

Even that list does not capture the full scope of Rubio’s responsibilities. The New York Times reported in July that he was effectively “running” Venezuela and serving as the country’s “de facto viceroy.”

Taken together, the assignments have placed Rubio in more powerful federal roles at once than anyone else in modern American history. The remarkable accumulation of titles has earned him the nickname “Secretary of Everything,” which sounds less like praise than an indictment of Trump’s approach to governing.

When Rubio succeeded Mike Waltz as acting White House national security adviser in May, the assignment was widely expected to be temporary. That assumption made sense because Rubio still had his diplomatic duties, his Cabinet agency and the expanding collection of other jobs Trump had placed on his desk.

Those expectations proved wrong. This week, the word “acting” was removed from Rubio’s national security adviser title, making clear that Trump intends to continue this remarkable arrangement rather than find another official for the role.

The basic problem is not especially complicated. The secretary of state and White House national security adviser are both full time positions with enormous responsibilities, and expecting one person to perform both jobs simultaneously is simply unrealistic.

Yet Trump does not appear to view Rubio as a uniquely gifted master of multitasking who can somehow excel in every office. Instead, the arrangement reflects how little the president seems to expect from the diplomatic process and how casually he regards the national security adviser’s position.

That attitude is hardly new. In September 2019, The New York Times quoted Martin Indyk, then a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who had served as a diplomat and National Security Council official during the Clinton administration.

Following John Bolton’s exit from the White House, Indyk said Trump “is going to be his own foreign policy adviser.” The observation captured a president who treated professional national security advice as optional because he considered his own judgment sufficient.

Days later, Trump described the national security adviser’s job to reporters as “fun” and “easy.” He then offered his explanation: “You know why it’s easy? Because I make all the decisions.”

That comment helps explain why Trump might see no difficulty in assigning the position to an official already buried beneath several other demanding roles. If the adviser is not expected to carry meaningful influence or independent weight, Trump apparently sees little need to appoint someone capable of focusing exclusively on the job.

The result is not merely an overworked Cabinet secretary collecting titles at a comedic pace. It is the gradual erosion of one of the White House’s most important positions, all because Trump seems content to treat serious national security work like one more item on Rubio’s overflowing task list.