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There is a lot of buzz around about Marco Rubio, the incredible shrinking Secretary of State, and his chances of running for president in 2028. The elite political press seems to have fastened on him as its latest Not Insane Republican daydream. However, he still has to be the face of this administration, which guarantees that he will continue to experience public shrinkage. On Tuesday, he faced a House committee, and by the end of things they had to roll out the electron microscope to find him.

Here he is being questioned about the 2020 election by Representative Sara Jacobs.

Jacobs: I have one last question for you. Who won the 2020 presidential election?Rubio: I’m not here to answer about 2020.Jacobs: It seems like you have an issue admitting facts … just like you couldn’t admit the shoes the president bought you were too big.Rubio: He gave me some Florsheims. … They fit fine.

Here he is with Representative Ted Lieu’s wondering out loud how many of his marbles the president has left.

Rubio: The video you just showed me now, he was not falling asleep.Lieu: So you’re lying again? … You’re lying to Congress, Secretary Rubio. Here’s video from a French news channel talking about Trump falling asleep at a Memorial Day ceremony. … Secretary Rubio, instead of holding North Korean–style cabinet meeting where everybody goes around the room kissing Trump’s ass, I’m gonna ask you to come clean. There’s something wrong with Donald Trump’s health or cognitive abilities. There’s a reason he keeps going to the hospital.”

Here he is talking Greenland with Representative Sarah McBride:

McBride: “I assume you’re aware that Greenland is indeed part of Denmark.”Rubio: “For now.”

And, most significantly, here he is talking to Representative Grace Meng about the administration’s scramble to resettle white South African “refugees” in this country. The administration is also considering “resettling” Afghan refugees in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is in the midst of a historic Ebola outbreak at the moment. Here’s the moment when Rubio again shrank to invisibility. He was being questioned about the Afrikaaners by Meng. After asserting that the United States has been swamped by immigrants in a “mass migration event,” Rubio then explained why the Afrikaaners rated an exception to the administration’s draconian immigration problem:

“The case you point to is a very specific one, probably a time-limited one, that is we have gauged that there is real interest from a unique subset of people who would be interested in coming to the United States and who we assessed have a high likelihood of rapid assimilation and success in our society.”

Meng pointed out that the Afghans we have admitted seem to have “assimilated” quite well, whereupon Rubio went even further off the diving board.

“It is the immigration policy of the United States, like everything we do, has to be geared by the national interest, and it is in our national interest that we are allowing people into our country who can quickly assimilate into society and be successful.”

Let this be a caution to you as the “Rubio Was the Grown-up” stories pile up between now and 2028. The man is as much of a toady as any other member of this Cabinet. He has, in the full “Federation vs. the Borg” sense, assimilated.