Secretary of state Marco Rubio – ridiculed as “Little Marco” by Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries – has become one of the most powerful players in the president’s cabinet.

Trump appointed Rubio interim national security adviser on Thursday after Mike Waltz was forced to leave the post, alongside his deputy, Alex Wong, as sources said officials had lost confidence in their leadership.

Waltz has been under intense pressure since the Signal scandal, in which he inadvertently added a journalist to a chat that included real-time operational details on US strikes in Yemen.

It’s an enormous rise for Rubio, the son of undocumented Cuban migrants, who now holds four titles in the Trump administration. Rubio is also the acting administrator for USAID and acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration.

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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to end deportation protections for more than 600,000 Venezuelans, the administration’s latest plea for the justices to intervene in President Trump’s sweeping immigration agenda.

The emergency application seeks to lift a San Francisco-based federal district judge’s ruling that halted the administration’s plans as a legal challenge proceeds, with that decision finding the abrupt policy change “smacks of racism.”

“Its order upsets the judgments of the political branches, prohibiting the Executive Branch from enforcing a time-sensitive immigration policy and indefinitely extending an immigration status that Congress intended to be ‘temporary,’” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the application.

Hundreds of people began gathering blocks from the White House the morning of May 1 as part of nationwide protests against the Trump administration, its policies and the billionaires supporting them in what organizers are calling "a war on working people."

Over 1,000 demonstrations and rallies are scheduled in every state and abroad, with most being held Thursday, May 1 – historically known as May Day or International Workers' Day. The volunteer-led 50501 movement, which spurred other nationwide protests this year, is helping organize the demonstrations along with labor unions, student groups and other grassroots organizations.

One of the larger protests is expected in Washington, D.C., where a "May Day Movement USA" rally on the National Mall is planned. In Philadelphia, Sen. Bernie Sanders will join the "Workers over Billionaires" rally hosted by the city's AFL-CIO chapter.

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Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump's national security adviser, is set to leave his White House post amid continued fallout weeks after he invited a journalist into a chat between top national security officials discussing plans for Yemen airstrikes.

A source familiar with the situation on May 1 confirmed Waltz's exit, as well as deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Their departures mark the first major staff shake-up since Trump's return to the White House in January.

Trump had publicly stood by Waltz after his national security adviser and other members of the chat vigorously denied sharing any classified war plans on the publicly available app Signal. The chat was revealed when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a March 24 story detailing how Waltz accidentally invited him into the communications.

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