Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Audio By Carbonatix
A convicted seditionist and the U.S. Secretary of State walk into a bar…
On Saturday night, Enrique Tarrio, longtime leader of the far-right Proud Boys, arrived at BLT Prime at Trump National Doral for a reservation he’d strategically made on the night of the Shield of the Americas summit. It was there, near the steakhouse’s bar, that he ran into Marco Rubio, the former Florida senator who is now serving as the country’s secretary of state and interim national security advisor (among other roles).
“The guy was walking by, and I’m like, ‘Hey, can I get a picture?'” Tarrio recalled in a phone interview with New Times. “I said, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing for Cuba.’ We shook hands.” (Tarrio says he was referring to the reported ongoing negotiations between Rubio and Cuban officials).
Tarrio posted the selfie they snapped together on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption: “With @SecRubio at the Shield of the Americas summit. Proud of this Cuban! Abajo con el comunismo!”
In the photo, Tarrio — wearing a gold pin for the Proud Boys’ United Kingdom chapter, along with his signature black Ray-Bans and baseball cap — flashes a thumbs-up next to a smiling Rubio.
For many, it was hard to believe Rubio was not familiar with Tarrio. After all, the far-right activist’s fairly recognizable face has been splashed across news headlines for years, especially in Miami.
Others in the political sphere had…thoughts about it.
“I don’t understand how @SecRubio would happily pose with a man convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Extremely dangerous to give legitimacy to someone with multiple criminal convictions against our country,” former U.S. Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell wrote.
“This is embarrassing beyond belief. You should be in prison. And Rubio should know better,” another person replied.
“Marco Rubio posing with a convicted criminal and an insurrectionist who worked to undermine an American election. Not exactly a good look,” political analyst Marco Frieri replied.
Tarrio tells New Times that the selfie was his first personal interaction with Rubio. He says he doesn’t know “whether Marco even knows I exist.”
“I have a familiar face or whatever, but like, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna be like, ‘No, I’m not taking a picture with you in front of a whole bunch of people,'” Tarrio says. “Has he probably seen [me in] headlines? It’s very probable, yeah.”
He adds: “You know, a selfie doesn’t mean I’m like, involved in government affairs or pass down secrets or classified information. I took a fucking selfie.”
Neither the White House nor a U.S. Department of State spokesperson responded to New Times‘ inquiries about the photo.
Tarrio, a Miami-born Afro-Cuban who became the Proud Boys’ charismatic leader in 2018, steered the group in a decidedly political direction, providing security for right-wing political figures and showing up at rallies on divisive issues, including COVID-19 mask mandates and the 2020 presidential election. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil-rights advocacy organization, has long designated the Proud Boys as a “hate group” for the club’s repeated brawls with leftist protesters at political rallies and ties to white-nationalist and neo-Nazi groups while Tarrio was chairman.
In January 2025, Tarrio was released from federal prison after serving less than two years of his 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to his role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot. President Donald Trump pardoned him, along with other members and leaders of far-right groups, with the stroke of a pen. Tarrio has repeatedly emphasized in media interviews since his release from prison that it’s a mistake to label him as the “former” chairman of the Proud Boys.
Hit with the longest sentence imposed on any January 6 defendant, Tarrio was not at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors nonetheless cast him as the mastermind of the attack, presenting evidence showing he created a special wing of the Proud Boys called the “Ministry of Self Defense,” which coordinated attacks during the insurrection and celebrated them afterward.
“Make no mistake…we did this,” Tarrio told senior Proud Boy leadership after the attack, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Tarrio, however, has long maintained that the insurrection was neither organized nor planned in advance. At a press conference held in Doral days after his return home last year, Tarrio said he was in Maryland on January 6 watching the news as it unfolded.
“There’s absolutely nothing I will apologize for, because I did nothing wrong,” he told reporters during the press conference. “The Proud Boys did nothing wrong, and American patriots did nothing wrong.”
