Early in his career, Rubin was the Assistant Director of Research at the
Arms Control Association.
Clinton administration Rubin served under President Clinton as
assistant secretary of state for public affairs and chief spokesman for the
State Department from 1997 to May 2000. In the Clinton administration, he was considered Secretary
Madeleine Albright's right-hand man.
2000–2006: academia and media After leaving government, Rubin and his family relocated to London. He became a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the
London School of Economics; a partner at communications consultancy
Brunswick; and between 2002 and 2003, the host of
PBS's
Wide Angle series, a weekly international affairs program. Returning to the United States, Rubin served as chief foreign policy spokesman for General
Wesley Clark's presidential campaign from the launch of Clark's campaign in 2003 until Clark withdrew during the Democratic Party's
2004 Presidential Primaries, and then worked for Democratic nominee
John Kerry during his
2004 Presidential Campaign, serving as a senior advisor for national security affairs. Returning to London, from October 2005 to July 2006 Rubin became lead news anchor on
World News Tonight on
Sky News.
Support for Hillary Clinton 2008 candidacy After returning to the United States in 2007 in the run-up to the
2008 presidential election, Rubin was a member of
Hillary Clinton's campaign team for the
2008 Democratic nomination. He caused some controversy when he described
Lord Trimble, the
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former
first minister of Northern Ireland, as a "crankpot" for stating that Hillary Clinton's claim to have been "helpful" in the
Northern Ireland peace process was "a wee bit silly." Rubin also stated that Trimble's opinion was not important as he was "a Protestant," and so "traditionally conservative." During the 2008 campaign, Rubin was a guest on CNN's
Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer in a foreign policy discussion with
Susan Rice, who later became
Barack Obama's nominee for
ambassador to the United Nations.
2009–present (right) in 2023 Rubin joined
Bloomberg News in December 2010 and oversaw editorial issues in Central and South America, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He also led Bloomberg View, a Bloomberg op-ed project, with David Shipley. and was appointed
adjunct professor at
Columbia University. Governor
Andrew Cuomo appointed Rubin commissioner of the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2011 as well as a counselor to the state's
Empire State Development Corporation. Rubin resigned all of his US-based positions on May 29, 2013, announcing that the family would return to London to work on several projects. Rubin was appointed
scholar in residence at
Oxford University's Rothermere American Institute. He also wrote a weekly foreign affairs column for
The Sunday Times and co-chaired a high-level panel on Extending American Power for the Center for a New American Security in Washington. Rubin was chair of international policy and strategy at
Ballard Partners, based in Washington DC until June 2020. He was also a contributing editor at Politico, writing on U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. Rubin relocated to Paris on June 1, 2021 to serve as diplomatic counselor to the newly elected secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). At the OECD, his portfolio is focused on advising Secretary General Cormann on global affairs and diplomacy with key countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Rubin was appointed as special envoy and coordinator of the
Global Engagement Center on November 16, 2022 by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. His term ended on December 23, 2024. ==Personal life==