(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Marco Rubio, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is warning that foreign actors will seek to amplify conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and find new ways to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The Florida Republican said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that one possibility could be an effort to convince people that a new vaccine against the virus, once created, would be more harmful than helpful. “I think the COVID-19 crisis is one in which you’ve seen efforts to promote false narratives that drive some of the friction in this country,” Rubio said. Four years after Russian efforts to sow division in the U.S., he warned: “I’m not sure that we’re any less vulnerable than we once were.” The new intelligence post comes as Rubio has risen to greater prominence in the Senate since 2016, when he lost the Republican primary to Donald Trump and then decided to run for reelection after originally saying he would retire.