Secretary Marco Rubio with Megyn Kelly of The Megyn Kelly Show

 Secretary Marco Rubio with Megyn Kelly of The Megyn Kelly Show 

Interview

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

Harry S Truman Building

Washington, DC

January 30, 2025

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for doing this. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.  It still feels weird to hear that, but thank you. 

QUESTION:  It does, right?  So you’re a week in now? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Eight days, but I’m not counting.  I’m just saying it’s been eight days.  Yeah, eight, nine days. 

QUESTION:  There’s so much I want to go over, like the change between the Senate and here,  how you’re – what’s it like to be at the heart of the deep state, but let me start with the plane crash.  It’s so awful. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It is.  It’s horrible.  I mean, just from a human standpoint of it, to think these are people that were – I mean, they were landing.  I mean, we’ve all been on these planes, you’re getting ready to land, you’re excited, you’re getting ready to go, maybe your phone’s already connecting because you’re ready to get on the ground.  And then something like this comes out of the blue, and it’s a horrible tragedy.  And we don’t forget that there were servicemembers involved in this as well who lost their lives in this terrible accident.   

Obviously, it’s not a State Department function, but the key to these is first to honor those who have passed and understand the pain of these families; the second is to figure out why this happened so that it never happens again.  This is a very busy airport and there’s a lot of traffic going in and out through this city, so – but it’s just heartbreaking.  And I’m sure as we hear the individual stories of the people involved, it will be even sadder. 

QUESTION:  Does it underscore at all why President Trump needs his nominees confirmed quickly? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, especially on the response part of it, right?  I mean, so ultimately there was a failure here at some point, like helicopters and airplanes are not supposed to crash into each other in the capital of the United States at one of the busiest airports in the country.  This isn’t supposed to happen.  So it happened for a reason, and someone needs to lead a process that figures out why, and then you need to lead a process to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  And look, it happened here; it could happen in some other city too.  And so you need to have someone at the head of these departments that are in charge of this.  And it may be multiple departments, because it’s going to involve DOD, it’s going to involve the Department of Transportation, but it may involve other elements of the U.S. Government, and you need to have somebody running the agencies or they will not be – you’re just not to get the same responsiveness without that. 

QUESTION:  Yeah.  God forbid we had something happen on an international basis.  You’re installed, but Tulsi’s – that one could take a while, and there’s been a little foot dragging. 

All right.  So you’ve been in the job now for eight days.  What is the biggest difference between being a U.S. senator and being the Secretary of State? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, two things.  First of all, my boss is – President Trump is a person that moves very quickly.  I’ll give you a perfect example.  This weekend we had a disagreement not with Colombia, with the president of Colombia, who at 4-something in the morning decided to turn around flights that he had agreed to.  We have it in writing.  They agreed.  These are Colombian nationals illegally in the United States, and they – I mean, under international agreements they have to take back their nationals, and they agreed to it.  At 4:30 in the morning, he for whatever reason was either awake or about to go to bed, and he decided to go on X and write that he had ordered that the – one plane was halfway there and the other had just taken off, and ordered them turned around. 

And so in a traditional administration it would have taken about two and a half years to react to it.  It would have gone through all this and all these policy options.  With President Trump, it happened within a matter of hours.  It was very quick.  And so the ability to execute on action, on directives, is a big difference between being in the Senate.  The Senate and the House play a very important role, but it doesn’t have the executive role, and the executive part of it is the one that I think is the biggest difference – the ability to see a problem and under our authorities address it.  And when you’re working for someone like President Trump, it’s going to happen very quickly.  There’s not going to be a lot of debate going on. 

QUESTION:  In the wake of that plane crash I had to wonder last night whether their predecessors from the prior administration were calling Pete Hegseth, were calling Sean Duffy.  Have you spoken with Antony Blinken at all?  Was there any sort of good tidings sent your way? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, it’s – not at the State Department, and it’s possible because when we’re in our offices we don’t have our phones here in this building because for security reasons, so it’s possible they’ve reached out as of this morning.  But the truth of the matter is this is – while there may be a State component if there were internationals on the flights, of citizen of another country, we obviously would notify their embassy or consulate because their families and loved ones for that notification.  But I would expect that at DOD because obviously that was the Department of Defense, that was a military helicopter.  Three servicemembers have lost their lives.  And then most certainly in Department of Transportation, because they have the primary jurisdiction over the FAA and the broader airplane safety challenges. 

QUESTION:  But what about just since you took the job?  Is there – is like – does he give you a letter in the way that Biden left one for Trump? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  He did.  He left a very nice note and basically said welcome to the best job in the world and I’m here to help, anything you need.  And it’s – like I said, it’s a really important job.  It needs to become even more important.  The State Department in my view over the years has become less and less relevant in the making of foreign policy for a variety of reasons, and not because there aren’t talented people in the State Department – there are, and I’ve known that from the past, interacting with them – but because it moved too slowly, because it took too long to action, because it – you gave a directive and it took so long for the State Department to do something because of internal processes or whatever, that largely administrations would start to work around the State Department.  And I want the State Department to be relevant again.  I want it to be at the center of foreign policymaking.  And so that’s – by providing advice to the President, who ultimately makes the decision about what we’re going to do.   

So it’s a great job.  And I tell you, it’s not just the position, but being Secretary of State for Donald Trump is a great job because you know you’re not going to be wasting a lot of time. 

QUESTION:  No. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Once the decision’s made, you’re going to get to act. 

QUESTION:  It’s such a tricky time to be Secretary of State, especially as a Republican, because you look at the Republican Party and it’s fractured internally about where we should be on foreign policy.  It’s not like during the Bush years, where it was – were much more neocon-y on the right, and now there’s a real division within the right, within MAGA even, on how – what should we do about Ukraine, as most of the party I think wants nothing to do with that anymore; how – what kind of saber-rattling should we do – be doing about Iran.  There’s a large strain that believes none, we should be focused on China and we should stop demonizing Iran and Russia and keep our eye on our biggest threat.  I know you think they’re our biggest threat as well.  So how – just give me the 30,000-foot-level view of how you’re going to navigate that fracture. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  Well, I think we spend a lot of time in American politics debating tactics, like what we’re going to do, who we’re going to sanction, what letter we’re going to send or whatever.  I think it really has to start with strategy:  What is the strategic objective?  What’s the purpose, the mission?  And I think the mission of American foreign policy – and this may sound sort of obvious, but I think it’s been lost.  The interest of American foreign policy is to further the national interest of the United States of America, right?  I mean, every — 

QUESTION:  America first. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, and that’s the way the world has always worked.  The way the world has always worked is that the Chinese will do what’s in the best interests of China, the Russians will do what’s in the best interest of Russia, the Chileans are going to do what’s in the best interest of Chile, and the United States needs to do what’s in the best interest of the United States.  Where our interests align, that’s where you have partnerships and alliances; where our differences are not aligned, that is where the job of diplomacy is to prevent conflict while still furthering our national interests and understanding they’re going to further theirs.  And that’s been lost. 

And I think that was lost at the end of the Cold War, because we were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem.  And there are terrible things happening in the world.  There are.  And then there are things that are terrible that impact our national interest directly, and we need to prioritize those again.  So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power.  That was not – that was an anomaly.  It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet.  We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.   

So now more than ever we need to remember that foreign policy should always be about furthering the national interest of the United States and doing so, to the extent possible, avoiding war and armed conflict, which we have seen two times in the last century be very costly.  They’re celebrating the 80th anniversary this year of the end of the Second World War.  That – I think if you look at the scale and scope of destruction and loss of life that occurred, it would be far worse if we had a global conflict now.  It may end life on the planet.  And it sounds like hyperbole, but that’s – you have multiple countries now who have the capability to end life on Earth.  And so we need to really work hard to avoid armed conflict as much as possible, but never at the expense of our national interest.  So that’s the tricky balance. 

So I think returning us to that, now you can have a framework by which you analyze not just diplomacy but foreign aid and who we would line up with and the return of pragmatism.  And that’s not an abandonment of our principles.  I’m not a fan or a giddy supporter of some horrifying human rights violator somewhere in the world.  By the same token, diplomacy has always required us and foreign policy has always required us to work in the national interest, sometimes in cooperation with people who we wouldn’t invite over for dinner or people who we wouldn’t necessarily ever want to be led by.  And so that’s a balance, but it’s the sort of pragmatic and mature balance we have to have in foreign policy. 

QUESTION:  How do you think we did in the last administration?  Because Jake Sullivan, former national security advisor – now former – under Joe Biden said, “Our alliances are [now] stronger,” as they left office.  “Our adversaries and our competitors are [now] weaker… Russia’s weaker, Iran’s weaker, China’s weaker, and all the while we kept America out of wars.”  What’s your response to that? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, a couple points.  The first is – and we’re looking forward and moving forward, but we have to analyze where we stand and the world that we inherited, and I would disagree with that assessment.  I think it really begins because the Biden administration, from my view, had internal fractures between State Department and the National Security Council, between different elements of their party.  You saw that come to fruition, for example, with our position on Israel, where you had a group that wanted to head in a different direction.  That’s really a fracture within the Democratic Party as well.   

If you look around the world, I would say that in many cases our adversaries are stronger than they’ve ever been and became stronger over the last four years.  Certainly Russia does not consider itself weaker than they were four years ago.  They now control territory they didn’t have when Donald Trump left office.   

I think if you look at the Middle East, we had the outbreak of a war that can – that’s been incredibly costly and divisive.  It started on October 7th when these savages came across and committed these atrocities.   

We have a war in Europe as well in Ukraine, as I mentioned a moment ago.  So we had to – and I think really one of the linchpins that sort of triggered all of that was that chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.  I think that sent a very clear signal to someone like Vladimir Putin that America was actually in decline or distracted – we can move – and he did.   

I think you see it in the Indo-Pacific where every day – it’s not just Taiwan; it’s the Philippines – are being aggressively challenged by the Chinese militarily, or coercion is spreading throughout the world, the Chinese are using coercive tactics, not just in their – near abroad, but in other parts of the world as well. 

So I don’t agree with that assessment.  I think we have a lot of work to do.  And I’m going to tell you – and this is something that’s not often appreciated enough – countries will openly complain about the U.S. being very firm and being engaged in these things in a very firm way; but privately, in many cases, they welcome it.  They welcome U.S. engagement.  They want to know – they want clarity in our foreign policy, and then they want us to take action to be reliable.  And I know of no president certainly in modern American history who is more clear than Donald Trump, and I don’t know of no one who’s more action-oriented than President Trump.  And so that’s what the State Department is going to reflect in how we proceed. 

QUESTION:  I’m just wondering, as I listen to you, whether you think Joe Biden’s mental infirmity, which we all witnessed, especially during his last year in office, cost us anything with these adversaries. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, look, our – both adversaries and allies analyze everything, just as we do, right?  We would watch foreign leaders on how they behave and make decisions upon that.  And there’s no doubt that foreign adversaries are going to look at how our leaders – not just presidents but anybody else – react and make assumptions on the basis of it.  And sometimes there – China’s perception of America – this is China’s perception of the world.  China’s perception of the world is that they are in a – they are inevitably going to be the world’s greatest power by 2035, 2050.  Whatever date they’ve set in their mind, they believe that they are on an irreversible rise and we are in inevitable decline, that the West at large, but the U.S. in specific, is a tired, spent, former great power in inevitable decline.  And they believe the foreign policy is about managing our decline and their rise, and they want nothing to interrupt it.  That’s how they view the West writ large and the United States in particular. 

And so anytime our leaders sort of personify their vision of our problems, it only further cements that belief that they have, and frankly invites them to do things that perhaps they wouldn’t do if they have a different calculus of us.   

QUESTION:  And by that logic, we got safer the day Trump was inaugurated. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  There’s no doubt.  I’ve seen it.  I mean, I’m telling you that for – if you look at what happened with Colombia, generally speaking, if a leader had said I’m going to turn back these planes, I’m not going to take them, we would have sent a note – a demarche they call it – complaining about it.  And we would have then had a high-level outreach back and forth and we would have figured this out it would have taken six weeks or what have you. 

In this particular case, we presented President Trump with options.  He immediately took action.  And the – back channels existed.  There was a lot of conversation with other figures in the Colombian Government who had agreed to this and were trying to figure out how to get this right.  But it didn’t take six weeks or six months.  It took six hours.  And —  

QUESTION:  Were they shocked when Trump sent out his tweet? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Shocked?  No, I don’t think they were shocked.  I think it reaffirmed what they believe about him, and that is that this is not a traditional sort of orthodox American president who is going to be tangled up by interagency impediments in our government.  This is someone who is action-oriented and is going to do things – is actually going to do what he says.  So yeah, I mean, I don’t think they were shocked.  I think it was a good reminder.   

And look, I want to be clear – most of the people in the Colombian Government are friendly to the United States.  They were horrified by what was happening.  I mean, there were leaders of their congressional branch over there that were putting messages on X like this is crazy, our president is a nut case.  I mean, they were writing that; that’s their internal politics.   

But I think it reaffirms what a lot of leaders believe about America under Donald Trump, and that is we are led by someone who is not very mysterious.  He’s going to tell you what he’s going to do and he’ll actually do it.  And I think foreign policy works a lot better when you’re led by someone like that. 

QUESTION:  Now, is that – is that going to make your job easier then? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Easier, no doubt. 

QUESTION:  So you can just say, “Hey look, the boss has said exactly how he feels; believe him.” 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  I mean, I think oftentimes people think there is posturing going on – “well, they don’t really mean this” or “they’re not really going to do it.”  I think in my particular case – I don’t have to make that argument, right?  I mean, I think they understand it. 

I think it’s also a lot of – I mean, every conversation I’ve had with foreign leaders, to the extent it’s been conflictive or that we’ve had areas of conflict to talk about, I’ve been very clear.  And that is:  Look, I expect you to do what you’re doing because that’s – you’re acting in your national interest.  And I know you’ve gotten used to a foreign policy in which you act in the national interest of your country and we sort of act in the interest of the globe or the global order.  But we’re led by a different kind of person now, and under President Trump we’re going to do what you do.   

And one of the terms that President Trump’s like – loves is reciprocity.  And it’s very simple but it’s – I think people would understand it.  If you charge us a 50 percent tariff for an American product to enter your country, we should charge you a 50 percent tariff here, maybe 55.  President Trump likes to have leverage too.  And who would not argue that that’s not fair, and how can you argue against it?  But that’s been our policy in many cases.  In country after country around the world, we have no access to their markets, but their products have open and free access to ours.  How can that continue?  That’s absurd.  I think anybody who has common sense would argue that.  Frankly, I think a lot of these leaders have been wondering why it took us so long to figure that out, but under President Trump they know we have. 

QUESTION:  The New York Times said okay, you guys got away with this with Colombia, but you’re not going to be able to pull that trick with Russia, with China, with Iran.  If you try to sort of bully these stronger nations in this way, it’s not going to go very well.  Is that a fair point?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, we’re not interested in bullying anybody and we don’t feel like we bullied Colombia.  We feel like we had a deal.  Colombia signed a deal.  They signed a piece of paper that said yes, send us these airplanes, and then halfway into the flight they broke it.  And so our answer was, well, now we flew these planes, we had to bring them back to the United States, so now you’re going to come pick them up.  Why are we going to pay for those flights because you canceled them?  It’s not bullying.  It’s they broke a contract that we had made with them. 

Obviously, look, China has nuclear weapons.  They’re tough people.  There’s no doubt about it.  They’re a tough people, they have nuclear weapons, they’re a great power with a large economy – they’re going to be a global power.  But it can’t come at our expense.  And so ultimately when you’re dealing with great powers like China, it’s going to be at the highest levels of their president and ours or their premier and ours – and our president, and that interaction will happen.  In the case of Russia, the same.  Obviously, there’s going to be – whatever happens with Russia will be a Putin-Trump dynamic.   

But I think most certainly, sure, I mean, the world is – the way you treat – not the way you treat countries, but the way you approach a nation has to be based on the strategic balance.  But I don’t view that we bullied Colombia, nor do I think these articles about oh, they’re going to turn to China – that’s absurd.  That’s an absurd argument.  I think the overwhelming majority of people in Colombia, a country I know very well, don’t even like their president.  I mean, this guy had an election today, he’d lose.   

QUESTION:  He’s an odd man.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, he’d lose.  I mean, he’s unpopular in Colombia.  I mean, it’s not up to us.  People there will get to vote and they’ll decide who they want to lead them.  But I think a lot of their people and their business class are like, “What’s this guy doing?  This is absurd.”  I mean, it’s normal that you would – we were deporting people to Colombia just like we deport people to every country in the world.  And by the way, if there are illegal American immigrants in another country, we would have to accept them coming this way.   

QUESTION:  Right.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  So I don’t pay a lot of – most of the people, unfortunately, that opine on – the more I have been delved into foreign policy and the more I read people who claim to know about foreign policy, the more I realize that a lot of the people we believe are experts have no idea what they’re talking about. 

QUESTION:  There’s a large delta.  What about – you mentioned China.  Did you recently have a call with the – their – the foreign minister?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  The foreign minister. 

QUESTION:  And there was a report that you were – you received a sort of warning that you needed to basically watch —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, somebody told me that.  And that’s – so two things that – the game that they play.  Number one is they put out an English translation and they put out a Chinese translation, and they don’t always overlap.  The call was very straightforward, and I basically said you’re acting in the best interest of China, we’re going to act in the best interest of America.  We’re two great powers.  And in areas where we can work together, there’s probably no problem in the world we couldn’t solve working together; in areas where we have disagreements, we have a responsibility to manage it so it doesn’t escalate into something catastrophic.  But be clear that we’re going to do these things. 

I did not – at least the translator that was on the call did not say anything to me that I felt was over the top.  But then they put out these games.  They like to play these games.  They put out these translations where it says one thing in English and then it’s translated in a different – they use a different term in Mandarin – so like he was warned not to overstep himself – they never said that.  And if they had, I would have told them, well, I would say the same to you – don’t overstep either.  And – but that didn’t happen, at least not on the call, or at least maybe their interpreter didn’t want to interpret it that way.   

QUESTION:  Right.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  But that was not the readout we got.  But it’s silly and irrelevant.  What really matters is the decisions we make moving forward.  And China wants to be the most powerful country in the world and they want to do so at our expense, and that’s not in our national interest, and we’re going to address it.  We don’t want a war over it, but we’re going to address it. 

QUESTION:  Well, that brings us – well, we have more on China, but that brings us to Panama, where you’re about to go.  And China is obviously playing a role down there, is one of the reasons why Trump has been saying – President Trump has been saying we want the canal back; we never intended to give it to the Chinese.  That was never the game plan.  They don’t technically control the Panama Canal, but they do have interests down there.  Can you explain it so people can understand it? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  So, well, they’re all over Panama.  A few years ago, Panama made the decision that they were going to de-recognize Taiwan and align with Beijing.  And with that came all sorts of money that was provided to the then president’s administration to – for projects and things of that nature, but also Chinese investment.  And one of the main investments they have is in these two port facilities on both – on the entry – on both sides of the canal.  And all kinds of other infrastructure, cranes and the like.  And so people will argue, well, that’s not China; that’s a company based in Hong Kong.  Well, a company based in Hong Kong is the Government of China.  You are not a company in China if the Chinese Government doesn’t control you.  It’s similar to the argument about ByteDance and TikTok, which is – every company that operates from China or Hong Kong, which is controlled by China – more than ever controlled by China; it’s no longer autonomous – they have to do whatever the government tells them.  And if the government in China in a conflict tells them to shut down the Panama Canal, they will have to.  And in fact, I have zero doubt that they have contingency planning to do so.  That is a direct threat. 

So it’s a technicality, but in reality if China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could.  That’s a fact.  And it’s my view that’s a violation of the treaty agreement, and that’s what President Trump is raising, and we’re going to address that topic.  It’s one of the concerns.  That dynamic cannot continue – not simply because we built it at great cost in lives and treasure, but because it is contrary to our national interest.  It is not in the national interest of the United States to have a canal we paid for and we built used as a leverage and a weapon against us.  That can’t happen. 

QUESTION:  So what’s the solution? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, that’s what we’re going to have to talk about.  And I think the President’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again.  Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea.  But we’re – that message has been brought very clear.  And there are a lot of other areas we can work very closely with Panama on.  I mean, their government generally is pro-American on a number of fronts.  But this is a core national interest for us.  We can work together on a lot of things, and there are a lot of things we can work with them on that are very positive on migration, and they can be very helpful on all sorts of things.  And I hope we’ll get resolution to those very soon.  But that does not in any way replace the core reality that the Panama Canal, we cannot allow any foreign power – particularly China – to hold that kind of potential control over it that they do.  That just can’t continue. 

QUESTION:  But what could they do?  I mean, there – these Chinese-controlled or Chinese businesses along the canal, they’re very large ones that could easily be turned into military facilities – do they have to get rid of them?  Do they have to – like, what – what are the kinds of things we could ask for that would satisfy us? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Hong Kong-based companies having control over the entry and exit points of the canal is completely unacceptable.  That cannot continue.  Because of the – and if there’s a conflict and China tells them, do everything you can to obstruct the canal so that the U.S. can’t engage in trade and commerce, so that the U.S. military and naval fleet cannot get to the Indo-Pacific fast enough, they would have to do it.  They would have to do it, and they would do it.  And now we’d have a major problem on our hands.  That’s number one. 

Number two, we have to talk about the fact that we built this thing.  We paid for it.  Thousands of people died doing this – Americans.  And somehow our naval vessels who go through there, and American shipping that goes through there, pays rates some cases higher than other countries are paying – for example, a vessel from China.  That’s also not acceptable.  It was a terrible deal when it was made, it should never have been allowed.  They’re going to tell you that it’s set by an independent administrative entity and not the government; that’s their internal problem.  They’ll have to figure that out.  But we should not be in a position of having to pay more than other countries.  In fact, we should be getting a discount or maybe for free, because we paid for the thing. 

QUESTION:  There too, like you mentioned with Colombia, is there a risk if we play too hardball we drag them into the arms of the Chinese? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I would argue that the canal is already in the arms of the Chinese.  So I mean, that’s one aspect I would say.  And we can’t operate that way.  Like, we can’t operate in the world saying, well, we can’t defend our national interests because if not these countries will turn to China against us.  I mean, we wouldn’t allow that to happen.  It would be against our national interests.   

So – but that said, I hope we don’t get to that point, right.  We have a – on so many topics, a very good working relationship with Panama and with their government, and I want that to continue.  But we have a core national interest that’s at stake, they should understand that, and I think that they will understand that, and it needs to be addressed.  And we’ll do that; we’ll do it in the right forum.  We’ll do it appropriately.  I’m not here to – we’re not here to embarrass anyone or cause internal friction or problems for them.  But I can assure you if it was the other way around, and that was a canal that the Chinese had built, they would be very forceful about it.  So we can no longer operate in the world with two hands tied behind our back. 

QUESTION:  People need to understand that Panama is not exactly about Panama; it’s about the Chinese, which you’ve been jumping up and down about for a while, warning that people may not realize just how grave the threat is.  And you said something – I think it was at your confirmation hearing – to the effect of if China gets what it wants, in 10 years or so, life could look very different.  Like it could be dramatic —    

SECRETARY RUBIO: Maybe even faster 

QUESTION:  — for us, for America. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  So, I mean they today control – I mean, we love our technology and we need it for all kinds of advances.  All of that depends on critical minerals, at the end of day – ranging aluminum, cobalt – you name it.  They have gone around the world buying up mining rights, and they control not just the mining of it but the refining and the production of it, and the use of it for industrial purposes.  So you might remember during COVID everybody was freaking out because we couldn’t get the masks because they were all made in China.  And then we couldn’t get this because they were all made in China.  We had lost and given away our industrial capacity.  This is even graver.  This is the rare earth minerals, this is the raw materials necessary for some of the things that go into our most advanced technologies in the defense realm, in medicine.  Eighty-something percent of the active ingredients in generic pharmaceuticals in the United States are made in China.  We can’t make them.   

So if they decide we’re going to cut you off from these things, they – we’d be in a lot of trouble, because we gave away our industrial capacity on those things.  That can’t continue.  That’s a vulnerability that we face.  And they will use it as leverage.  In fact, they are already using it as leverage.  For the first time ever, they have actually imposed export controls on critical minerals to damage the – our national security, but ultimately our technological capacity as well. 

So it ranges topics, but ultimately if China controls the means of production for both raw material and industry, then we’re – they have total leverage on us economically.  And that’s the world we’re headed to.  And I was wrong; maybe not in 10 years.  Maybe in five. 

QUESTION:  So I mean, it’s a dicey situation.  Trump – President Trump knows all this. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yes. 

QUESTION:  And yet one of the top Chinese leaders attended his inauguration.  He understands that there’s – it has to be played very carefully.  We don’t want to make an open, hot-war enemy out of them.  But we’ve been passive for too long. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  First of all, one of the interesting things about President Trump is he’s incredibly accessible.  People don’t believe this, but I mean, if you’re a – if you’re a rank-and-file, not even leadership, member of Congress and you call the President of the United States, the chances are you’re going to get a call back, and you’re going to get a call back from him, and you might get a call back that very day, maybe within an hour or two.  He’s incredibly accessible, to both Americans and also to foreign leaders.  His policy generally has been, I’ll meet with any world leader, I’ll engage with any world leader.  That doesn’t mean just because you’re meeting with him you’re giving anything away, but he’s willing to engage.   

In the case of China, there’s two things.  I just described one, which is the grave threat that they pose to our national interests; and the other is the mature realization that no matter what happens, China is going to be a rich and powerful country.  We are going to have to deal with them.  In fact – and I said this in my call with their foreign minister, but I said this publicly – the future – the history of the 21st century will largely be about what happened between the U.S. and China.  So for us to pretend that somehow we’re not going to engage with them is absurd. 

Now, we should engage on our national interests.  That doesn’t – engagement and concessions are two different things.  What’s been horrifying is that for 25 or 30 years, we’ve treated China as a developing country, and we allowed them to continue to do things that were unfair.  We said, go ahead, let them cheat on trade, let them steal our technology, because when they get rich they’ll become just like us.  They became rich, they did not become like us, and now they want to continue to have these unfair benefits.  That has to stop. 

QUESTION:  And they built up their military. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Their military, their industrial capacity, but all over the world their control of critical minerals.  Again, I go back to them because people don’t think about it.  

QUESTION:  Buying up land in the United States. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Buying up farming land in the United States in particular as well, because they need to produce food, and they want to be able to control that.  They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.  They are doing, frankly, what I would do – well, maybe not the human rights violations, but they are doing what anyone would do if they were the leader of China.  They are acting in China’s best interests.  What’s been missing is American policies that act in our best interest.  And that needs to return. 

QUESTION:  How does Greenland fit into all of this? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, the Arctic, which has gotten very little attention, but the Arctic Circle and the Arctic region is going to become critical for shipping lanes, for how you get some of this energy that’s going to be produced under President Trump – these energies rely on shipping lanes.  The Arctic has some of the most valuable shipping lanes in the world.  As some of the ice is melting, it’s become more and more navigable.  We need to be able to defend that.   

So if you project what the Chinese have done, it is just a matter of time before – because they are not an Arctic power.  They do not have an Arctic presence, so they need to be able to have somewhere that they can stage from.  And it is completely realistic to believe that the Chinese will eventually – maybe even in the short term – try to do in Greenland what they have done at the Panama Canal and in other places, and that is install facilities that give them access to the Arctic with the cover of a Chinese company but that in reality serve a dual purpose: that in a moment of conflict, they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there.  And that is completely unacceptable to the national security of the world and to the United – to the security of the world and the national security of the United States.   

So the question becomes:  If the Chinese begin to threaten Greenland, do we really trust that that is not a place where those deals are going to be made?  Do we really trust that that is not a place where they would not intervene, maybe by force? 

QUESTION:  You don’t think Denmark would stop them?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think that’s been the President’s point, and that is that Denmark can’t stop them; they would rely on the United States to do so.  And so his point is that the United States is on the hook to provide – as we are now; we have a defense agreement with them – to protect Greenland if it comes under assault.  If we’re already on the hook for having to do that, then why – we might as well have more control over what happens there.  And so I know it’s a delicate topic for Denmark, but it’s, again, a national interest item for the United States.   

QUESTION:  So there was a conference call between President Trump and the Danish prime minister.  Apparently it didn’t go very well; it reportedly involved some sort of a meltdown on the prime minister’s part.  They don’t want to give it up.  So what does that – what options does that leave us?  Because President Trump did not rule out economic or potentially military use. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think President Trump’s – what he has said publicly is he wants to buy it.  He wants to pay for it.  And how we work on something like that, how something like that is approached – obviously, it’s probably done better in the appropriate forums, as – a lot of stuff is done publicly and it’s not helpful because it puts the other side in a tough spot domestically.   

So those conversations are going to happen, but this is not a joke.  Like, what he is saying is pretty – I mean, people have been talking about it for years.  We do have – this is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land.  This is in our national interests, and it needs to be solved.  President Trump’s put out there what he intends to do, which is to purchase it.  I wasn’t privy to that phone call, but I imagine the phone call went the way a lot of these phone calls go, and that is he just speaks bluntly and frankly with people.  And ultimately, I think diplomacy in many cases works better when you’re straightforward as opposed to using platitudes and language that translates to nothing.   

QUESTION:  So when President Trump said he might use economic or military coercion, what does that mean?  What is military coercion?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t remember him saying military coercion.   

QUESTION:  He did.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think what he – he was asked what – would you rule out —    

QUESTION:  Would you rule it out?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Right.  I don’t think he’s in the – he – listen, he also brings to this —    

QUESTION:  He said, no, I won’t rule it out.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Because he brings to this – this is a businessman who is involved in politics, not a politician involved in politics.  So he approaches these issues from a transactional business point of view.  So he is not going to begin what he views as a negotiation or a conversation by taking —    

QUESTION:  Anything off the table.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  — leverage off the table.   

QUESTION:  Okay.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And that’s a tactic that’s used all the time in business.  It’s being applied to foreign policy, and I think to great effect in the first term.  If you look at the Abraham Accords – and the Democrats mocked the Abraham Accords when they were made, and then by the end of the Biden administration they became the linchpin of a lot of what we’re hoping to build on.  That never would have happened had there not been a transactional approach.  If you look at what his envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has achieved – that – the Biden administration asked Witkoff – they asked for him to be involved in these conversations.  He has brought a businessman’s approach to a very delicate and intractable foreign policy challenge, and delivered a ceasefire that obviously is tenuous and has long-term challenges to it, but there are hostages being released every day.  That didn’t happen for over a year and a half until he became involved, and that’s the President’s envoy and very close friend who has brought the same kind of business approach to some of these challenges.   

QUESTION:  So let’s look forward four years:  Does the U.S. own Greenland?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  We’ll see.  I mean, obviously, that’s the President’s priority, and he’s made that point.  I think that – what I can tell you about four years without getting into specifics, because I don’t – I’m not – we’re not in a position yet to discuss exactly how we’ll proceed tactically.  What I think you can rest assured of is that four years from now our interests in the Arctic will be more secure, our interests in the Panama Canal will be more secure, our partnerships in the Western Hemisphere will be stronger – will be stronger.  

What you need to understand, a lot of these countries in Central America, they’re not destination sites.  They are countries that migrants come through and that these human trafficking rings run people through.  It creates tremendous instability for these countries, at a tremendous cost as well.  They would welcome help in stopping that migration corridor from continuing, because it’s destabilizing their countries.  So I think we’re going to have a Western Hemisphere that’s more secure and our national interests in all parts of the world – that’s the goal – are going to be more secure, from the Arctic, to Central America, to even Africa, and certainly the Indo-Pacific.   

QUESTION:  We talked about Colombia.  That’s part of President Trump’s effort to shore up our borders and get rid of the illegal aliens who came under Joe Biden.  Part of that’s going to include, yes, Canada – he’s said that as well – but also obviously Mexico.  And President Trump is threatening to slap tariffs on both of them if they don’t get in line and start doing some of the things that we want them to do as soon as this Saturday.  They’re jumping up and down saying we want to cooperate, let’s work diplomatically before you slap tariffs on us.  Where do you stand on that?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, we’ve had conversations with Mexican Government officials.  I met yesterday with the foreign minister of Canada.  I think there are two topics, and they have to be separated, but they’re interrelated – the first is the migration, particularly with Mexico.  There are parts of Mexico – many parts of Mexico – in which the government doesn’t control those areas.  They’re controlled by drug cartels.  They are the most powerful force on the ground, and they are plowing into the United States.  They’re facilitating illegal migration, but they are also bringing in fentanyl and deadly drugs to our country.  That’s in our – that’s a national security threat and that needs to stop.  So we expect their cooperation on that, because they should.  If it was the other way around, they would expect that as well.  And that needs to be addressed.  

Similar – secondarily to that is the President feels that we have a trade imbalance and unfairness with Mexico on a number of products, including agricultural products, that are dumped on our markets, but also the Chinese.  What the Chinese are now doing is they’re creating these front companies.  They’re investing in Mexican manufacturing and then backdooring – using the USMCA, the free trade agreement, to get Chinese goods into America.  And so it creates this trade imbalance, and that needs to be confronted.  So when the President talks about tariffs, he talks about it on two fronts – as obviously a leverage and pressure point when it comes to cooperation on migration, but separate from that, it’s also related to unfairness in our trade relationship.   

What – with the Canadians obviously, the border is one of the biggest – if not the biggest border – land border in the world.  We share a common interest there.  I think they don’t want to see their country filled with fentanyl either.  I think they – if I were them, I’d be concerned that with the crackdown on illegal immigration in the United States, people would flee north into Canada.  So you would think we’d be able to work with them very cooperatively on border security.  And then there’s a broader trade imbalance with them that the President wants to address as well.  And – so that’s why those conversations are important.  These are not hostile moves.  They’re just —    

QUESTION:  Are these tariffs going to kick in on Saturday?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, we’ll see.  I mean, that’s the President’s decision to make.  And we’ll be prepared to address it from a foreign policy perspective.  Whatever decision he makes on those things, that’s his decision to make.  Whether he makes it this weekend or a week from now or a month from now, he clearly wants to address both illegal migration but ultimately also our economic interests.   

QUESTION:  Who is more likely to be the 51st state?  Canada or Greenland?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, again – (laughter) – look, I think that we’re a long ways from that point.  I think the President’s made his view on this very clear, and that is our interests in Greenland are in danger and that needs to be addressed, and he’s willing to buy it.  And our interests with Canada particularly – I think if you go back – and I think he said this publicly – he had a conversation with Trudeau, and he asked Trudeau, well, what would happen if I imposed these tariffs on you?  And he said, well, we would be done as a country.  We would be finished.  And his whole point is, well, if the only way you can survive as a country is by having a trade imbalance with the United States, then maybe you should just become a state.  

QUESTION:  Right.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And that was the genesis of that conversation.  So we have issues we need to address with Canada.  They’re good friends.  I mean, we work with them on a lot of things.  We have a deep partnership with them, and – but there are some issues we’re going to need to address. 

QUESTION:  But what – but what are the risks to us?  Because we’ve got the premier of Ontario saying we can’t bring knife to a gunfight here.  If they’re going to do this to us with these tariffs, we’ve got to fight back the same way.  We supply them with a bunch of electricity; let’s shut it down.  So can Canada shut our lights off?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, then who would they be selling it to?  Where else would they send that electricity?  I mean, it would hurt them as well.  They would have no market to sell it to.  And I would also argue that the United States – and that – look, that’s a – I don’t think Canada is a strategic threat to the United States.  I’m not comparing them to China or what have you, but it brings to mind the point of energy independence and how critical that is.  We don’t want to be in a situation – you mentioned that about Canada.  Imagine if in the future the argument is not Canada’s threatening that; well, who’s threatening that is China, who’s threatening that is Russia.   

I mean, one of the great mistakes that were made is by unilaterally disarming when it comes to energy production, by not fully utilizing our energy resources in this country – other countries didn’t follow the same line.  They – for example, China today has the largest capacity of unused – they are able to process more oil than any country in the world right now.  They’ve – and they build more coal plants than anybody in the world right now.  They’ll talk about green energy and batteries and cars, but they are using all-of-the-above strategy on their energy.  We’ve unilaterally disarmed on energy.  They’ve – all they’ve done is continue to increase their capabilities on energy, because they know you need energy to fuel all this.  AI alone was going to require an extraordinary amount of energy that the world right now can’t produce to fuel it.  Whatever country has energy resources that are cost-effective is going to dominate AI, which is going to dominate many, many fields. 

So I think, at the end of the day, it’s a reminder, when you talk about Canada, of why energy is a national security matter and why the U.S. must be able to have a reliable and consistent source of energy, or we are in a lot of trouble.  Our planes won’t fly, our ships won’t be able to sail, and our economy will not function without energy. 

QUESTION:  One of those issues that’s become dicey within the Republican Party is NATO.  We’ve talked a lot about these other countries doing their fair share and doing their part, and this is why NATO’s become controversial.  Because there are many people that believe – what are we doing this for?  I mean, it made sense right after World War II, but does it make sense today?  And the United States tends to be the dominant player.  The Europeans can support themselves; they don’t need the United States to be the big babysitter of the world.  And it creates more opportunities for us to get involved in foreign conflicts that we shouldn’t be involved in.  To that, you say what? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I say – well, the President’s position on NATO is the same every other president has had, and that is that our Allies, many of our Allies in NATO, do not do enough to provide for their own security.  Every other president has made the same complaint; he’s just actually been serious about it, and that’s what he’s pointing to.  And look, it’s interesting – and in fairness, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, the closer you are to Russia the more they’re spending as a percentage of their GDP on national defense.  But then you have countries like France, okay, or you have countries like Germany.  These are big economies, powerful economies, and they don’t spend as much on national security.  Now, they – why?  Because they rely on NATO.  They say, well, we don’t need to spend that much on —  

QUESTION:  Us.    

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  We don’t need to spend as much on defense because America has soldiers here, and if they get attacked, they’ll be our national defense.  So we can instead spend all that money on this enormous social safety net.  When those – when you ask those countries why can’t you spend more on national security, their argument is because it would require us to make cuts to welfare programs, to unemployment benefits, to being able to retire at 59, and all these other things.  That’s the choice they made.  But we’re subsidizing that.   

So I think if you were – if I were to articulate the President’s point on NATO, it’s number one, they need to do more.  And I do think, long term, there’s a conversation to be had about whether the United States needs to be at the front end of securing the continent or as a backstop to securing the continent.  And if you talk to countries on the eastern periphery, the ones closest to Russia, all of them are building the capability to be at the front end – the Poles, the Czechs, all of these different places.  And if you move further west to the richest economies – Germany, France – they don’t – Spain – they don’t spend enough on national security.  They’re relying on us to be the front-stop.  And that’s not an alliance.  That’s a dependence, and we don’t want that. 

We want NATO – we want a NATO in which we have strong and capable Allies.  Finland’s a very capable Ally.  They make weapons.  They’re – they bring something to the table.  We need more countries like that, to behave in that manner in the Alliance.  And then it’ll be a stronger Alliance.  And it’ll be able to work cooperatively not just in Europe but in other challenges we face around the world, hopefully even the Indo-Pacific potentially.  

QUESTION:  Ukraine’s another issue that’s got the party divided.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  

QUESTION:  You’ve got a lot – I’m just sticking with the Republicans now, because there’s a whole other debate with the other side of the aisle – but who say no, Putin’s a bad actor; Russia’s a growing threat, and we’re doing the right thing by backing Ukraine.  And I would say the majority of Republicans now are against that viewpoint and think we’ve lost – we’ve spent too much.  It’s anyplace from 105 billion to 187 billion.  And they’ve lost.  We just have to be realistic about the fact that Ukraine has lost; it’s not going to gain back any of this ground.  And we need a negotiated settlement now before we keep throwing good money after bad, and we can’t afford it.  We’ve got Americans who are suffering now.  I think that’s the majority view even on the Republican side now.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It also happens to be the reality on the ground.  First, let me say this.  We think what Putin did was terrible: invading a country, the atrocities he’s committed.  He did horrible things.  But what – the dishonesty that has existed is that we somehow led people to believe that Ukraine would be able not just to defeat Russia but destroy them, push them all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012 or 2014, before the Russians took Crimea and the like.  And then the result, what they’ve been asking for the last year and a half, is to fund a stalemate, a protracted stalemate, in which human suffering continues.  Meanwhile Ukraine is being set back 100 years; their energy grid is being wiped out.  I mean, someone’s going to have to pay for all this reconstruction after the fact.  And how many Ukrainians have left Ukraine, living in other countries now?  They may never return.  I mean, that’s their future, and it’s in danger in that regard. 

So the President’s point of view is this a protracted conflict and it needs to end.  Now, it needs to end through a negotiation.  In any negotiation, both sides are going to have to give something up.  I’m not going to pre-negotiate that.  I mean, that’s going to be the work of hard diplomacy, which is what we used to do in the world in the past, and we were realistic about it.  But both sides in a negotiation have to give something.  And that’s going to take time, but at least we have a President that recognizes that our objective is this conflict needs to end, and it needs to end in a way that’s enduring, because it’s an unsustainable – on all sides, it’s ultimately unsustainable.  Russia’s paying a big price for this in their own economy, their inflation rate and the like.   

But at the end, that’s the President’s position, and it’s the truth.  And I think even a growing number of Democrats would now acknowledge that what we have been funding is a stalemate, a protracted conflict, and maybe even worse than a stalemate, one in which incrementally Ukraine is being destroyed and losing more and more territory.  So this conflict needs to end and both sides —  

QUESTION:  Who’s the bigger – who’s the bigger problem in reaching a final negotiated settlement there, right?  Is it Putin or is it Zelenskyy?  There’s a report out that the Ukrainians are just banking on Putin digging his heels in and becoming annoying to President Trump on this, because he won’t give an inch.  And they’re hoping that President Trump will come back over, closer to their worldview about Putin, about Russia, about this conflict.  So who do you see as the bigger obstacle in getting a negotiated peace there?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think there’s the public and then there’s the private, right?  So in what you see portrayed publicly in conversations and what leaders say, a lot of it is speaking – they have domestic politics and political considerations.  Even Vladimir Putin, who controls media, still has to care about what public opinion is in Russia and his image and what – how his entire personality is built around that. 

QUESTION:  Why do you think he does the shirtless pictures?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  He doesn’t do those anymore.  I think it’s been a while.  (Laughter.)  

QUESTION:  I asked him.  I asked him, “Why do you do it?” when I interviewed him.  And he said, “I give the people what they want.” 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No.  (Laughter.)  Well, the point is that he has got his own domestic considerations.  And so does Zelenskyy, right?  I mean, at the end of the day he’s got – if you image if you’re a Ukrainian, the Russians have made you suffer so much, and now you’re going to let them keep land?  I mean, the people would be upset about that in Ukraine, and you would understand it.  And then there’s the mature realities of life on this planet, and that’s where this work is going to have to be defined. 

Both sides are paying a heavy price for this.  Both sides have incentive for this conflict to end.  Both sides are in a – it’s not going to end with the maximalist goals of either side, and there’s going to have to be a lot of hard work done.  And I think only the United States, under the leadership of President Trump, can make that possible.  But it won’t be easy, and it’ll take some time.  But it’s certainly something I know he’s strongly committed to being – to seeing happen. 

QUESTION:  And then there’s Israel and the return of the hostages still – which still include Americans.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Right.  

QUESTION:  Do – supposedly we’re going to get three Americans back in the first – the first tranche, the first phase of this hostage deal.  Do you believe we will?  And what are we going to do if we don’t? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I expect we will, because that’s the agreement that was made.  And – but the core problem here remains, and that is ultimately as long as there is an entity like Hamas that teaches – whose express purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state, who is willing to commit horrifying atrocities against civilians, against teenage girls at a concert, and do the things that they’ve done, and take hostage for a year and a half, babies and the elderly, and murder, and all the things that they did – that’s a threat to Israel’s national security.  What country in the world can be expected to live alongside an enemy armed, capable, and willing of committing horrifying atrocities?  You can’t. 

QUESTION:  Yeah, it’s awful.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  So I think that the ceasefire is important, because it brought an end to some of the destruction, and certainly it allowed hostages to be freed – at an extraordinary cost.  I mean, we’re talking about a ratio of one to – you get a teenage hostage in exchange for 250 killers, Hamas killers that are released from prison.  So just think about how unfair that trade is, but it tells you how much we value life compared to what the other side, the Hamas animals, view this.   

Now, that said, the real challenge here is going to be what happens when the ceasefire period expires.  Who’s going to govern Gaza?  Who’s going to rebuild Gaza?  Who’s going to be in charge of Gaza?  Because if the people who are in charge of Gaza are the same guys that created October 7th, then we still have the same problem there.  

QUESTION:  Past is prologue. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It is.  And so now, the good news in the region is in Lebanon we have a government that hopefully will become more powerful than Hizballah, in the Lebanese Government, and there’s a ceasefire that was extended there that ultimately will lead to that.  In Syria, a group has taken over.  These are not guys that would necessarily pass an FBI background check, per se.  But if there’s a —  

QUESTION:  No.  Would not be coming over for Sunday dinner.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  But if there’s an opportunity in Syria – if there is an opportunity in Syria to create a more stable place than what we’ve had historically, especially under Assad, where Iran and Russia dominated and where ISIS operated with impunity, we need to pursue that opportunity and see where that leads. 

And if you have a region in which you have a more stable Syria, a more stable Lebanon, where Hizballah is not able to do the things it does on behalf of Iran, a weakened Iran who has now lost all these proxies, it now opens the door to things like a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would change the dynamic of the region, and then ultimately not make easy but make easier resolving some of these challenges that we face with the Palestinian question and in particular with the Gaza question. 

So there’s a lot of work to be done there.  None of it is certain.  All of it is hard.  But real opportunities that we couldn’t have even imagined 90 days ago. 

(Break.) 

QUESTION:  Domestically, Trump pulled the security around Mike Pompeo, who was his secretary of state.  And I wonder if that – what your reaction was to that, because his defenders are saying it’s an outrage and that he’s exposed now. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, that’s – look, the President has – the President has the authority to make those decisions and to execute those orders.  I can tell you they’re all – were run through the process that exists for assessing threat versus cost.  That process was executed on.  There was agreement that this was something that could be done.  I’ve never taken lightly – and if circumstances change and new threats emerge or additional threats emerge, that will always be an option to address.  But I – if you look at some of it, it’s also not sustainable.  I mean, theoretically if Iran decided – or things got out that Iran wanted to continue to kill people, we would have to provide everybody a security detail. 

So there’s a balance there.  We don’t want to see any Americans harmed, but those decisions about who we provide security for have to be based on a risk assessment.  And those risk assessments were done, and it led to that outcome and that conclusion.  

QUESTION:  On the subject of risk assessment, we pulled U.S. foreign aid – we paused U.S. foreign aid with humanitarian exceptions, and then there was a bunch of negative blowback on how this was stopping critical medications and other humanitarian aid that was being provided to our third-world allies.  Now we’ve loosened that spigot again.  So the criticism is that we got too far ahead of our skis by pulling too much too soon, in which you – response would you say what?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, that – I mean, we didn’t issue a pullback.  We issued a clarification.  We always said from the very beginning, with the exception of Israel and Egypt – because that security assistance is a cornerstone of that Camp David Accords and the deals that were made there and are critical to that region.  With the exception to that, we said all foreign aid is paused for 90 days except for things that save lives, and what was mentioned in the executive order was things like food and the like.  We went back – people say – well, people – we have medicines that we paid for and that are deployed and it’s sitting on a shelf somewhere, and we are not authorized to give it to people.  So I said, all right, it makes no sense for us – we already paid for the medicine – not to distribute it and give it to people.  We don’t want to see people die and the like.   

But this – I think what’s important is to talk about the purpose of this pause, okay?  If I went to these foreign – $60 billion a year – if I went to these and said, okay, show me your foreign aid programs and what they do, historically we’ve gotten very little cooperation.  But if you go to them and say, okay, your money is stopped until you tell us what you do, now you get a lot more cooperation.   

So now a process exists, and that process is you apply for a waiver.  And everybody knows how to apply for a waiver.  They know how to come forward and say, this is what our program does and this is why it’s important; this is why it makes America safer, stronger, or more prosperous; this is why it’s in our national interest.  

Now we’ll get details about these programs.  And we may say, okay, the program gets a waiver.  Or we may say, well, the program gets a partial waiver.  You do five things; three of them are critical, two of them remain under pause.  That’s what it gives us the opportunity to do now, thinking of it almost as an audit, but not an audit in which we’re voluntarily asking for cooperation.  I think we’re now getting a lot more cooperation, because otherwise you don’t get your money.  

And so I think as the weeks go on, you will see more and more programs come back online, because we had a chance to review what they actually are.  Some will be partial; some will be full.  But we’ve got to get control of this.   

We have this thing that I’ve called the foreign aid industrial complex: all of these entities around the world that are getting millions and millions of dollars from the United States.  We have to make sure that it’s aligned with our national interest, that we are prioritizing that and that we’re spending it on things that really matter and are really producing.   

QUESTION:  Like we don’t want 50 million in condoms to the Palestinians?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It’s —  

QUESTION:  They deny that that’s true.  The former – the Biden administration denies it.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, but – okay, but part of it was – they may deny the number, but they can’t deny that there are things that we were doing in Gaza that had nothing to do with saving lives in the short term or even helping with a ceasefire.   

Here’s the broader point.  And I don’t know the – I’m rounding numbers here.  But on USAID, about 11, less than 12 percent – let’s be fair, let’s say 12.5 percent of every dollar – so 12 cents of every dollar ultimately reached the end recipient.  That means the rest of the money was going to fund some NGO somewhere, some organization.  Maybe there’s a justification for it.  But before I stand before a congressional committee or the American people and say we sent a dollar to help this cause but only 12 cents of it really got to the people we’re trying to help; the rest of it went into the hands of an organization – how do we justify that?  I can’t justify that.  I need to know answers to that.  And so these are the kinds of things that we have to go through. 

QUESTION:  So we get accountability.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And ultimately our foreign aid has to be a tool that we use to advance the national interest.  The U.S. Government is not a charity.  It spends money on behalf of our national interest.  There are a lot of great causes in the world, and the private sector can raise as much money as they want for those.  We – taxpayers – are going to invest in the things that further our national interest, and that’s the process we’re going through right now, and the pause has helped accelerate it.   

QUESTION:  I’m going to wrap it up, but I do want to ask you about just a couple more things.  Number one, eight years ago you and I were across from each other on a debate stage.  Donald Trump was centerstage, and he was insulting both of us.  (Laughter.) 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  

QUESTION:  And things have really changed in eight years.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  I mean, first —  

QUESTION:  Can you talk about that evolution for you?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  I mean, so I love, like, mixed martial arts and boxing, right?  I see people go out in the ring, and I’ve never – no, I never heard anyone ask a boxer, why did you punch him in the face in the third round?  And the boxer would say, well, because it was a boxing match.  And so, campaigns are a competitive environment, and Trump – President Trump is a tough guy, and so these things were going to get rough and tumble.   

But there’s another difference: I didn’t know Donald Trump when he ran for president.  I mean, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know him as a person.  Then he became President.  I was in the Senate.  Those were the four best years I’ve ever had in the Senate, because we got a lot of things done working with him.  I got to work around him.  I got to know him as a person, not as the caricature on television but as a person, about the way he works, the way he makes decisions.  You learn from being around someone like that as well, the things he does on an interpersonal basis with people, the acts of kindness that are never going to be reported, the things he does for people that you’re never going to hear, but that he – I’ve just – and over time there’s a big difference between the way you know someone and when you don’t know them. 

And I would also say this:  I worked in the Senate.  Ninety-nine of my – well, 98 of my colleagues because I voted for myself.  Ninety-eight of my colleagues – these are people I strongly disagree with.  These are people that have accused people who hold some of my policy positions of being some of the worst human beings on the planet.  And yet on a personal level, I had to figure out a way to work with them and get along with them, and they’re in the other party.   

So I don’t understand this idea where if I’m – if a Democrat and a Republican run against each other, you lose the election, you’re expected to now – okay, the election is over; you guys need to work together in the interest of our country.  If that’s expected among people that are in opposite parties, what should be expected of people that are in the same party?  They should be expected to also work together. 

In the end, I am in this because I want to serve my country, not because I want to be an enemy of anybody else’s on a personal level.  In the case of President Trump, I’ve worked alongside him, and I’ve gotten to know him over the years, and I hope that we’ve gained a mutual respect for one another as well. 

QUESTION:  Really? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And so much so that I was honored to be his nominee for Secretary of State, and now I am.   

QUESTION:  Yeah.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And it’s an exiting time to be here. 

QUESTION:  You gave it back to him just as good, and I gave him a few punches too, so we – it was fair game.  We were both fair game back when that was happening.  It was almost 10 years ago now that debate, that August 15 debate.   

I mentioned at the top of the interview flippantly the “deep state” thing.  It is a real concern for a lot of people that there’s like a group of people at State and elsewhere who will actively work to undermine your agenda and President Trump’s.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think that’s going to be true in any large organization.  You’re going to have people that are not aligned with the mission; they’re not aligned with carrying things out.  And I think I always am careful about it, not because I’m resistant to the idea per se, but because I also think there are very competent people who may not agree with me on policy but will – are – will do what the mission is.  They will carry out the mission.  And I think we expect that of people all the time.   

I mean, if you think about it, I don’t know who the pilot on – maybe that’s a terrible analogy on a day like this.  But we don’t know when we get on a commercial aircraft who the pilot’s voted for or who their – but I don’t think they’re going to harm us.  I don’t – when you go to a doctor, I don’t necessarily check their voter registration, and we expect doctors to treat us well.  And I think the same is true for people at work.  There are a lot of professionals that work in the State Department who will carry out the mission, but they need to have a clear mission, and they want the State Department to be relevant again and have deep expertise on topics, that we need their support. 

Now, look, if someone is going to actively undermine the work of the elected administration, that’s a problem, and I’ll – I think any agency would argue that, and I think any president would argue that.  In the end, the State Department and foreign policy is not separate from our republic.  In our republic, the American people elect a president, and that president is the executive officer of our country and is charged with executing our foreign policy.  And our agency’s job is to execute the president’s foreign policy.  We don’t have an independent foreign policy, independent from our public, independent from our people, independent from the outcome of elections.  And so our expectation is that, no matter how people may feel about political leaders or me or the President or anybody else, their job is to execute on the policies the American people have chosen through their elected representatives.  And that’s what we’re going to do at the State Department, and I think the overwhelming majority of our workforce will comply with that.   

QUESTION:  It’s pretty your parents were from Cuba.  They immigrated here in the late 1950s, I think.  Your dad was a janitor. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  May 27th, 1956.  

QUESTION:  Your mom works in a hotel as a maid.  And here you are, Secretary of State.  Final thought on what that says about the United States of America?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  That it remains the only place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything.  And I think from our example is what other countries we hope will try to emulate in their own nations.  And so it’s a testament not just to the country but to the people of this country.   

And the greatest gift my parents ever left me is they never discouraged – never did my parents ever say, “You can’t be that.  People like us can never be that.”  They’ve always encouraged us to have big dreams and pursue them, whatever they may lead, and if you work hard, you can achieve what they are.  For some people that dream is I just want to have a really good job and raise a family and be able to leave my kids better off than themselves, and for others it’s professional dreams as well.  And I am blessed to be a citizen of the only place in human history where that’s happened for so many.  

QUESTION:  Those changes have led you to this position and soon to Panama, where we need you.  You’ve got an important job.  Good luck.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.   

QUESTION:  Thank you so much. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you for doing this.   

QUESTION:  Great to see you again.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Great.  A lot of fun.  Thank you.  

https://www.state.gov/secretary-marco-rubio-with-megyn-kelly-of-the-megyn-kelly-show/