QUESTION: Right now we're going to talk - speak with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning. Congratulations on unanimous confirmation by the Senate.
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: That's rare these days. Let's begin with January - the January 6th pardons. Back in - when this happened, you called it a national embarrassment, saying, "We now have third-world countries that are lecturing us and we have tin pot dictators that are mocking us." Of course, you're now America's top diplomat; you'll be speaking with your counterparts around the world. What message does that pardon send to them?
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Well, I don't anticipate a single one of our partners will ask about it. Obviously - and you know this well from your time in the administration - my job is to focus on the foreign policy of the United States. I have a different job this morning and a different focus, and it's one that demands 100 percent of our attention. And so that's what I'll be focused on, and I won't be opining on domestic matters at this point because, frankly, my focus needs to be 100 percent on how I interact with our counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world, to keep this country safe, to make it prosperous.
That's the clear mandate from the President. It's what he campaigned on. I think he made it pretty clear yesterday that he wants to reinvigorate an American foreign policy that makes America safer and stronger and more prosperous. That's what - the promise that Donald Trump was elected to keep, and that's the one we're going to help him keep at the Department of State.
QUESTION: But as a senator, you did say that it affected our standing in the world. You don't believe that anymore?
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Well, as a Senator I had an opinion on all kinds of domestic matters. But now I'm focused singularly on foreign policy, on how I interact with our allies. For example, my first meeting right out of the box, as soon as I'm sworn in and get over to the State Department, is with the members of the so-called Quad, which are important allies in Australia and Japan and India. And we'll be talking to them, and we'll be focused on that. None of these domestic topics are going to come up. They're going to be focused on how do we make our relationship one that increases and strengthens not just our position in the world, but, for example, freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. And those are the kinds of things that we're going to be focused on 100 percent, and that's the things I'll be talking about.
QUESTION: President Trump also issued the executive order to delay the ban on TikTok yesterday. As a senator, you led the charge in warning that the app poses a major national security risk. It exposes the data of millions of Americans to the - to be stolen by the Chinese Government. The - so why give TikTok a break now? Do you endorse this move?
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Well, the law, which I supported, also includes in it - and it's - it gives the President a 90-day window in which he can delay it going into effect. For example, if you have a potential deal on the table for someone to purchase it. In the end, this was never a TikTok ban; this is a ban on companies controlled by foreign entities and the risk it poses to the United States. As part of that law, and what it purviews - what it hopes to achieve in many ways is it either stops operating or it is no longer controlled by a company under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, or any other foreign power for that matter. And so it gives the President a 90-day window in which to now hopefully find someone that will buy it, or some arrangement that will deal with this.
The law was written in such a way so it would've kicked in the day before a new administration. So I think it's fair to assume that a new administration would need more than just a handful of hours coming into power to make a decision on how they want to handle it and which deal they think would be the right one. The President's outlined a model of a joint venture in which the United States would have an interest and a controlling interest in a way that would protect us. And so I think he's talked about a 75-day window of those 90 that he wants to use to see if an arrangement can be found. But ultimately, Congress passed a law, and the executive will have to execute on it. But that law gives the President the right to do exactly what he's doing now, and that is to take a pause and see if there is a arrangement that can allow people to continue to use a platform that clearly people like, but at the same time protect our national interest.
QUESTION: Finally, the President, as you know, promised during the campaign to end the war in Ukraine, even before he took office. Of course, that didn't happen. But can you share any details on how you plan to end that war now?
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Well, I wouldn't - this is a complex, tragic conflict, one that was started by Vladimir Putin that's inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on Ukraine - and also on Russia, I would argue - but also on the stability of Europe. So the only way to solve these things: We've got to get back to pragmatism, but we've also got to get back to seriousness here, and that is the hard work of diplomacy. The U.S. has a role to play here, we've been supportive of Ukraine, but this conflict has to end.
I think one of the most important lines in yesterday's inaugural address was when President Trump said he wants to promote peace, and I think everyone should be happy that we have a president that wants to promote peace. And that means we want the war in Ukraine to end. Now, obviously neither - it's going to involve complex and hard diplomacy. It has to be vigorous. Every side is going to have to give, because neither Russia nor Ukraine can achieve the maximalist goals that they may have for this conflict. But he wants the dying to stop.
So it will not be simple, it will not be easy, but it is important. It has to happen. That's a priority, and we'll be working on that. And it won't be negotiated in press conferences or interviews. It will have to be negotiated the way all of these kinds of deals are negotiated, and that is in settings in which we use our leverage, our influence, our national power to bring about not just an end to a conflict, but also to provide long-term stability for Europe and beyond. I don't think anyone wants to see a conflict end only to see it restarted two or three years down the road.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time this morning.
SECRETARY DESIGNATE RUBIO: Thank you.
