QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, thank you for the opportunity. As we sit down today, Hamas has released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and two children. Your thoughts?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I think it's a reminder of who Hamas really is. I mean, just think about the fact they went in, they grabbed this family, this young woman, her two infant children. I think one was only four years old, the other one was one. And then - and it's not just that they did it and that they died in their captivity. Who does that? I mean, who kidnaps families? And then the way even that they were released, with people cheering in the streets, it just tells you who we're dealing with, with Hamas. This is not a government. This is not a - simply an ideological movement. These are evil, terrible people. And the idea that they would ever be allowed to continue to have arms, to be militarized, and to control territory anywhere in the world is unfathomable.
So our hearts break for these families. You can't be happy that remains are returned, but that's very important to these families from a religious standpoint. It's a sacred thing. But it's - I think to everybody else it's a reminder, as well, of who we're talking about here when we talk about Hamas.
QUESTION: One of the Israeli Government's objectives is the destruction of Hamas. You see some of these pictures. They suggest some strength. What does the intelligence tell us?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I would never discuss intelligence, but I can tell you Hamas is weaker than they once were. They clearly have enough people to put on these shows. They clearly have enough people to still be a threat at some level. But they can't be allowed to reconstitute. Hamas cannot be allowed to once again be a group that can do three things: terrorize the people of Gaza, attack Israel, and actually be a government or anything like a government anywhere in the world. They just can't be. As long as Hamas is in Gaza, there will never be peace in Gaza, because they are going to go back to attacking Israel. And Israel is going to have to respond.
And I just ask everybody if a group like that was operating on the other side of our border with Canada or Mexico, constantly launching attacks; if a group existed in Mexico that came across our border, kidnapped Americans - babies - and launched rockets, we would eliminate them. We would wipe them out. And no country in the world can coexist alongside a group whose intended purpose is the destruction of your state, and is willing to commit atrocities like this in the pursuance of it.
So I think it's in the best interests of everyone, including Palestinians, to get rid of Hamas because Hamas terrorizes them too. They hide behind these people.
QUESTION: What is the plan for Gaza?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that's a great question. I mean, the President's plan is the only one that's out there right now. And what the President's point is - how are you going to rebuild this place when you have people living among the rubble? How are you going to rebuild it as long as a group like Hamas is operating there? You can't. If Hamas is there, Israel is going to go after them. So he's put out his plan, and his view of it is you've got to remove people from the area so you can actually do the construction.
Now, our partners in the region don't like that plan, and I talked to them. I've talked to the Egyptians; I've talked to the Jordanians. They came here a week ago. Talked to the Saudis; I talked to the UAE yesterday. And my challenge is if you don't like the President's plan, then I think you should come up with a better plan, and I hope they do. I hope they come up with a plan that allows for the reconstruction of Gaza. The United States will try to help - or will help, as will others, including countries in the region that have to take ownership. But I - look, the job of removing rubble, the job of rebuilding housing, that can be done, and finding the money to pay for it. The countries in that region are very rich. They can help do that as well.
I think the fundamental challenge in any plan is what do you - who is going to govern Gaza, what organization? Because it can't be Hamas. And how are you going to get rid of them? Because ultimately someone is going to have to go in and get rid of Hamas.
QUESTION: You've been Secretary of State for 30 days.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yes, that's right. What have you learned and what has been accomplished?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think first of all what I've learned is a couple things. We have good people that work at the State Department. What - the challenge that's reconfirmed my view is there's a lot of work to be done to realign everything we do at the State Department with the national interest. That's what our foreign policy needs to be about. And that's been lost over the years, the idea that we have to define what our national interest is and then ensure that everything we do, every dollar we spend, every program we operate, every word we say is in furtherance of the national interest.
QUESTION: Is that - if I could jump in, is that what an America First State Department looks like?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, an America First State Department is not an America only State Department. It's a State Department that defines what is the important national interest the United States has in different parts of the world, and then everything we do is aligned with that principle. And that's been lost, I think, by and large in American foreign policy for a long time. I think you can track it back, without going into history lessons, in the post-Cold War era where the U.S. was the sole superpower, and we were called into doing all sorts of things that no other country in the world could do. And some of it was not aligned with our foreign or our national interest, because we hadn't even defined what the national interest is.
It also means there are things in the world that are important and that matter and that are good causes, but they can't be a priority because the priority first and foremost has to be on the national interest of the United States. So, I think this is by and large an organization of people that seek direction, and if you give them clear direction about what we're trying to pursue and accomplish, they'll go out and they'll do it. And that's how we're trying to align - even as we have to do our job on a daily basis, is what our - our hope is to align and give the State Department clear missions from the field, meaning our embassies and people out across the world, all the way to the seventh floor where I work.
QUESTION: What are your directions for the first 100 days?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think we really view it as more than a 100-day project. But as we've gone in and done it, one of the things we're looking for on restructuring is our bureaus. We have our policy bureaus that are geographically based, and then we also have our functional bureaus. And that - human rights, and for example, there's a bureau for trafficking, human trafficking; there's a bureau for migration. I think those issues are interrelated, so one of the things we're working through - we haven't made a decision yet - is whether that bureau should be consolidated into a bureau - and what's our national interest - that prevents migration and prevents trafficking, not facilitates migration and mass migration, which is not just a challenge to the United States, by the way. It's one of the leading issues in Europe.
We just came back from the Munich Security Conference. Every country in Europe is facing the challenge of mass migration, but it's really putting strain on - virtually every country in the world is facing migration challenges, every developed country in the world. So that's just an example of the kinds of realignments that we're looking to make, and we want to do it in a thoughtful and careful way, and - but also in an expeditious way. We can't move too slowly either, because then it just won't happen.
QUESTION: Right. A month ago, you hit pause on most of the foreign aid. Is that review nearing completion?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, part of that review was issuing waivers, so I think we've issued over 250 waivers. And that means someone comes forward and says, "This program is important. It's important, it can be justified, it's aligned with the national interest." We issue a waiver for it.
I'll give you a real-world example. We were in Guatemala, and we came across a program where we are helping train Guatemalans to identify the precursors of fentanyl and intercept it, to help us extradite drug dealers that we're trying to get ahold of, and we issued a waiver for that program because that's clearly aligned, right? What is our national interest? We want to prevent fentanyl from reaching the streets and we want to take the people responsible for trafficking in it, and if they're wanted, bring them to the United States to stand trial and serve prison sentences. So those are the kinds of waivers we're being - that are being issued.
We also issued a blanket waiver for emergency humanitarian support - food, medicine, housing, things that - where there's a crisis somewhere in the world. And - but that's an ongoing process. And I think before the 90-day period is up, we'll have a real good insight into all the foreign aid we do. I know it's been disruptive for some programs. But I think in the long term it's going to be beneficial because we'll be able to say that every program that we are out there operating serves the national interest because it makes us stronger or more prosperous or safer. That's the process we're trying to go through, and we go through it on a daily basis.
QUESTION: When will the State Department get the DOGE treatment?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the State Department has DOGE people here that are present. And they're part of this process that we're going through and identifying primarily programs that we look at that are on pause, and understanding why are they justified versus not justified. For - there's a lot of climate programs that we're funding all over the world, and people are free - we're not banning climate programs. If somebody wants to fund a climate program out of their own pocket or through an NGO, they can do so. The fundamental question is whether that should be a priority for the United States, or instead, should we be focused on programs that are helping nations gain energy independence or reliability in their energy sector so they can develop economically?
And so that's the sort of repurposing that we're trying to do, and they've been very helpful in identifying what those programs are. Likewise with personnel. There's no government agency that can tell you that every single person that works there, they - we need, that they're indispensable. I think that's true for virtually every entity in any government across the country. So that'll be a process we go through as well. We have very talented people. We don't want to lose talented people, but there are functions and roles that need to be examined,and we're going through that on a daily - even as we do this other job, we have people that are working through that every single day, and DOGE has been very helpful in the State Department in that regard. We have more work to do.
QUESTION: Do you have any regrets about the shuttering of USAID?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, it's not - look, I wish we'd had more cooperation. I know people at USAID don't like to hear that, but it's the truth. And I'm going to go back to my time in Congress, okay? I've had two problems with AID going back to my time in Congress. I'm not against foreign aid. I've supported foreign aid. We're going to do foreign aid. No one here is saying we're going to have zero —
QUESTION: So, some programs will survive?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Absolutely, and some already have. We've issued waivers for PEPFAR, as an example, and others. That's not the question. The question is no one can tell me every program - every program - is valuable and needs to be kept. Some, frankly, shouldn't have ever existed. And in many other cases you have programs where the program is titled something, and then you realize the program is not run by USAID; USAID simply provides grants or money to a company or to an entity, an NGO, whatever, and they're out there running the program. And as a member of Congress, when you wanted to ask, well, who is - who is operating this program? Because sometimes it goes from a program and then that - they give it to a third person; that third person —
QUESTION: Sounds like a shell game.
SECRETARY RUBIO: It can be. And so that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of. So ideally you would have people open up the books and say, well, here's who our contractors are and here's what they work on and here's why it's mission critical. And we didn't find a lot of cooperation in that regard, and so the result was - and this was before I became acting, but even after - some of those people that became uncooperative in some cases were even trying to push payments through the system to get around the freeze. That we have to address.
And so it's - I think it's unfortunate because the ideal way would have been - but this, to go through it the way I've just described - but this is an agency, frankly, at least at some levels, that has been largely uncooperative and completely unaligned with the State Department. We have embassies where USAID and the embassy work very well together, and we have embassies where the embassy is working on one mission and USAID is working on a completely different mission that's in contradiction with what the State Department's directive is in that nation. That has to be fixed.
So, ideally, we would have fixed it in a way that would have been different, would - but when you run into passive-aggressive and in some cases aggressive opposition to your work, that requires you to now go in and put a stop to everything. And so that's the process we've had to follow, unfortunately, but that's - that's the only way we're going to get to the bottom of this. We have to answer to the - this is American taxpayer money. The idea that USAID is some sort of global charity that's out there serving the interests of the global community? No, it's called the USAID - the United States. It's our taxpayer money that should also be aligned with the national interest, and if it isn't, it needs to stop.
QUESTION: I want you to respond to a story that was in Politico. It said that you are Secretary of State in only name. It quoted Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, saying, "Rubio is not in charge." How often are you in the Oval at the White House for the big decisions?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don't know about how often. I'm there pretty often. I just came from there right before I met with you here now. Look, that's just part of the stuff that happens in Washington and people - the columnists and people write stuff. I didn't even know that story was out there. I'm just focused on doing my job. I feel pretty busy, and I know we're pretty busy. We're working on - even as we're working through all these reforms in the department, we're also out there trying to realign American foreign policy, whether it's my trip to the Western Hemisphere - we had a very successful trip. We think we're going to get - we already are getting more cooperation on migration from Panama, from Costa Rica, from Guatemala. That's been documented. We had a great visit to the Dominican Republic, which is very tightly aligned with the United States on a host of issues. We had a talk about Haiti there as well. Then we traveled to the Middle East. I met with the foreign ministers of all of the key countries and our allies in Europe, both in the G7 setting, G7+1 with the EU, and then a separate meeting with what they call the Quint, which is the key countries involved.
QUESTION: It was a busy couple of weeks, yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, but then from there we went to Saudi Arabia, had great meetings there. We obviously had the first high-level engagement with —
QUESTION: I was just - I was just going to ask you. Was that - if I may.
SECRETARY RUBIO: All right. Well, I'm pretty busy, then, as you can see, so.
QUESTION: I know I - I got a - before we talk about the meetings in Saudi, this week you branded eight cartels and criminal organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including TdA. You've been tracking TdA since —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.
QUESTION: — since the Senate, right?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: Does this Foreign Terrorist Organization designation unlock new diplomatic tools?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, not just new diplomatic tools, new economic ones as well, because it basically doesn't allow anyone to have any sort of commercial relationship with these groups. And all of these gangs have to operate by touching the banking system, by being able to buy, and in many cases by having business partnerships, whether it's a warehouse they're renting in the U.S. to distribute guns or distribute drugs, whether it's someone who's actually helping them launder money from what they're making. In some cases, these guys set up their own companies, these shell companies, to hide their profits and be able to distribute the funds they have. So, it's going to be very helpful.
But just naming them and understanding that they're a problem - Tren de Aragua, TdA, is a group I follow. That was a prison gang in Venezuela. The Venezuelan regime sort of pushed them out of the country. They terrorized Peru, they terrorized Ecuador, they terrorized all kinds of countries, and they worked their way up the migration path into the United States. And I've been warning about them now for a year and a half. I think I might have been the first member of Congress, maybe of the U.S. Government, to actually identify them by name, and I was being told that that wasn't true, that they didn't exist. Now we do know that they exist. They run human trafficking operations. They actually target Venezuelan migrant communities. We've seen them take control of apartment buildings in Colorado. And now they're being deported, and being deported because they're identified with that organization.
So, I think those designations are important and it gives us a valuable tool to cut off any partnerships they may have not just with U.S. nationals but any other businesses or individuals around the world that are assisting them in what they're doing. And it's not just the gang. It's the drug trafficking organizations that operate out of Mexico too.
QUESTION: Do the Foreign Terrorist Organization - does the FTO designation - does that move the U.S. Government a step closer to using military force against the cartels?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it depends where they're located. Obviously, in the case of Mexico, the preference always is to work in conjunction with our partners in Mexico, and we can provide them a lot of information about who they are and where they're located. If in the end these people pose an imminent threat to the United States or cross into our borders and into the United States, then it gives us tools to go after them using law enforcement, using DHS, using ICE, using the FBI, the DEA, whatever agencies we have available. But if they're located in a third country, like operating out of Mexico, we can now share that information with our Mexican partners. It's their country and they can action that item, because it poses a threat to both of our countries. And we would hope now that we can get more cooperation from them on that front.
QUESTION: You told reporters in Saudi Arabia that there hasn't been regularized contact with the Russians in three and a half years. How much ground was lost under the Biden White House?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, there was no ground. I mean, it was all lost. We had no - three things that people have to understand. The first is even at the height of the Cold War, even in the worst days of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had communication. And the reason why from a - if you want to be mature and grown-ups about it, I'm not a fan of most of what Vladimir Putin has done, and that's largely irrelevant when it comes to statecraft, because we ultimately have to be able to talk to a nation that has, in some cases, the largest tactical nuclear weapons stockpile in the world and the second largest, if not the largest, strategic nuclear weapons stockpile in the world. So, you have to have - I mean, at the end - whether we like it or not, Russia is a power, a global power, and they're involved and engaged in Syria; they've been involved and engaged in the Middle East; even in the Western Hemisphere, certainly in Europe. We have to have some communication with them.
So, step one is our embassy in Moscow is barely functioning. I mean, it literally barely operates because it's been denied access to the banking system. That has to be fixed. If we close our mission in Russia, we have to close their mission here, and then we really have no communication with them, whether it's a detained American or some other item.
The second is the President has been very clear: He wants this war with Ukraine to end, and he wants to know are the Russians serious about ending the war or not serious about ending the war. The only way is to test them, to basically engage them and say, okay, are you serious about ending the war, and if so, what are your demands. Are your public demands and your private demands different? We have to have some process by which we engage in that conversation. Now, it may turn out that they don't want to end the war. I don't know; we're going to find out. But we have to have that process to determine that, and so our meeting was really a follow-up to President Trump's conversation with Putin.
It's unfortunate that some of this hyperbole and some of this hysteria because he talked to him on the phone has clouded some of the rationale behind this. At the end of the day, we have to have relations with Russia, whether we like everything they're doing or not, because we did with the Soviet Union - and we have to be able to test and see if they're serious about ending this war.
QUESTION: In your meetings did the Russian foreign minister make clear that there can be no end to the war if Ukraine joins NATO?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, there was no discussions about any details. Now, the Russians have their own readout of what happened, but I can tell you we did not negotiate any fine points about any deal. The course of that conversation was as follows: number one, we have to - some level of regularization just of our diplomatic missions, because we have to be able to communicate with them given the nature of our two countries and the importance that we have in the world. The second is there are things we could cooperate on geopolitically, potentially. I mean, there are items of the world where I think we have a common interest. I'm not sure the Russians are fans of the Iranian regime having nuclear weapons, as an example, and so forth.
But we can't work on those things - we're going to disagree on a lot, but we can't work on the things we might potentially agree on or deconflict on things that could lead to dangerous confrontations as long as this Ukraine impediment stands in the way. And so really, as much as anything else, this meeting was: Are you interested in even talking about ending the war? If you are, then let's create a process where we can begin to engage at a technical level, and that process will now, at some point, be set up and begin.
I also think, by the way, it's unfair to say that we didn't consult anybody on it.
QUESTION: I was just going to - I was just going to ask you.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Let's talk about that.
QUESTION: Ukraine was not at the talks. Are you consulting with President Zelenskyy about his red lines?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, just in the last week, okay, President Zelenskyy has met with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of State, bipartisan delegations in the U.S. Senate and House that were also in Munich. Our special envoy is there today meeting with him. So, they - we talked to the Ukrainians throughout this process, and we explained to them very clearly what our intentions were in terms of pursuing this. In fact, the President of the United States spoke to Zelenskyy right after he hung up with Putin. I was in the office for both phone calls. So, to say that we haven't consulted with them is not accurate. It's not true.
It's also not true that we haven't consulted with our allies in Europe. I personally spoke to the five foreign ministers right after my meeting with the Russians and walked them through what had happened. We talked to them before those meetings, the same five, plus the G7, plus the EU and all the other meetings we had in Munich. So, this is just not accurate.
But that was a meeting to largely determine whether they were interested or not in finding a way to end this war, and so —
QUESTION: Are they interested?
SECRETARY RUBIO: We're going to find out. I mean, I tell people peace is not a - is not a - it's an action. It's not a noun, it's a verb, it's an action. You must actually pursue it. So, at the end of the day, they're either interested or they're not. If the demands they make for ending the war are maximalist and unrealistic, then I think we have our answer. If, on the other hand, there's any opportunity to pursue peace, we have to do it.
And I think people - I really am sort of puzzled. Generally, in diplomacy, people who are seeking to end the killing and the harming of thousands and thousands of people in war are usually celebrated for an effort to end the war. If it was just the Vatican who was involved in these talks, who would criticize it? For the President of the United States to be engaged in finding whether there's the possibility of peace should be celebrated, not condemned. But anyway, that's the - kind of the world we live in right now.
QUESTION: Did the U.S. delegation make clear to the Russians that there are no guarantees about the retention of territory they have annexed from Ukraine?
SECRETARY RUBIO: We didn't engage in any specifics about territories, none of these, because that wasn't the purpose of that meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to determine whether there was a real interest in discussing peace or not. If there is, then it's a process that that can begin. And I also think it's silly to say, well, the Ukrainians are going be cut out or the Europeans are going to be cut out. You can't - you can't find a stop to a war unless both sides and their views are represented. They both have to agree to it. Like, Russia can't agree to a ceasefire or to an end of hostilities if the Ukrainians don't agree to it. It has to be on terms acceptable to both sides.
Likewise with the Europeans. The Europeans and the EU have their own set of sanctions on Russia. Even if we lifted all of our sanctions - which none of that was discussed - the Europeans would have to lift sanctions too in order for something to be possible. So, they all have to be consulted at some point, but we're just not at that stage yet.
QUESTION: So, what's the signal, Secretary Rubio, that the Russians are serious about peace?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the signal - I can't answer whether they're serious about peace or not yet. That will have to be determined by the attitude they take moving forward. The only thing we agreed upon is that we're going to talk about peace. What they offer, what they're willing to concede to, what they're willing to consider will determine whether they're serious about peace or not. We're just not at that stage yet.
QUESTION: When President Trump posted that President Zelenskyy is a dictator without elections, what are you thinking?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I think President Trump is very upset at President Zelenskyy and - and some - and rightfully so. Look, number one, Joe Biden had frustrations with Zelenskyy. People shouldn't forget it. There are newspaper articles out there about how he cursed at him in a phone call because Zelenskyy, instead of saying thank you for all your help, is immediately out there messaging what we're not doing or what he's not getting.
I think the second thing is, frankly, I was personally very upset because we had a conversation with President Zelenskyy - the Vice President and I, the two - three of us. And we discussed this issue about the mineral rights, and we explained to them, look, we want to be in a joint venture with you - not because we're trying to steal from your country, but because we think that's actually a security guarantee. If we're your partner in an important economic endeavor, we get to get paid back some of the money the taxpayers have given - close to $200 billion. And it also - now we have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine. And he said, sure, we want to do this deal; it makes all the sense in the world - the only thing is I need to run it through my legislative process, they have to approve it. I read two days later that Zelenskyy is out there saying: I rejected the deal; I told them no way, that we're not doing that. Well, that's not what happened in that meeting. So, you start to get upset by somebody - we're trying to help these guys.
One of the points the President made in his messaging is it's not that we don't care about Ukraine, but Ukraine is on another continent. It doesn't directly impact the daily lives of Americans. We care about it because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world. There should be some level of gratitude here about this, and when you don't see it and you see him out there accusing the President of living in a world of disinformation, that's highly, very counterproductive.
And I don't need to explain to you or anybody else Donald Trump's not - President Trump's not the kind of person that's going to sit there and take that. He's very transparent. He's going to tell you exactly how he feels. And he sent a message that he's not going to get gamed here. He's willing to work on peace because he cares about Ukraine, and he hopes Zelenskyy will be a partner in that and not someone who's out there putting the sort of counter-messaging to try to hustle us in that regard. That's not going to be productive here.
QUESTION: What's the timeline for a meeting between President Trump and President Putin?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that topic came up in our conversation with the Russians. And what I said - I know that now they're saying that they said it, but we actually said it - and that is, well, there isn't going to be a meeting until we know what the meeting is going to be about. I mean, this is not —
QUESTION: Do you expect it later in 2025?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I don't know the timing of it. But a meeting between President Putin and President Trump has to be a meeting about something. We have to know what that meeting is about, what's going to be achieved at it. You don't generally have these meetings until you know some outcome, or some progress has been made.
So, I think when that meeting happens will largely depend on whether we can make any progress on ending the war in Ukraine, and if we can and that meeting is what seals the deal, I think everybody should celebrate that President Trump is a peacemaker. He's the only global leader right now that can make this happen, the only global leader —
QUESTION: Why do you say he's the only one?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, because others have tried and have failed. And there was an effort in Istanbul a couple years ago, and it involved a number of European countries, and it failed. It didn't lead to a result. No - this war is now going on its third year. Where - what global leader now could engage in this and actually even bring Putin to the table? Maybe we're not successful either, but right now we're the only ones that - through President Trump that have any chance. Maybe the chance is 1 percent. I don't know. Maybe the chance is 90 percent. But he's the only one that can even test that proposition, and everyone should recognize that and celebrate the fact that he's willing to do that early in his presidency. He's willing to do it. No one else is willing to do it and no one else right now apparently can.
QUESTION: You were also in Israel in recent days, and when you were in Israel you said there will be no nuclear Iran. How far is the Trump Administration willing to go to stop a nuclear Iran?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, ultimately, I think President Trump's been clear. We're not going to discuss tactics or measures. He's issued an executive order to once again return to the maximum pressure, primarily because we've seen that Iran uses - the Iranian regime, let me be clear; I'm not talking about the Iranian people - the regime, they use any money that they make to fund their weapons programs, to fund their sponsorship of terrorism. If you look at all the destabilizing things that are happening in the Middle East - the Houthis and their attack on global shipping, Hamas, Hizballah, the militias in Iraq that attack both Israel and the U.S. presence there, the anti-ISIS presence that we have - all of them are sponsored by money from Iran. They're behind all of this. And so why would we allow them to make any more money that they can use to sponsor these things?
Now, how we prevent a nuclear Iran - I'm not going to discuss the options that are available to us or anyone else for that matter. But I want to make it abundantly clear the Iranian regime can never be - a regime that's behind all of this and believes that it is their duty to export their revolution to other countries in the region - they can never allow to possess a nuclear weapon where they can hold the world hostage and where they could potentially attack Israel.
QUESTION: Earlier this month President Trump said that he had given instructions to his advisors of what to do if he were to be assassinated by Iran. Are you familiar with those instructions?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I'm familiar with what he's talking about. And again, we're not going to get into tactics or options available to the United States. Suffice it to say that if the United States chose to do so, it could bring about the end of the Iranian regime. But the President is a peacemaker. He'd prefer to avoid that and avoid those circumstances. And - but I don't think anyone should be confused here. Under Donal Trump there is not going to be a nuclear Iran.
QUESTION: China. As Secretary of State, what is your position on China?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it's not my position. It'll be the Trump position on it, and I think that President Trump's position is pretty straight-forward. On the one hand, just like Russia, China is a global power, the second largest economy in the world, rapidly growing military. We have to have relations with the Chinese; we have to. Whether we agree with everything they do - we understand that in some cases we're competitors, in others we're direct adversaries. But there has to be communication, because the lack of communication could lead to conflict.
QUESTION: If I could just jump in, what I'm hearing you say is that in the last four years there's been a breakdown in communication with China and also Russia.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, interestingly enough, the communication with China has actually been better than the communication with the Russians under the Biden administration into the current day, which is why there has to be some level of maturity here, and practicality and pragmatism when it comes to foreign policy.
That said, we are not going to live in a world where we depend on China - for critical rare earth minerals, for critical components in our supply chain. We're not going to live in a world in which China gets to dominate the Indo-Pacific at our - and we're not allowed to have commercial ties in that region because they're holding countries hostages - hostage, and they all become tributary states. The Japanese have no interest in being a tributary state, and they're close allies of ours. The South Koreans, the Philippines, Australia - none of these countries want to become tributary states - Vietnam, for that matter - are not interested in becoming sort of tributary states in a Chinese zone of influence.
We are a Pacific nation. We intend to remain one and maintain our relationships there. So that is a red line for us. We're not going to abandon our engagement as a Pacific power, and by the other token, we're not going to live in a world where the Chinese dominate things that are critical to our economy and be held hostage by them. That's just silly to do it. Some of that involves improving our domestic industrial capability. Some of that involves partnering with allied nations to secure our supply chains.
And the third point I would make is we have to deal with this unfairness. Chinese companies can do virtually anything they want in the American economy for many, many years. We allowed them to do anything they wanted in America. But American companies can virtually to do nothing inside of China, and if they do it's because they want to steal your intellectual property and then put you out of business and replace you with a Chinese company. That's why the President's always talking about reciprocity. Whatever they - whatever we are allowed to do there is what they should be allowed to do here. Whatever they charge us on tariffs is what we should be charging them. And that's what the President is bringing - not just to China but to the world - is reciprocity and fairness.
QUESTION: You have access, as a senator, to high-level intelligence. You have more access now that you are Secretary of State. Does the intelligence leave no doubt that COVID-19 came from the lab in Wuhan, China?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I wouldn't say that it leaves no doubt. I would say - and I've long believed this and I've said this irrespective - just common sense tells you that the chances that this was a - and I say an accident. We know that the Chinese spent years, in some cases with Western funding, taking viruses and re-engineering these viruses, trying to predict: What if this virus carried over into humans? What would it look like? And they were probably doing it because they were trying to come up with a vaccine for it.
Let's say somebody got infected, messing around with that in a lab, they went out into Wuhan, they gave it to 10 people - those 10 people spread it to the world. I think the evidence is compelling that that's exactly what happened here. And I put out a report as a senator that detailed all kinds of circumstantial evidence that proved that as well.
So, I think, in my view, based on the everything I have seen, that the likeliest situation here was that the Chinese were messing around with a virus, somebody caught it in the lab, and they took this novel virus and spread it through China and then spread it to the world. And it was devastating. And there needs to be accountability for that.
QUESTION: I was just going to say there really has been no accountability for the CCP.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, the accountability begins by proving it. And it's hard to do, right, because the Chinese are not necessarily going to open their books. Look, if that had happened in the United States, if that had happened in some other country in the world, that country would have probably been forthcoming and said, "We had a problem, guys. We were messing around with this stuff and look what happened." And they would have shared that information, and we could have worked very quickly, much faster than we were able to, to figure out how to counteract it. And they didn't.
Instead, what they did is clam up and refuse to share information with the world, and then this thing spread and just ravaged the global economy. Just think about how many people died, how many businesses went out, how much money we had to spend in this country just to keep Main Street open when we had the shutdowns, how divisive it became. Some of that could have been prevented if they had been forthcoming. But instead, like most authoritarian regimes, they clammed up and they held that information back.
So, I think we have to do two things. We have to - if we can prove that this is what happened, and I think the day will come when we might be able to prove it - we need to show that to the world. But we also have to make sure this never happens again, because there's - if they were doing that, we have to assume they're still doing that, and we have to assume that they're still doing that and that this could happen again, and it could be even more devastating than COVID, as hard as that is to believe. We can never - we can't let that happen.
And I think, by the way, a lot of countries in the world suspect this too. They may have the guts to say it, they may not want to stand up to it, they may not want to have to take on the wrath of China because they don't have our standing and our stature. But I think a lot of countries in the world suspect that that's what happened here as well. But we're the United States, and if we can prove it, we need to - and at least put the evidence out there that this is what's indicated.
QUESTION: Will the U.S. defend Taiwan if China moves against the island?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Let me just say that I think our commitments to Taiwan have been clear, and they've been expressed through multiple administrations for multiple years. We are against any sort of compelled, forced change of status. That's been our policy; that remains our policy. We're not seeking to trigger a conflict. We don't want to see a conflict. But we have made very clear through years and years of our policies - the Six Assurances, the Taiwan Relations Act - that we are against any sort of change in status by force or by threat or by coercion, and that remains our policy.
And that's generally how we've left it, and that's what's provided stability, and I hope it continues to provide stability. Whether the Chinese and President Xi shares that view, I think there's real doubts about it, but we are not going to walk away from, for example, supporting Taiwan being involved in international forums where their views and their interests are not represented by the mainland at this point.
So, we're going to keep all the commitments we've made and - but the most important one is to make clear that we are against and oppose any sort of forced change in status.
QUESTION: Okay. I'd like to talk about Afghanistan. Based on the intelligence, have al-Qaida and ISIS found a safe haven in Afghanistan that mirrors the pre-9/11 landscape?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I wouldn't say the pre-9/11 landscape. I think anytime you have governing spaces that are contested, that you don't have a government that has full control of every part of their territory, it creates the opportunity for these groups. The difference between today and 10 years ago is we don't have American elements on the ground to target and go after them. In some cases, the Taliban's been cooperative when we - when they've been told ISIS or al-Qaida is operating in this part of your country, go after them. In other cases, not so much.
So, I would say that I wouldn't compare it to pre-9/11, but I would compare it - but it's certainly far more uncertain. And it's not just limited to Afghanistan. I mean, there's real concerns about Syria, where everyone's glad Assad is gone but there's about 8,000 ISIS killers who are in a prison there. And if the destabilization there leads to them getting out, we've got a big problem on our hands. So, I think these groups are constantly looking for new places to migrate. We've seen that happen in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. We're concerned about that as well. These groups are constantly looking for ungoverned spaces where they can plot externally and even to destabilize the region.
QUESTION: I have a question about Qatar. American victims of terrorism have won judgments in the U.S. courts against Iran. Qatar is sitting on billions of dollars of Iranian assets. Will you ask Qatar to satisfy these judgments for American victims of terrorism?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the answer is yes, but in a very - it's a difficult situation. Again, in describing foreign policy to people - on the one hand, the Qataris - there's a lot to be concerned about. There's a lot to be concerned about how they've given Hamas and others operating space within their country. On the other hand, this ceasefire which has allowed these hostages to be released would not have been possible without their mediation. So, it's a complex relation that we have with the Qataris, where in some cases they've been very productive in some of the things they've done; in other cases, not so much. And so, it's one we're going to have to navigate very carefully.
It's what makes foreign policy so difficult. It rarely - foreign policy is rarely a choice between the great and the bad. Sometimes it's between the bad and the worse. And I think in this particular case, it's a challenging relationship we have but nonetheless an important one strategically that requires us to be pragmatic about how we approach it. But that doesn't mean we need to look away or celebrate the things they've been supportive of - but also, we need to recognize the strategic importance they've played in allowing, for example, to serve as intermediaries with Hamas and allowing this ceasefire to happen and these hostages to go free. Were it not for the Qataris, that wouldn't have happened. So, it's a complicating juggling act.
QUESTION: Will you raise the issue with them?
SECRETARY RUBIO: We've raised that issue. Previous administrations have as well. That issue will continue to be raised. At the same time as, we want to work with them on getting all hostages out, because they all should be out.
QUESTION: I want to ask a question about Havana Syndrome or AHIs, these debilitating neurological conditions. State Department personnel, Intelligence Community, military, even families - have directed energy weapons been used against U.S. Government personnel?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I do not believe - and the conclusions that we've seen in the past - and I think evidence and time will prove me correct - that these things happened by accident, that these things were a result of mass hysteria or some pre-existing conditions. Now, in some cases, maybe, but there - I have no doubt in my mind that something caused people to be suffering from these things - in different posts around the world, not just limited to Havana. There's a lot of work still going on. I think we're going to learn a lot more about it over the next few years, as more work goes into it. But I have met some of these people, I've interacted with them for years, and I can't explain every case, but I think there are most definitely cases where there is no logical explanation other than the fact that some external mechanism caused them to suffer brain injuries that in many cases looked like they were hit over the head with a baseball bat or assaulted somewhere. We can't ignore that.
And in the meantime, what we have to ensure is that whether they were State Department personnel or working for some other agency, that those people are getting the treatment and the support that they need. And it's a top commitment of mine to make sure - these are people we sent abroad to serve our country. They were harmed in the service of our country, and they deserve our ongoing support, not to be - not being accused of things like mass hysteria or they're just —
QUESTION: It's government gaslighting.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think it's outrageous. And I don't know what the intent was behind that, but ultimately this State Department is going to be transparent with them. Anything we know, they will know. And in the meantime, we are going to assume the worst and we're going to treat them as if they were victims. No matter what, we're going to treat them as they were people that were harmed by serving our country overseas.
QUESTION: Okay. We just have a couple of minutes left here. President Trump has talked about expanding the U.S. footprint. In a hot mike moment, Canada's prime minister said that absorbing Canada "is a real thing." Is it a real thing?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, look, you know how that came about? President's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well, if you impose - if you even out our trade relationship, then we will cease to exist a country, at which point the President responded very logically, and that is, well, if you can't exist without cheating in trade, then you should become a state. That was his observation there.
QUESTION: That's how it started?
SECRETARY RUBIO: It is how it started. And I think he's told the story publicly, and that's how all this begin. Look, Canada is our friend; Canada is our neighbor. Canada is our partner. But it goes back to the point I made: For decades, the United States allowed uneven trade imbalances to develop. During the Cold War, you know why we did it? We did it because we felt like we want countries to be strong economically - even if it means they're cheating - because we don't want them to fall victim to some internal Marxist coup that overturns their government or what have you. Those days are gone. These are rich, developed economies. And ultimately, who can argue against the fact that whatever they charge us, we should charge them. Whatever they prohibit - if they don't allow American companies to do it, we should not allow their companies to do it here. American banks can't even operate in Canada.
So there has to be reciprocity here. We can continue to work together on all kinds of things, but whether it's Canada, Mexico, China, anybody else, when it comes to economics and trade, there has to be reciprocity. There has to be fairness. And who would argue - how can anybody argue against that? The days where we just allow countries to take advantage of us - that has to end. That's not good for the global order. That leads to unbalances that create friction points. That's the case with Canada. It's the case with a lot of countries who are our allies and friends, but on trade, we have an imbalance and it has to be dealt with.
QUESTION: Will you open up the State Department briefing room to independent journalists?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes. We're here today. We're here talking to —
QUESTION: I was going to say, Secretary Rubio, you could have given this interview to any reporter - any major corporate outlet - but you chose an independent journalist who posts on X.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but here's my observation: We have to go where the people are, and so we need to communicate with people. We need to be able to - this is their State Department. It's not my State Department. I'll be here for a number of years, and then my job is done, and I'll go back to being a private citizen. But this will always be their State Department. And we're doing - making decisions every day, and they deserve to hear from us. Where are people getting their news and information? That's where we need to be delivering our news and information. I still talk - I just went overseas. We had a bunch of people from different traditional outlets on our trip, and we're not going to exclude them, but we have to be able to communicate people where they're getting their news and information.
What we can't allow to have happen is we can't allow our message to solely be provided through the filter of legacy, traditional media outlets whose - sadly, I don't mean to hurt their - I'm not trying to be mean here - but their readership is down, their viewership is down, their ratings are down. I have - we have to take our message where people are getting their news and information, and in these sort of long-form interviews where you're getting serious questions and can provide answers to nuanced issues, not little sound bites that they run during the cable news hour for news and entertainment purposes. So, we'll engage everybody, but we almost certainly see a greater emphasis on independent journalism because that's where people are getting their news and information.
QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, thank you very much —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: — for the opportunity today, and thank you for acknowledging and supporting independent journalism.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
