Marco Rubio is the U.S. Secretary of State and a key cabinet member in the Trump administration. He is a primary architect of the administration's foreign policy, notably leading diplomatic and pressure campaigns against the Cuban regime while clarifying strategic war aims regarding Iran. Additionally, he has been a central figure in hostage recovery efforts and high-stakes international negotiations.
“The people of Cuba are suffering today. They’ve been suffering for a long time. They’re suffering now, perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, perhaps in the history since 1959. This is the worst economic climate that Cuba has faced, and it is the authorities there in that government who are responsible for that.”
“No, it’s always been legal to sell to the private sector in Cuba, okay? These are – these would not be sales to the government. These would not be sales to the military-owned GAESA, the company. These would be sales to a very small private sector that exists in Cuba, and that’s always been legal.”
“We are not going to base our conclusions on what they’ve told us. And I am very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here and we will know it soon, and then we’ll respond appropriately based on what that information tells us.”
“This is the worst economic climate that Cuba has faced, and it is the authorities there in that government who are responsible for that. They are the ones that have made decisions that have left Cuba vulnerable to the situation they’re now in.”
“I want you to understand and everyone should know that Iran poses a very grave threat to the United States and has for a very long time. Beyond just the nuclear program they possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America.”
“Well, I won’t speculate as to how far away they are, but they are certainly trying to achieve – and this is not new. They are trying to achieve intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
“As we speak, they possess thousands of short-range ballistic missiles that can reach U.S. bases located in the region – in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in Bahrain, in the United Arab Emirates, throughout the region. It’s a threat that exists already.”
“The status quo is unsustainable... Cuba needs to change. It needs to change dramatically because it is the only chance that it has to improve the quality of life for its people.”
“But when you say we want to enrich and we want to enrich deep underground... that doesn’t sound to me like someone who’s a country that’s not interested in building weapons. So it’s not just the rhetorical; it’s the actions to back the rhetoric.”
“But Cuba needs to change. It needs to change dramatically because it is the only chance that it has to improve the quality of life for its people and not lose 15 percent of its population since 2021.”
“I won’t comment on the intelligence picture, but I can tell you that there’s reason to believe that they, given the opportunity, will return to enrichment one day. They’ve been set back, so it’s – but they can – if they try to rebuild it, we’ll have to address it.”
“We don’t want to walk away from – we know that, at the end, that war in Ukraine does not have a military solution. That war will be settled through a negotiation, and right now we are the only country in the world that can be a catalyst for negotiation.”
“We know that, at the end, that war in Ukraine does not have a military solution. That war will be settled through a negotiation.”
“I think we’ve reached a point at least of sort of strategic stability in the relationship. I think both countries concluded that having an all-out trade – global trade war between the United States and China would be deeply damaging to both sides and to the world.”
“For any sort of agreement, a nuclear agreement, in the 21st century to be legitimate, it has to involve these three countries, the United States, Russia, and China.”
“Well, we think ultimately, in the 21st century, for there to be a true arms control agreement it has to involve China. Their stockpiles have increased dramatically. Their position, that they would argue that they’re still way behind the United States and Russia, we think that’s irrelevant. They certainly have the capacity to catch up and are well on their way to doing so. So we believe, the President strongly believes, that any – for any sort of agreement, a nuclear agreement, in the 21st century to be legitimate, it has to involve these three countries, the United States, Russia, and China.”
“The other thing with the Cuban medical program is the fact that these people are working – basically, it’s human trafficking. I mean, they’re barely even being paid. Their freedom of movement is tightly restricted. And we want these countries to understand that that’s what they’re participating in.”
“And the goal of this entity would be to get on the ground and allow the Haitian authorities to hold territory from these gangs so you can have a baseline of stability that allows you to do two things: number one, rebuild the country without having to go through roads that have checkpoints run by these criminal gangs; and number two, hold elections, perhaps later this year.”
“But this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity. Meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.”
“we got intelligence that Israel was going to strike. though we had to join preemptive action otherwise we would have been uh behind the eightball and he would have Rubio said you guys would have been doing hearings about why we didn't join with Israel in this attack.”
“No. Did you Were you the one that cuz somebody asked me a question yesterday? Did we go in because of Israel? And I said you were asking me you that followup and I said no. I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“He has appointed Secretary Noem as the special envoy dedicated to this relationship. And you will see a lot of her; she’ll be very involved with each of you at a personal level.”
“Secretary of State Rubio testified to Congress to comply with the War Powers Resolution, notifying Congress of what was going on. The biggest thing that has come out of that is that uh he said that the United States actually had planned significantly heavier attacks in the days and weeks to come and that he expected the entire conflict to last four to five weeks.”
“With US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that quote the hardest hits are yet to come and Trump projecting four to 5 weeks more of the campaign at a minimum.”
“I want to thank Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his leadership in organizing this really important summit he's fantastic He's he's a fantastic Secretary of State.”
“It's why I believe he will go down as the most historic figure in in one of the most historic figures in American history. and certainly uh of the last hundred years because of what he has been able to do”
“There absolutely was an imminent threat and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believed they would be attacked that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”
“Our objective is about putting a firm and absolute end to Iran's nuclear capabilities, to its ballistic missile capabilities, to stopping its funding and financing and supporting of its proxies outside of Iran. And not a mention of this being about regime change.”
“There's two reasons why. Now, the first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.”
“It is to destroy the ability of this regime to launch missiles both by destroying their missiles and their launchers. Destroy the factories that make these missiles and destroy their navy.”
“Some are calling Cuba striker a plan in which the US would loosen sanctions on energy ports and tourism and allow direct American investment in exchange for a negotiated political exit for President Miguel Diaz Canal.”
“we see Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that the war aims are very clear. It is about Iran's navy and its destruction and its ballistic missiles”
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attempted to justify the preventive strike against Iran by saying, quote, 'We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces...'”
“The bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a nonfunctional economy.”
“And the people in charge are in they they don't know how to fix it. So, they have to get new people in charge.”