Reporter Presses Marco Rubio To Reveal Details Of Talk With Russian FM Sergey Lavrov

Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary, Alex Rappoport. This better be a good question because I wasn't going to call him. Go ahead. Just a follow-up on what you just said on Lavrov. Can you give us a better sense of your interaction with Lavrov this time? My what? Your interaction with Lavrov. Well, we didn't have a meeting. We spoke. I mean, we spoke about, you know, but we didn't have a meeting. Thank you. We spoke just briefly about the opportunity for our leaders to potentially interact at APEC next month. And we spoke about, you know, There was no firm commitments about G20, but we didn't have a meeting. What makes you believe that negotiated peace is achievable? Thanks so much. Well, I don't know if negotiated peace is achievable in Ukraine. That's what we're trying to find out. I'm at work. But I don't think anyone here is claiming that we're on the verge of a negotiated settlement. I think what I can say to you is that the United States, you know, we have people that basically, you know, Jared and Steve, as an example, work on this portfolio almost full time between that and Iran. That's all they focus on. They don't focus on the Quad. They don't focus on Western Hemisphere. They focus on that. And we've invested, to say we've invested a lot of high-level attention to that topic. But, you know, we're going to continue to try and see if we can reach an agreement. But I'm not here to tell you we're on the verge of one, but hopefully we are. But today, you know, we didn't have any meetings about that at this G20 gathering. Okay, in this row right here. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I wanted to ask you if the United States helped Flávio Bolsonaro flee Brazil, and if you had had any engagement with the foreign minister of Brazil here in Atlanta. Yeah, I saw him here today. We talked yesterday as well. I think we'll see each other in France. I think he's attending. Brazil's an observer at the G7. They were there, so we'll see them in France in a few weeks. We didn't facilitate anything. I mean, we had word that he arrived at In the United States, he had previously held a visa and the President made a decision to allow him to enter the country, which we did, but we were not involved in any of the arrangements he made in terms of leaving the country, at least the U.S. government was not involved directly in any of the moves that were made, but the President made clear that if he arrived in the United States in a port of entry that he would be paroled into the country, and he was. Okay? Back row, right there. Yes, ma'am. You? Yeah. You sound surprised. It's a press conference. Are you ready? Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. Do you think a limited ceasefire regarding Black Sea shipping and grains is more likely now than before following this conference? Yeah, I'm not an odds maker. I wouldn't say more or less likely. I would say there's interest in facilitating it. And by the way, it's not new. Like, Turkey, for example, has been consistently and at one point did have an agreement in place in the past that then, of course, fell apart. So I wouldn't say it's – I don't want to put or prognosticate the chances of it. I do think it's having an impact on many countries around the world. You heard that expressed today. The African continent in particular is paying a high price for it, and there's an energy component to it as well. So I really hate to put, like, odds because in foreign policy in particular, odds are a hard thing to set. But I do think there's an incredible amount of interest in facilitating something that we have. Nation states that are involved, and India has also expressed an interest in perhaps floating some ideas. And so we're open to that. We've been talking to countries, but I can't give you odds as to how likely it is to happen. We'd like to see it happen. It doesn't solve the war problem, but at least it diminishes some of the spillover impact that it's having on the food security of vulnerable countries. Okay, yes. Did I already get you? No, okay. Can we start putting like a little sticker on people when I call them? I can't, like, the lights make it hard for me to see. Marco Valerio from Rai, Italian National TV. Ah, Italy. My question is, in your speech in Athens, you call for a revival of Western democratic values. Yes. And I was wondering, when it comes to food crisis or Ukrainian crisis, is there any of those values that the U.S., along with the Europeans, is trying to uphold in finding a solution on the Ukrainian crisis? Well, I think primarily, look, obviously, but, I mean, at the end of the day, Today, I think the Ukrainian... Russian issue is pretty singular right now, which is we're trying to stop a very deadly war in which, on the one hand, Kiev every single night is facing devastating attacks against its energy infrastructure, but also increasing number of civilians being killed. And even on the Russian side, you know, you're seeing 20,000 Russians killed a month. It's a very deadly and destructive war. And every month that goes by, you're just adding. Think about how long it's going to take when this stops. How long is it going to take Ukraine to rebuild its economy, rebuild its energy grid? We also think it's very costly for Russia as well. So right now, I mean, yes, I mean, ultimately, I think embedded in all of this is values that we care a lot about, but the primary value we care about is it's not really very complicated. There's a very nasty war going on, very destructive war, what appears to be in some ways of a stalemate that has the threat of escalation and spreading into other places. We already see some of the ancillary effects of this crisis, as an example, the Black Sea, I would like to see as an example some of these irregular ...efforts that sabotage that have spread into other countries. Drones that are being launched that are being intercepted by electronic means and so they wander into the airspace of a NATO country. There's a lot of danger involved in that as well. So from us, the singular focus is how can we, is there an opportunity for the United States, because we talk to both sides, to be able to facilitate a negotiated end to a very deadly, very costly, and very destructive war. And that's... That's really what we're focused on. And that's a pretty ambitious desire. Everyone has encouraged us. In every meeting we have, no matter what, be it the Europeans or others, we are encouraged to remain involved and engaged in this. And so we've remained involved and engaged. But that's really what we're focused on there. I don't know how that ties into the speech I gave. Yes. Behind. Well, go ahead. I feel bad I pointed at you. Go ahead. We didn't have that more than one mic, guys, this is, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, Paris Wong, Voice America. Did you get a chance to convey the U.S.'s commitment to Taiwan and Ukraine to your Chinese and Russian counterparts? Also, did you also get a chance to talk about the potential bilateral meeting in APEC or even in Miami? Which bilateral? I'm sorry. Between President Trump, President Xi, and President Putin. Well, there will most certainly be a bilateral meeting at both. I mean, they'll meet in addition to being a part of these forums. I'm certain that we'll meet with regards to that, so we didn't discuss it. There was brief conversations about arrangements for both the attendance at G20 and at APEC, so we talked about that, but that was the gist of it. I mean, ultimately, the point of this gathering, as I said, is we want... It's not that geopolitical issues wouldn't be discussed at G20, because I'm sure they are, and there were a lot of other bilateral meetings going on that we were not involved in between the different countries we were here, and it's why we structured the agenda the way we did, to leave plenty of time for some of these countries to interact with one another So I can't speak to all of those meetings, but the core of this meeting and the core of what the President's vision has been for G20 is to bring the G20, which is primarily an economic forum, back to its core principle and purpose. And that's what we tried to address in the agenda we outlined today. That doesn't mean that geopolitical issues weren't discussed on the sidelines by different countries, but that's what we focused on in both our agenda and in our engagements.