Secretary Rubio delivers remarks to the press

I gotta be quick guys. I got a phone call. Did they tell you guys? Did they tell you I had a phone call waiting? Thank you for waiting for us. I can't believe that. Mr. Secretary, there is this report out just now that you think he is going to be investigating the CEO, Jensen Huang. The New York Times reported that you had concerns about his relationship with the Chinese side. Could you bring us up to date as to if Jensen Huang was cut out of any U.S. government meetings or any briefings as a result? I just can't comment because of the nature of it. And I also can't comment on an internal... I'm not in the political office, as you know, I just don't comment on domestic politics. Sorry to be less than exciting with regards to that. It's a new thing for me. You don't have to have me spend 14 years doing it. But I think this role is best done for the most part when you don't engage yourself in domestic politics. I think it's been a long-standing tradition. Um, so. Well, I'm not going to comment on the war, or I'm sorry, on the election, which is what you're asking me about. All I can tell you is that the President of the United States identified a very real threat to this country that's existed for a very long period of time, and he addressed it. And he addressed it, even though oftentimes the right thing to do for the country is confronting difficult challenges for the security of our country. Doing it isn't necessarily popular, but necessary. At the end of the day, I think we can all agree, I think there's bipartisan, I would hope there's bipartisan, maybe not anymore, but there used to be bipartisan acknowledgement that a nuclear Iran would be completely unacceptable and dangerous for the United States. Not just Israel, not just the Middle East, the whole world and the United States. So I think the President took on something that other Presidents have failed to do. And sometimes when you do the right thing, I don't know if it's popular or not, but it's the right thing to do and Presidents are elected to do the hard things, sometimes difficult things, but necessary things. Do you believe the cost of the war was worth the electoral blowout? I told you, I'm not going to comment on the electoral... I just don't have any opinion on what happened in the election. Two kind of active, two more, two more strikes. Well, the U.S. acts defensively. There's a threat to our forces in the region. We will act against those. There's a threat to shipping. We've been defending shipping for a while. So there's a clear and present threat to shipping or to our forces in the region. We have a right to defend ourselves. So all of that is determined by the threat level and whether they're coming after us or potentially coming after us. I mean, that's just normal. The President quoted this idea sometime a year or two ago. Well, if you remember, well, there'll be talks tomorrow, starting tomorrow in Abu Dhabi. Oh, I'm sure. Well, because here's why. The entirety of the time we've been talking about Russia and Ukraine, the one thing that's repeatedly come up is the need for security guarantees. What is the post-war security infrastructure of Ukraine and more broadly of the European continent going to look like? It's one of the key topics that's been raised repeatedly in every conversation, any time negotiations have been discussed. So I think that's what the President's alluding to, is that there's been some advances made in what that architecture could look like post-conflict. We obviously have to get past the conflict to get to that point. So there's been talks about that, I think the President was briefed on that on Thursday or Friday last week. Some of the initial thoughts that are out there, nothing's been finalized yet, and maybe some progress can be made in Abu Dhabi. Mr. Secretary, I know you don't want to comment on the elections, but your allies are going to have more, because it's the first opportunity that you all meet at the G7, after the election. We have national elections in our country every two years. I have been now... I guess going to 2011 when I was sworn in as a senator, so I've watched these things and even in my time in the legislature, it is not uncommon to have a division of power in this country, we've seen it before, we've seen elections go one direction and a couple of years later go another, it's just a feature of our system. So I've been in the minority, I've been in the majority with regards to being in the Senate. I've been in the majority with a Republican president, I've been in the minority with a Democrat president. I think I've had every iteration of it. And the Republican doors have been closed. So we'll do our work, we'll continue to do our work. Congress will do theirs. I hope they do it in a way that's responsible and focused on issues that are important to our country and our people. But that's our system of government. Many of our allies will be aware of it. They too We, too, have experienced divisions in government and divisions in our own system. We'll have elections again in two more years, and they could look very different, or they could look the same, I don't know. But this is the way our system works. Is there a particular message you're looking to bring to allies on this trip? With regards to this trip, well, they have an agenda, as the French have said. Obviously, we'll be talking about superintelligence. We'll be talking about some of the global conflicts. I'm sure they'll have a lot of questions about the status of affairs in the Middle East with regards to Iran. I think there'll be, obviously, a conversation. The Ukrainians are joining us. The media will be there. So I'm sure that topic will come up. And I think they'll be curious to know if any progress is being made in the technical talks that are ongoing in Abu Dhabi. And then I imagine there's a host of other issues they'll want to discuss, but the agenda, you'll see it. I mean, it's been laid out, some of the topics they want to raise and talk about. You're going to France. Is there any worry about the protests that are happening there? No, I mean, I trust our people. We asked our people, obviously, if there was a problem. I think they would tell us. So we've got to work must continue. Thank you. Thank you. France has the presidency. I think this is probably the last meeting of the G7 under the presidency in terms of foreign And I think we'll host it next year. Yeah, a lot of people say it's fine, I believe in it. Any diplomatic progress with Iran towards drawing a diplomatic end to the war? I don't have any progress reports to report to you. I think you see some of these things that are out there. You have a number of countries that continue to engage them with different ideas. But I wouldn't say we're on the verge of a breakthrough. The president would always prefer to solve this and every problem diplomatically. Sometimes that's not possible, unfortunately. But if there's a chance to do it, we'll explore it. Right now, it hasn't been very productive because the Iranian demands are simply not just unacceptable, but in some cases, racist and ridiculous and really not realistic. All right? I think I'll do my comment. How's it on Haiti right now? On Haiti? Yeah, the Salvadorian deployments that have gone in there. The President said, you know, he kind of greenlit that. But is the U.S. providing any support? And are you concerned that — No, I mean, the — well, I think — no, I mean, the Salvadorians are providing their own airlift. So there's two things going on in Haiti. We have the gang suppression force, which is the U.N. mission. And they have forces of, I think, about 100 soldiers that are a part of that. And that's what we've been engaged in. And then there's a separate mission, which they've taken on bilaterally in agreement with the Haitian officials. To go after the gangs that kidnapped their forces that were there, their soldiers that were there. So that's a separate mission. He called the president and made him aware of what he was doing. The president understood why he was doing it, but we're not necessarily, we're not actively involved in that at all. Does it potentially undermine the gang suppression force that you have? No, as long as... You have the private security contractors, there's a lot of people on the ground working. No, as long as the chain of command is well established, who's working for who. And I think they'll have to, and we've raised this point, not be it's a criticism, it's just an observation. We have to make clear, we have to make sure that there's deconfliction going on. What you can't have is gang suppression force running into Salvadorian soldiers and shooting at each other because they think the other side are gang members. So that's why you'll need a deconfliction mechanism. You'll need a lot of strong coordination because they're operating alongside one another. So we pointed that out and But I don't think it necessarily has to be a conflict. Okay? Don't give the blip. We're going to have to return those dogs to the fight. We're now into the fifth month. Thank you. Period. Period. The fourth month. Or unless they can get them to change their mind and agree to reform, as they should. They should make very clear that they do not. We still have elements of the ICC who claim that they have jurisdiction over citizens that are not of non-member states. And we're never going to accept that when it comes to Americans. It's as simple as that. We've been clear on that for a year and a half. We've made no progress trying to get them to make that clear in their reforms. They refuse to do so, so we're taking action. That's it. Is that what you want to see in the ICC, while you're online? Yeah, I mean, at this point, you know, we've made clear to them where we stand on it and how we feel about it, and we've asked them if they don't want us to take these actions against the ICC, then they should convince the ICC to wake up and realize that they do not have jurisdiction over citizens of countries that are not members. Especially leaders or service members of countries that are not members of the treaty. What's the point of the treaty if they claim universal jurisdiction without limitation and outside the treaty? Then they're way outside the bounds of the mandate that they may have from these other countries that are members of it. So, it's very simple. If they want to avoid the actions we are going to take against the ICC, they should convince the ICC once and for all to do the things that are necessary to ensure that no American service member or leader If ever has jurisdiction from the ICC placed on them, because that's illegitimate. It's an illegitimate action, and they refuse to acknowledge that. So we'll do what we need to do if they don't do it. So how big a problem would it be if the appropriate Washington DC goes ahead and blocks the enforcement? I'm not going to tell you. We have our way. We'll get through it. The ICC will not be in good shape if we have to hit them, and we will if we have to. But look, they still have a chance. Maybe they'll wake up and realize that their dreams of being some universal court of jurisdiction over everyone, including countries that didn't sign up, maybe they'll abandon those ridiculous dreams. We'll see. We're on it. Okay, thanks, Jen. Thank you.