FULL SPEECH: Secretary Rubio Fields Press Questions at Homestead Air Reserve Base - 11/08/26

I got to be quick. I got a phone call. Did they tell you guys? Did they tell you I had a phone call waiting? Yes. With who? I can't tell you that. It's a secret. Mr. Secretary, there's this report out just now that NVIDIA is going to be investigating CEO Jensen Huang. The New York Times reported that you had concerns about his relationship with the Chinese side. Can you bring us up to date as to if Jensen Huang was cut out of any U.S. government meetings? Yeah, I can't comment on any of that. I just can't comment because of the nature of it. And I also can't comment on an internal corporate matter that's going on with NVIDIA, as you highlight. I don't know anything about that part of it, so... I'm not in a political office, as you know. I just don't comment on domestic politics. I'm sorry to be less than exciting with regards to that. It's a new thing for me, you know, after having spent 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, so... Well, I'm not going to comment on the war, or I'm sorry, on the elections, 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, 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 Do you think the cost of the war was worth the electoral blowout? I told you I'm not going to comment on electoral... I just don't have any opinion on what happened in the elections. On two kind of active conflicts you have now, there's going to be more strikes on Special Island and Eastern. Well, the U.S. acts defensively. If there's a threat to our forces in the region, we will act against those. If there's a threat to shipping, we've been defending shipping for a while, so if 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. It's important. I mean, that's just normal. And then on Ukraine, Russian Ukraine, the president floated this idea of some kind of European-wide security pact. 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. Tomorrow, when Jared and Steve will be there, I think they're on their way there right now. Mr. Secretary, I know you don't want to comment on the election, but... But you're going to ask me anyway. But your allies are going to ask me because it's the first opportunity that you all meet. We have elections. We have national elections in our country every two years. I have been now... I've been involved, I guess, going since 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 tourism continues. 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, but they too have experienced divisions in government and divisions in their own systems. 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. Any particular message you're looking to bring to allies on this trip? Amen. With regards to this trip? Well, they have an agenda, that 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 status of affairs. In the Middle East, with regards to Iran, I think there'll be obviously conversation. The Ukrainians are joining us. Saba 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. Um, 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 pretty, it's been laid out some of the topics they want to raise and talk about. So you're going to France. Is there any worry about the protests that are happening there? No, I mean, I trust our people. I mean, we ask our people, obviously if there was a problem, I think they would tell us. So, um, we got to the work must continue, right? And the Francis has the presidency. I think this is probably the last meeting of the G7 under their presidency in terms of the foreign ministers. And I think we'll host it next year. So, um... Yeah, if our people say it's fine, I believe them. Any diplomatic progress with Iran for drawing a diplomatic end to the war? I don't have any progress 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 at 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, outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic. All right. Let me go do my call. On Haiti. I hate it. 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? I mean, you can say. No, I mean, 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 UN mission, and they have... ...forces, I think about 100 soldiers that are a part of that, and that's what we've been engaged in supporting. We don't have troops there, but we've been engaged. 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, and the president understood why he was doing it. But we're not... We're not necessarily, we're not actively involved in that effort. Does it potentially undermine the gang suppression force that you have? 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 because it's a criticism, just as an observation, we have to make clear, we have to make sure. That there's de-confliction going on, what you can't have is, you know, 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 de-confliction mechanism, you'll need a lot of strong coordination because they're operating alongside one another. So we pointed that out. But I don't think it necessarily has to be a conflict. Okay? Don't miss the point. Yeah. We're now into the fifth month period before the sanctions begin on the court itself. What is your demand of your allies still that they withdraw from the run? 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. You still have elements of the ICC who claim that they have jurisdiction over citizens that are 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 refused to do so, so we're taking action. That's it. Is that what you want to see in writing by your allies? 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. 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 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 they had both blocked each of the EU goes ahead and blocks the force from them? I'm not concerned. We have our ways. 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, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.