Secretary of State Marco Rubio With Sean Hannity of Fox News – United States Department of State
QUESTION: Here with more, joining us is the Secretary of State himself. Marco Rubio is with us. Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking the time. I know you’re busy and you’ve got a lot on your plate. Could we start with the question for those Americans that may not understand why now? I want to go through this in great specificity and detail about the necessity of this.
Now, when the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff came on this program and explained that the Iranians would not negotiate the issue of giving up their nuclear weapons program, bragged about 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium that could be turned into weapons-grade 90 percent in 7 to 12 days – at that point in time, it seemed inevitable to me they were going to – in spite of Midnight Hammer, they were going to cling to that, quote, “inalienable right,” as they called it. Was that the tipping point?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it was one of the tipping points. I mean, part of the tipping point is the fact that Iran has been doing this for 47 years. We know what this regime is all about. I always say Iran. Let me be clear I’m not talking about the people of Iran. The people of Iran don’t even like this government or this regime. This is a regime that is led by radical Shia clerics, by people who believe that it is their calling. I know this sounds fantastical, but it is absolutely true. This is a regime led by people who believe that it is their calling and their purpose in life to usher in the end of the world. These people want nuclear weapons.
Why do we know that? Because they are assembling all the things you need for nuclear weapons. They’re assembling long-range rockets that can eventually reach the United States, can already range Europe. We saw them demonstrate two of them last week despite denying that they had them. They enriched uranium to 60 percent. As you pointed out a moment ago, from 60 to 90 percent, which is what you need for a bomb, takes 12 to 14 days. They’ve bragged about still having that. They demand the right to enrich, which is how you get from 60 to 90 percent. They’re the leading sponsor of terrorism not in the region – in the world.
They can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, which is what President Trump made very clear from the very first day of his presidency, in fact from the very first day of his candidacy. When he came down that escalator in 2015, he talked about this. He’s actually been talking about the threat of Iran before he was even a political candidate. And as president, he was not going to allow Iran to pose a threat to Americans now or future generations of Americans.
So we had to act, and with very clear purpose. We are going to destroy their air force. We have largely done that. We were going to destroy their navy, which we have largely achieved that. We were going to destroy a significant percentage of their missile launchers. We are well on our way to achieving that. And we were going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning the factories that make the drones and the missiles. We are on our way to doing that.
Those were our four objectives because those were the four things they were going to hide behind to then develop a nuclear weapon and threaten the world if they tried to do anything about it. That was not going to happen under President Trump. We are well on our way. We are on or ahead of schedule on each of those four objectives, and we can see the finish line. It’s not today, it’s not tomorrow, but it is coming. We are going to get the point where our military will have achieved all of its objectives in this mission, and they’re doing so with extraordinary efficiency – something that I think will go down in history as one of the best-run tactical military operations in modern times.
QUESTION: We’ll get back to that timeline in a second, because both you and the President have said weeks, it’s not going to be months. One thing I think we’ve learned – and if you can expand on this – because if you have nuclear capability, you also need the delivery system. Prior to Epic Fury, you felt and you were arguing that – and the world has always underestimated Iran’s abilities, whether their nuclear capability or ballistic missile capability – and you felt it was too dangerous a threat not to address in this operation ballistic missiles and the nuclear threat at the same time.
So now we’ve discovered that they have the ability and the range that is much further than we had thought going into this. Apparently, they now have the capability and the range that their missiles could reach Paris, London. Is that true?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That’s correct, in fact, but they denied it. Remember anytime you hear Iran – you had an image a moment ago, this guy Araghchi, their foreign minister – this guy is a liar. This guy was on television like a week ago, two weeks ago, denying that Iran had any missiles that could go beyond a certain limitation, and then they fired two of them. Now, we don’t think they have many of them, but they are soon to have many of them. They had – we’ve destroyed and are destroying the factories to make those things.
Those things, the ones they launched the other day, could reach well into Europe. And actually, they had fired it on Diego Garcia. One of them failed, one of them was shot down, but they fired them at Diego Garcia, which is really far away.
So they were moving towards eventually having a missile that could reach the continental United States. That’s what they were aiming to do. They were aiming to become the next North Korea, except not a North Korea run by a regime that is troublesome and hard to understand, but an Iran run by radical Shia clerics with intercontinental missiles that could reach the mainland of the United States eventually. That’s what they were going towards. That’s what they would have ultimately achieved had the President – had President Trump not taken these steps that he’s taken.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, do you believe the North Koreans – there have been numerous reports that they have been assisting Iran with both their ballistic missile program and their nuclear program.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I can’t comment on that other than to say that there is nothing any government is doing or any country in the world is doing now to help Iran that is in any way impeding our mission. Do they have countries that have helped them in the past? Yes, they have. I mean – and by the way, Iran also helps other countries by providing drones and rockets and things of that nature that they have developed themselves.
But understand this. Iran – this is a country that has trouble coming up with drinking water. This is a country whose economy is in shambles. It’s going to be even worse off after this operation. This is a country whose people have been protesting in the streets because not just the lack of freedom but the lack of economic opportunity because they have taken all of their money – all the money they have, the little money they have because of sanctions – and they have invested all of it in sponsoring terrorism, in building long-range missiles, increasing the range of their missiles every year, and building thousands of them and building these one-way attack drones that they’re using against their neighbors. This is what they’ve put their money towards, and this is what they were going to continue to do. They refused to negotiate on missiles. They refused to even negotiate on terrorism, and they refused to negotiate on down – on enrichment. They demand the right to enrich.
So for all these people out there talking about how this could have been avoided, they were given every opportunity in multiple talks, and all they did is either reject or delay. And that’s not going to happen under President Trump. He is not going to allow Iran to become a nuclear power on his watch and threaten America now or in the future.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I guess the ideal situation would be a negotiated settlement. The President gave and had said publicly over and over again before Midnight Hammer and before Operation Epic Fury, and he’s saying to the people that – the fourth, fifth tier, whatever level of leadership remains – he’s saying to them now he would prefer a negotiated settlement.
Now, apparently they have some power, because they promised the President that they would allow 20 specific tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and my understanding is those tankers made it through. So they must have some degree of power. The difference here is will the fourth, fifth-tier level of leadership, will they be smarter than tier one, two, and three, and will they make the deal or will they be facing death themselves in the near future.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, we can’t ignore that for 47 years, they’ve avoided and rejected any effort to negotiate. That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying. The President of the – President Trump always, always would rather have negotiations than war, and he will always – I mean, we gave them 60 days early last year. We gave them additional time to negotiate after Midnight Hammer again earlier this year. But each and every time, those things have proved fruitless.
But we’re going to keep trying. There are messages being exchanged, there are talks going on, there is the potential for direct meeting at some point. We’re always going to be open for that. But we’re not going to be – we’re not – what President Trump is not going to allow is he is not going to allow fake negotiations to be used as a delay tactic to buy more time, to buy themselves space. That’s what he’s not going to allow. The Biden administration spent four years – four years – trying to resurrect the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. They spent four years trying to talk to the Iranians, and they strung them along for four years. And I think they thought they could string this administration along for four years, but they’re not going to string along President Trump. He’s not going to fall for their games. He hasn’t fallen for their games.
So we’ll always be prepared to talk, but we’re not going to allow that or the failure of talks to impede our ability to defend this country and to protect this country from a real threat. It’s a threat to the world. It’s not just a threat to America. The difference is President Trump is the only leader in the world with both the capability and, frankly, the guts to do something about it.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, let’s go back to the 60 percent enriched uranium. Clearly, that can never end up in the wrong hands. That would be an existential threat to the world, to the United States specifically here. So either they’re going to give that up willingly, or can we entomb it? I’ve been reading a lot of articles about that possibility. Or is it something if they don’t agree to give it up willingly that we will just have to take possession of on our own?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I’m not going to discuss tactics or options that are available to the President. I will say that this is a very – there is no – there is no use for 60 percent enriched uranium. I know we’re getting a little technical here, but there is no use for it. You don’t use it to create electricity, you don’t use it to create anything for medical purposes. The only reason to have 60 percent enriched uranium is to be able to enrich it to 90 percent and put it in a bomb. That’s the only reason to have it. Iran has no reason to have it. They should either – they should give it up. They’ve been given multiple opportunities to give it up. They’ve had multiple countries, including countries they consider friendly to them, approach them and say turn it over to us. They continue to refuse to do so.
So why do they continue to refuse to turn over 60 percent enriched uranium? There’s only one reason, and that is because they want to hold it and keep it to one day use it to build a bomb. That’s the only way – and they were going to hide behind all of these missiles, all of these drones, their navy and their air force. They were going to keep building those up to the point where then they would say to the world you can’t do anything about it because we’ll launch these missiles against you and destroy you.
Look, this is the weakest Iran has ever been. This is the weakest Iran certainly has been in 25 years, right now. Look at the damage they have been able to inflict on their neighbors at their weakest point. Imagine two years from now when they had had the opportunity to build – to double the number of missiles they had, to double the number of drones they had. Imagine that. That was not going to happen. The President was not going to allow that to happen. That’s why he took action.
And again, I want to remind – because I hear these news reports and it’s very frustrating, that we don’t know what the objectives are. The objectives are very clear. I want to repeat them again, and we’re going to achieve all four of them: We’re going to destroy their air force – we already have done it; we’re going to destroy their navy – we’ve largely done that; we’re going to destroy their factories that make these missiles and these drones; and we are going to destroy their – we are going to severely degrade their missile launchers so that they can’t fire these multiple salvos against their neighbors and threaten us, threaten our troops in the region, and threaten our allies in the region. And we are well on our way to achieving all four of those objectives. Those objectives will be achieved. They’ll be achieved here very soon.
QUESTION: Let’s talk about the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty percent of the world’s oil supply passes through there on a daily basis. You have steadfastly said they will not be allowed to have a tolling system where they get to charge countries to pass through – millions of dollars – number one; and number two, this is about the free flow of oil at market prices. This is critical to the world’s economy, obviously, not so much the American economy. And that brings up the issue of NATO, which I’ll get to in a – in a second. How important and how do you determine whether or not that it will be okay for U.S. forces to withdraw, knowing and having confidence that the strait will be open for the free flow of oil?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the Straits of Hormuz, those are international waters, right? So anything Iran does to impede commercial traffic is illegal. For all these countries that love to talk about international law, it is a violation of international maritime law to impede the free flow of travel in international waters, okay? So that’s number one.
Number two, it’s illegal to bomb and hit and attack commercial shipping and sink them. I mean, that’s what the Nazis did during World War II in the Atlantic, and that’s what they’re doing now to ships that they – from countries they don’t like, that are flagged by countries they don’t like. These are terroristic acts that they’re undertaking.
And so the United States gets very little energy through the Straits of Hormuz. Our allies ship out a lot of oil through there, meaning our Gulf allies, and certainly countries in Asia and Europe depend on it. We depend very little on the strait. So this – if in fact Iran decides to set up a toll, if in fact Iran decides that they are going to illegally control the Straits of Hormuz or decide they’re going to try to do that, look, I imagine that’ll be the President’s call whether he wants to help, but this is a problem for the world. It’s countries around the world should be stepping up and dealing with that and saying that’s intolerable. And that’s what we’ve encouraged them to do.
QUESTION: Let me ask you about NATO. You said that our NATO Allies have been disappointing. Specifically, I know you’re talking about Spain, Great Britain, France, even Italy now, and that after all of this is done, we will re-examine this relationship, and especially when it comes to we pay two-thirds of the freight when it comes to NATO defense. And if it’s just, quote, “about us defending Europe,” you said, at this point, how do we call that – and we can’t have our landing rights in European nations, our Allies, at a time when we need them, what good is that Alliance? And is the NATO Alliance at risk?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Sean, I’ve been one of the strongest defenders of NATO during my time as a United States senator because I found great value in it. And it wasn’t just about defending Europe. I said it also allowed us to have military bases in Europe that allowed us to project power into different parts of the world when our national security was threatened.
If now we have reached a point where the NATO Alliance means that we can’t use those bases, that in fact – that we can no longer use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street; then NATO is simply about us having troops in Europe to defend Europe, but when we need their help – not their help – we’re not asking them to conduct airstrikes. When we need them to allow us to use their military bases, their answer is no? Then why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question: Why do we have billions and billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars, over the years trillions of dollars, and all these American forces stationed in the region if we can only use them, we can – when in our time of need we’re not going to be allowed to use those bases?
So I think there is no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded we are going to have to re-examine that relationship. We’re going to have to re-examine the value of NATO and that Alliance for our country. Ultimately, that’s a decision for the President to make, and he’ll have to make it. We’re going to finish the job here. As I said, we are very, very close to achieving our objectives on all of these things that I’ve outlined.
But I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to re-examine whether or not this Alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose, or is it now become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe, but when we need the help of our Allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and they’re going to deny us overflight. I think these are very legitimate questions that we need to be asking, and these are going to have be very carefully examined after this conflict is over.
QUESTION: We pay two-thirds of that budget. We spend nearly a trillion dollars a year.
I’d be negligent while I have you if I didn’t ask for an update on Venezuela. You met earlier today with the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado. Right now, Delcy Rodríguez seems to have been working well with the U.S. And if you can give us an update on Cuba, which seems – its fall seems somewhat imminent.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, on Venezuela you remember we had a three-prong plan. The first was stabilization. We didn’t want the country having a mass migration. We didn’t want civil war. We didn’t want upheaval in the streets. That’s largely been achieved. In fact, we have not seen any of that.
The second is a phase of recovery. And that’s what we’re in – the recovery phase – right now, where you’re seeing not just economical recovery going on in Venezuela, but you’re also seeing an economic recovery in a way that’s good for the United States. I mean, they are shipping all of that oil to our refineries, and that money is being – the profits from that is being deposited into bank accounts controlled by the United States Treasury, and the money is going to the benefit of the Venezuelan people, not being stolen.
Part of that recovery is you’ve seen hundreds of political prisoners freed. You’ve seen this very infamous jail that they were putting all the political prisoners has been closed. It’s only been three months. What’s been achieved in Venezuela in just three months is nothing short of extraordinary.
Ultimately, there will have to be a transition phase. There will have to be free and fair elections in Venezuela, and that point has to come. And that has to – it’s not forever, but we have to be patient, but we also can’t be complacent. And so I feel very good about the progress we’ve made in Venezuela in three months. And all the doomsdayers that were saying after Maduro was taken prisoner as he should have been and brought to justice that all these things were going to go terribly wrong, well, I think they need admit that they were wrong. So far so good in – over the last three months in Venezuela.
The case of Cuba is actually tragic. Cuba has a economic model that wouldn’t work anywhere in the world. They don’t have an economic model. They don’t have an economy in Cuba. There literally is no economy. And sadly, the people in charge of the apparatus of government there are both incompetent and unable to solve these problems.
So I think Cuba is need of two things – economic reforms and political reform. You cannot fix their economy if you don’t change their system of government. And – but they’re in a lot of trouble, there’s no doubt about it, and we’ll have more news on that fairly soon. We’re working on that as well.
QUESTION: And you stand by weeks, not months, away from this conflict coming to an end, sir?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes. Yeah, I think we’re very close to achieving our objectives. I don’t want to put a timeline on it, but we can see the finish line, the finish line meaning we will have achieved all of the objectives that the President outlined. And those are important because if we achieve those objectives we will make it nearly impossible for Iran to have a nuclear weapon anytime in the near future.
And the world will be a safer place, and our country will be safer, which is the number-one job the President has – to keep Americans safe. President Trump will always keep Americans safe, and that’s what he’s doing now, and thank God he’s doing it because multiple American presidents had the opportunity to do something about it and either did nothing or made it worse.
QUESTION: All right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, thank you for being with us.