SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you very much. Thank you. I didn't know I was speaking. And you know I'm shy in front of audiences, so I apologize. (Laughter.) I don't like to speak that much, but first of all, thank you for those kind words. I'll have more to say about that in a moment. I'm of course also happy that my wife Jeanette is here. This lifetime achievement award or lifetime leadership award is a little scary because it's like that's it, you're over, it's done. Usually they give it to you at the end, not - (laughter) - but because you don't know what I'm going to do in the next three years. Maybe you'll want the award back in a couple years if things don't work out. (Laughter.) I hope not. I hope not.
But thank you. It's an honor to be with you. It's also an honor to be (in Spanish). But more importantly, I'm glad that the president of the Dominican Republic is here so he can go back and say, boy, they really like Marco Rubio back in the United States. (Laughter.) At least in this room, for this time. But thank you. It's an honor to be with you again.
And I was reflecting just for a moment before I came here today, and this - so a couple points. It's a tremendous honor to serve as Secretary of State, and when I joined the administration early on, they said one of the initiatives that we're pursuing is to increase efficiency in government. In essence, they want to be able to do more while spending less or putting less - and for example, they said one of the things we want you to look at is consolidation. Can you take, for example, what today are four jobs and just give them all to one person? (Laughter.) And I said that sounds like a great idea. That's - we should do that across the government. Little did I know they just meant me. (Laughter.) But it is an honor to be here tonight on behalf of the National Archives to speak to all of you. (Laughter and Applause.) And it is - it's actually a really cool job, so anyways.
I think back, and though there's still more work to do, sort of the road that brings me to this point. And even watching that short, brief video a moment ago about Lincoln reminded me of things. So maybe I'll just - it'll make sense to you at the end - I want to share this story with you.
I always had an interest in politics and global affairs, and people say, "Well, what is this interest you've always had in foreign policy and in international relations?" And I'm like, "You've obviously never been to Miami, and - where foreign policy is domestic policy on a daily basis." But I always had an interest in public - listen, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I had some master plan where I was going to start at the city commission in West Miami and 20 or 30 years later wind up as Secretary of State, but I always had an interest in it.
So when I was a college student, as Congresswomen Ros-Lehtinen, as Ileana just pointed out a moment ago, one of the things I wanted to do is say - I mean, get involved in the political process, so I literally - at that time we had these things called hard line telephones that you would pick up and call. It wasn't an email system. And I called my congresswoman from - in fact, she had just been elected in a special election. The first vote I ever cast was for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Applause.) It was an election in 1989.
So in 1991 I called her office and I said - I inquired about - there was an internship program, and they said, well, come in, talk to us. I ended up finding out - it was the - I may have been either your first or your second intern, but it was nascent internship program, and it was in the local office. It was in Blue Lagoon. Remember your Blue Lagoon office? And it was in Blue Lagoon that they burned down - apparently - didn't it burn because somebody left the coffeemaker on? Well after I was gone. It had nothing to do with me. (Laughter.)
But - and I started working there as an intern, and it was only for a few months, and it was very impactful. The first thing I learned just being there - because it's interesting. I guarantee you many of you have done internships or been involved. There's like the TV version of public service, right? And the glamour. And then there's the actual nuts and bolts of it. And literally the nuts and bolts of the office was people would write letters, constituent letters. And back then there wasn't like some form letter that - they would respond to each one of them individually. So part of the intern's job was to go through all these, and Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen would read all these letters. She would read them all. It's a really unbelievable thing to watch.
I will confess now I have never read all your letters. I mean, I couldn't. Now it's too easy to email, so you get a thousand emails to save a bald eagle or 50,000 emails from somebody with a campaign to save a bear or something. But back in that time people had to put a stamp and send it to you, but nonetheless, it was a lot of mail.
And [inaudible] I do recall that she would come by the office, usually on Fridays because of the vote schedules or maybe Mondays, and she'd pick up the stack of letters and - with notes on them, respond this, say that - and leave behind - and then leave behind the stack of letters and take new ones. And let me tell you a couple things that I learned from my time there that really were impactful years later. It in many ways is how I modeled or thought about constituent service in my Senate office.
And now, again, we didn't read 50,000 emails a day or things of that nature, but she had such a commitment to constituent service that - and I don't say this like in a derogatory way, I say this in a very positive way - she could have literally voted any way she wanted in Congress, because by the time her career in public service was just halfway through in the Congress, there's no one she hadn't helped at some point. And I'm talking about the things people would call about like "I have a cruise on Saturday and I forgot to renew my passport." Sounds like a simple thing unless your cruise is on Saturday and you don't have a passport. A lot of immigration things. I remember they had - they were helping people find employment.
Again, this was - and I was only there a few months, and I learned so much from that experience, and it really impacted me. When I came back home in the summer of 1990 - by the way, this is an interesting story - my wife at that time was my girlfriend. I had just met her, so June, July of that year. You don't even know this story. (Laughter.) One of the - do you remember this? One of the first times I asked her, she went with me as a volunteer - I was a volunteer on a Saturday - at a fundraiser. I'm just saying that - I'm sure the statute of limitations run out or whatever - (laughter) - but I wasn't a paid staffer. So as a volunteer.
One of her - one of her - I actually even remember the fundraiser. I think it was the second anniversary of your 39th birthday. That's what they called it. (Laughter.) The second anniversary of your 39th birthday, or maybe whatever, the first anniversary of her 39th birthday. And my wife - my girlfriend at the time - sat in at one of - remember this? You had to do the name tags. In fact, I even remember - I think the guest was Olga Guillot.
AUDIENCE: Yes.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Do you remember that fundraiser? It was incredible. This was back in 1991.
Okay, so I go back to college. I come back in the summer of 1992, and I said you know what would be really cool is to work on a campaign. And so I drove to Hialeah, to this strip mall. (Applause.) There's Hialeah people everywhere. They're everywhere. (Laughter.) Even at the Waldorf Astoria there's people from Hialeah. (Laughter.) It's unbelievable.
There was this storefront in Hialeah, and I remember - the thing I remember about it, it was in - it was in the shopping area where there was a place called Chico's. Remember Chico's? And on the other side of - don't tell me there's nobody here that remembered - that went to Chico's, right? There was - (applause.) All right. (Laughter.) They're making it up. They never went to Chico's. (Laughter.)
And on the other side of that, in the top floor, was a campaign for a state senator named Lincoln Diaz-Balart. He was running for Congress. And I volunteered. I walked in; I met this young lady in the - Ana Carbonell. (Cheers and Applause.) And I volunteered on that campaign, which he ultimately won. It was an incredible - it was an interesting campaign. I remember he had a debate against Javier Soto - great man. Remember this debate? And so this was a great campaign, and we got hit by a hurricane that year, right, or shortly thereafter, and it impacted the elections and what have you. But nonetheless, so I worked this campaign. He gets elected to Congress. I go back to school. I graduate in 1993, and I decide I want to go to law school. I'm about to tell you a story which is true. This is not - I'm not making this up. I'm about - I mean, it sounds like it's fake, but it's not fake. And if it is, you can't prove it's fake anyway. But I'm going to tell you because it's true. (Laughter.)
I go to drop off my admissions, like my application, personally to the University of Miami. And my two letters of recommendation to the law school were Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and now-Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. So now you're thinking, you did have a master plan; that's why you went to - but it really wasn't. It was two people I knew. I dropped it off, and when I get home I get a phone call, and I've been admitted to the University of Miami Law School. Now, maybe the letters had something to do with it. I hope they did. In any event, I go to law school, and this begins in 1993, and time moves on.
We interacted many times over those years in different capacities. I was just a law student. I got elected to the West Miami city commission, and then I get elected to the Florida legislature, where I'm serving for a number of years. Two years before I became speaker, in 2004 to 2006, I got to serve in the Florida legislature and there was a state senator who was serving in the state senate - I think it was one of the first people to do this. But he decided now that term limits had removed him from the state senate, he was going to run for the state house. And I thought, that's very peculiar. Like, you're a state senator and now you're going to go back over to the state house?
As it turns out, he was appointed the chairman of the redistricting committee to draw congressional districts, and then I figured it out, because that's why Mario Diaz-Balart came back to the state house - (laughter) - to draw districts. And - but I had a chance - we sat next to each other on the floor, and he was a huge influence on me.
People say, what is the most important thing you learned from Mario Diaz-Balart? And you know the story I'm about to –
MR DIAZ-BALART: I'm scared. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY RUBIO: So here's the story. The speaker - they always relied on him to carry some of the big bills in addition to his work gerrymandering his district. And - (laughter.) I'm kidding. Is there media here? (Laughter.) It was the old district. It's not the one now. I'm just saying. All right. And so in 2000 - so they would come with him with all these bills and they - you carried - remember, you carried a bunch of bills: civil service reform. Now, I'm going to - and I don't mean this as an insult. This is going to be a compliment; you have to let me finish the story, okay? (Laughter.) Okay, you have to let me finish the story.
But Mario knew nothing about these bills. He knew nothing about the details of the actual legislation. What he knew - remember you - but there's - now here's where the compliment is. (Laughter.) They - they - you'd stand up on the floor of the legislature and they would say, "Representative Diaz-Balart, you're recognized to present your bill." And he would stand up and say, "This bill is about civil service reform. Everybody knows what this is. It's time to vote." (Laughter.) And so some poor Democrat usually - opposition party - would stand up and say, "The time for questions - questions of the sponsor." And somebody would stand up and say, "Oh, I have a question of the sponsor." And they would ask a question, and Mario would say, "This bill has been public for weeks." (Laughter.) "This bill has been known to this whole body for weeks. It is an insult that I would be asked questions about this bill." (Laughter and Applause.) "We need to vote and move on and stop standing in the way of the people's business." And I said, that is a talented guy. (Laughter.)
And so I have used that ever since, and it's worked really well in my career. (Laughter and Applause.) How dare you ask about this treaty? It's none of your business. Vote on the treaty and let's move on. (Laughter.) So in any event, but Mario is also a great friend. And I would actually say that my chances of running for speaker would have been gravely diminished had it not been for his advice and his counsel, and obviously moving on from there to the time here.
We - I never got to serve with Lincoln while he was in the House and I was in the Senate. Obviously Mario is still here, and now we work very closely together because he happens to be the guy who does the appropriations for the foreign relations. And so - but we've worked very closely for many years. In fact, we worked very closely in the first Trump Administration in what ultimately was known as the President's executive order on Cuba, which was a pretty dramatic reset that I think will be looked back at. (Applause.)
And Ileana was here for some period of time while we overlapped a little bit. But I will say this. No, I don't have to do these flights anymore, but I will say this. She seems to fly here as often now as she did when you were in the Congress - (laughter) - so my only guess is that this probably just pays a lot better, what you're - whatever you're doing now, it's just is much more - but she's here all the time but she's an incredible - she's a force of nature and the work she does. (Applause.)
And then, and obviously with Lincoln's passing earlier this year, it was a beautiful funeral, and you learned things about him that I didn't even know. Is Daniel here? Daniel Diaz-Balart? They told me that - (applause) - you did a great job. He really did a great job speaking, and there are a lot of things about him that I didn't even really know. It was - I mean, I knew but I didn't know some of the depths of some of it. An incredible statesman, and someone we really all kind of looked up to as someone who made a real difference in some of the bills that he passed that we look back at now. And we're not fully - it's interesting. Again, this is - I don't mean this as an insult to anyone who's involved in politics today. I almost wonder if you could achieve today what he achieved during his time in Congress.
And I'm going to explain to you why. Because he was a guy of action. I mean, he was here because he wanted to make policy. And I think today we've entered a political culture where sometimes what's rewarded is the celebrity. Can you post some provocative thing online? Can you get a five-minute - a five-second clip that gets replayed on social media of you screaming at a witness? And he did some of that, especially with the - but he just worked and passed legislation. I mean meaningful legislation. So did Ileana. These are important things that changed the lives of thousands of people. And that's just not rewarded today in politics the way it once was, and so I hope we don't lose that. But it's hard to emulate the career he had.
But here's the point I tried to make in all of this, an organization like this that's interested in leadership. There is someone probably interning now or volunteering on a campaign now or sitting next to you now or perhaps working alongside you now in some capacity who, through your opportunities that you've given them, you're opening doors for them that will lead to something in the future - maybe in business and maybe in politics.
I can tell you with certainty that I don't believe that I could have had not just the success but the opportunities I have had, had it not been for the fact that I had an opportunity to intern or an opportunity to volunteer on a campaign. And by the way, the people you meet - do you know how many of the I met working in those offices or working on that campaign or even working in the Florida legislature that to this day I interact with? Some are still in government or some are not. And I do think as much as anything else, when you talk about CHLI what you're talking about is the empowerment of young people who have a desire to in some way contribute to public service.
And certainly when you expose people to these things, when you expose them to the network of other people that they meet - because relationships are everything in life and most certainly in politics - when you allow them to expand their horizon so they can see what the opportunities are and maybe even discover new areas of passion or interest that they never knew about, these are truly seeds that over time bear fruit.
And so it's great to stand here. As I said, it's always flattering to receive an award and be recognized - you were speaker, you were a member of the Senate, you were the chairman of this, you're now Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor and the Acting Archivist - (laughter) — and the Acting USAID Director - (laughter.) So it's always great to - and the surgeon general. No, I'm kidding. I'm not that. (Laughter.) I wanted it. I wanted it. (Laughter.) You get a uniform. Do you know you get a uniform if you're a surgeon general? (Laughter.) I wanted it but they had given it away. You know what would be good? Library of Congress. That would be a good job. (Laughter.) Acting Librarian Mario Diaz-Balart. Do you want it? (Laughter.)
But all kidding aside, the - you can talk about this path someone took there, but I can just tell you these things were all made possible because Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart indirectly or directly, and whether they realized it at the time or not, contributed to it - invested, created opportunities, and allowed someone to explore more opportunities down the road.
And that doesn't escape me, and I take great pride even now when I run into someone who interned for me when I started in the Senate or who now is doing great things, or someone who was a staff member of mine who's now doing great things. And usually staff members that work for you and they go do better things, there's one of two things, and you can tell right away. Their clothes is a lot better because they no longer work for you and they're making just, like, five times as much money - (laughter) - or they're in charge of something. Some even maybe got elected to things or what have you.
I actually take pride in that, and I think that's an incredible thing. But I don't think that's the part - I don't know if people fully appreciate the doors that were opened for people like me and so many others, not because of those that - I don't want to say those that came before us, but who were in those positions before us.
And I also want you to understand this about it because I think this is very powerful and true. One of the things that allowed me as a young person to believe that it was possible for me to have these aspirations was because there were people who sort of, kind of came from the same background I did who were already in those positions, because that - 20 years before or 15 years before that wasn't the case. But when you're a 23, 24-year-old young person growing up in Miami who aspires to one day serve in higher office, and you see someone who comes from your community and the same background that you came from who now is in those positions, you know what it triggers in your brain? That I could do it too. If someone like me could be doing it now, I can do that in the future. And I think that's a very powerful thing that all of us have an obligation to continue to pass on. (Applause.)
So I appreciate this award. I'm honored by it. But I would say the opportunities I've had in leadership as much as anything else have been the result of what others empowered me to do, gave me the opportunity to do, whether they knew they were doing it at the time or not. And one of them was Lincoln Diaz-Balart and two of them were Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, and I thank you for what you do every single year through this organization to empower more young people so that the next Archivist of the United States of America may be sitting in this audience right now. (Laughter.)
Thank you and God bless. Thank you. (Applause.)
