QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for taking time with us.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: You're here in Israel as this major offensive in Gaza City is getting underway. To the outside world, it appears that this war is escalating rather than progressing towards a ceasefire and a hostage deal, as President Trump and yourself want.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. Well, how the war ends is the following: Every single hostage is released - all 48, including those that are deceased. Hamas no longer exists as an armed group threatening the strip. That's how the war ends. So the question is how do you achieve it? And ideally, in a perfect world, you would achieve it through a diplomatic agreement. Hamas would agree to disarm and disband, and they would agree to immediately release every single hostage, including the bodies of those who have died. That's the ideal outcome. That hasn't come to fruition.
So if it's not going to end that way, then it's going to have to end through a military operation. And I think the Israelis themselves would prefer it not be through a military operation. It's - when we talk about defeating Hamas and going after Hamas, it's Israelis that are going to have to go do that, not Americans. So we're continuing to push, both - because I think that's the goal President Trump has for this. He wants it to be over quickly, but he wants it to be over quickly with the hostages released, all of them, and with Hamas no longer being a threat. And so as much as anything else, this is about an opportunity to visit with our allies here in Israel to see what the plan is and what their ideas are for bringing that to fruition.
QUESTION: When the President says that he is tired of these piecemeal hostage negotiations - he wants all of them to get released, the remainder of the hostages to get released all together - does that mean that you're not longer going to negotiate along the lines of individual people?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, look, I think the President's frustration about five hostages, eight hostages, ten hostages are widely shared, including by the hostage families. It's just delaying and delaying and delaying. He'd prefer them - he thinks they all need to be - look, there shouldn't be a single hostage. There shouldn't be a single one. There never should have been a single one. So he wants them all released. That's what he wants. Now, obviously, if they - it's possible that some deal is arranged to where there's the partial release for a 60-day period and then another group comes out - but that's not what the President prefers.
I think what he prefers is what we would all prefer, and that is every single hostage is released, every single one, including the bodies of those who are deceased because he's - he, like a lot of people, have grown tired of seeing these drip, drip - slow releases, but still people being held. But there shouldn't be a single hostage in a single tunnel anywhere in Gaza, but there still are.
QUESTION: President Trump says he's unhappy with the Israeli surprise strike on Doha. You yourself, sir, said that it could derail future negotiations, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said twice now that it was the right decision and he would actually make it again.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that's a decision they've made, right, and he said that again today, that that's a decision that came - it was an Israeli decision. And the consequences are owned by Israel as he, the prime minister himself, has said. What we're focused on is what happens now because irrespective of what happened in Qatar last week, these facts remain: Hamas is still ensconced in parts of Gaza; 48 hostages are still being held, including 20 who are alive that need to be released immediately, all of them; and until - until those two things happen, it's not going to be possible to have a Gaza that provides a higher quality of life for the people who live there and who are also being held in some ways as human shields by Hamas. So that - all those things remain. Irrespective of what happened in Qatar last week, in Doha, all of these things are still in place. We still have to deal with those. But - and we're hopeful that Qatar will continue to play a positive and constructive role in helping bring this to an end.
QUESTION: So Qatar is convening today, as you know, sir, this emergency session with its Gulf allies to come up with a response to those strikes.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, look, I think there are —
QUESTION: What would be the —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don't think it's a mystery that they're not happy about what happened. They've shared that with us. We met with their prime minister - the Vice President and I did last Friday. We then had dinner that evening. the prime minister did, with the President. And we're visiting again with them very shortly here in the next day as well. So we understand they're not happy about what happened. I think our message is irrespective of that, and that's one thing, we need to separate that from the fact that no matter what, we still have Hamas, we still have hostages, and we still have a war. And all those things still have to be dealt with, and we are hopeful that Qatar and all of our Gulf partners will continue to add something constructive to bringing this alternate -it's in their interest that this war end as well.
QUESTION: Are you concerned, Mr. Secretary, that by traveling to Doha while they are holding these meetings, the prime minister here is going to feel - not snubbed because you just met with him, but feel sort of put upon?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, look, our relationship with Israel is not going to be affected by any of this. We're going to continue to be strong allies and partners. But the President has - the President said he wasn't happy the way things went down. That doesn't mean we're going to stop being their partner and their ally.
As far as meeting - well, we met with the Qataris already. What - we have - we have military bases there. We've cooperated on a host of issues with Qatar, and we'll continue to do so as well. So - but our message both here in Jerusalem and also in Doha will be what it's been consistently, and that is despite - we're not diminishing it. We're not asking them to ignore it. We understand they're upset about it. We understand the Israeli position on it. Irrespective of that, we still have hostages that we want released. We still have a Hamas that needs to be defeated or eradicated or removed so that we can get to the peace that everybody says they want. And so we're trying to get everybody to stay focused on what happens moving forward, not just only focused on what's already happened with - what happened last week in Doha. We want everybody focused on what comes next because we still have these problems we have to solve.
QUESTION: One thing that comes next, at least for the Israelis, sir, is they are talking about their new plans to move ahead with annexation of the West Bank. Is that something the Trump Administration is supportive of?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we're not commenting on that now other than to say that we warned all these European capitals and other countries that if they went ahead with this Palestinian state recognition, which really is symbolic more than anything else - they're responding to their own domestic politics - we warned that there would be a response to that, that, number one, it would make it harder to reach a peace deal in this Gaza war because it would embolden Hamas, and it has. And the other thing we warned is it would force Israel to now do things in reaction to that.
And I think part of this conversation about annexation is in response to what's been coming out of Europe, Canada, and other countries with a Palestinian statehood move which is largely symbolic, but yet has these real-world implications in terms of making it harder to achieve peace. We thought it was counterproductive. We shared that with them at the time. They did it anyways. And we're seeing - I think this talk of annexation is part of that.
QUESTION: Switching gears to Russia, there have been two Russian drone incursions into Poland and then Romania this week. It appears President Putin is emboldened after his meeting with President Trump in Alaska.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Look, I wouldn't say he's emboldened after the meeting. I would say that this is an example of why this war the President thinks needs to end. Wars generally will escalate. They'll actually get worse, not better if they continue on the track their on, especially a protracted war like this one which - given that both sides are deeply dug in. I understand that these drone operations are far from the front lines. They have no impact on the front lines. They're designed largely to weaken one another. And the Ukrainians are conducting strikes in Russia as well.
And it's one of the reasons why the President has said he wants this war to end. This war should end. It's why he's expended a tremendous amount of political capital, energy, and time in trying to bring it about to an end. No one in the world has done more to end - to try to end the Ukraine-Russia war than President Trump has. But ultimately, it takes the two sides who are fighting to agree to it. And as you've said and as you've pointed out, we haven't been able to get those kinds of results from the Russian side. But again, that's not Trump's war. Trump inherited this war. And now President Trump is doing everything he can to try to bring it to an end.
QUESTION: So how much longer will the President give Putin before he moves forward with the sanctions that have been threatened?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we fully understand the sanctions that we have available to us, and at some point the President may decide to do that. That'll be his decision to make. He's not going to go around and artificially announce a time frame. But he's also pointed out that it's important for Europe to do so as well. There are still countries in Europe that are buying Russian products, including Russian oil. And what the President has challenged our European partners is to impose the sanctions themselves that they're asking us to impose. So if they feel deeply committed to this, they should take - we want to encourage them to actually do the things they're asking us to do.
QUESTION: Closer to home, sir, Brazil. Former President Bolsonaro has been sentenced now, this obviously over the objections of the President. You yourself, sir, called the trial a witch hunt. What's the U.S. response?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the response there is that the rule of law is breaking down. You have these activist judges - one in particular - that not only has gone after Bolsonaro, by the way, he has tried to - he's tried to carry out extraterritorial claims against even American citizens or against someone posting online from within the United States, and has actually threatened to go even further in that regard. So there's going to be a U.S. response to that, and that's what - we'll have some announcements in the next week or so about what additional steps we intend to take. But it - it's not - the trial is but a - one more chapter of a growing sort of judicial oppression campaign that has tried to reach American companies, and even people operating out of the United States.
QUESTION: On Venezuela, sir, you've - the State Department put up this bounty on Nicolás Maduro. The administration took out that boat of narcotraffickers, I believe last week. Are you any closer to capturing him?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, there's no bounty on Nicolás Maduro. What it is, is a reward for an indicted person - here's what people forget, okay? Nicolás Maduro was indicted by the Southern District of New York. A grand jury returned an indictment. They read the evidence - they saw the evidence. They returned an indictment, not just against him personally but against a network of people in that country who used the apparatus of what they claim to be a government to conduct drug trafficking operations against the United States. So there's a reward for his capture, and it's out there and it's available, and it was increased. That's what that's a consequence of. In addition to that —
QUESTION: Are you not concerned, sir, that it gives the impression of advocating for some kind of regime change or (inaudible) that —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, he's not a - but the thing is they're not - he's - we don't - not only do we not recognize him, 50-something countries around the world do not recognize Nicolás Maduro as the rightful president. He's not the president of Venezuela. That's a title he's given himself. And that's not just us saying it. That was - by the way, that was the policy of the Biden administration, and that was the policy of the first Trump Administration, and that's the policy of 50-something countries, including multiple countries in the region, do not recognize him as the president of that country.
What he is, is someone who's empowered himself of some of the instruments of government and are using that to operate a drug cartel from Venezuelan territory, much of that drugs aimed at reaching the United States. So we're not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere. He's indicted. He's a fugitive of American justice. There's a reward out for his capture. And by the way, related to that, the President of the United States made clear that he's not going to allow cartels, that cartel or any other cartel, to operate with impunity in our hemisphere and send drugs towards the United States. And he's going to use the U.S. military and all the elements of American power to target cartels who are targeting America.
QUESTION: Are you concerned at all about the optic that the Trump Administration is meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, especially in the Western Hemisphere, where there's a history of it?
SECRETARY RUBIO: But when you traffic drugs into the United States, you're meddling into the internal affairs of America. When you are pushing drugs towards the United States of America, you are a direct threat to the national security and the national interest of the United States, and that's what we're addressing here.
QUESTION: What about reporting, sir, that that boat with the drug traffickers had turned around at the point which it was struck?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don't know where those reports are coming from, and I don't even know if that's accurate. But I can tell you that irrespective - there's a network. And the way this network runs is speedboats with multiple 350-horsepower engines, four of them. They carry drugs to somewhere in the Caribbean. From there, they jump to Puerto Rico. And from Puerto Rico, obviously now they're in the United States; they've crossed the border.
So this is the network, the route that they run. We have 100 percent fidelity and certainty that that boat was involved in that trafficking of those drugs that ultimately were destined to reach the United States of America. And the President's made clear: Interdiction alone is not going to stop these drug traffickers. They don't mind losing 2 percent or 3 percent of their shipments. They've already sort of baked that into their economic plan.
What needs to start happening is some of these boats need to get blown up. Some of these boats need to be not just intercepted but stopped, no matter what direction they plan to head. We can't live in a world where all of a sudden they do a U-turn and so we can't touch them anymore. And I'll tell you something: Since we did that, the number of boats heading towards the United States suddenly dropped dramatically. Now, maybe they won't be sustained or continued, but we're not - and the President's made clear - we are not going to continue to allow these cartels to flood the United States with drugs, be it through the water or through land.
QUESTION: A question on Charlie Kirk, sir. The - his assassination is highlighting the threat of political violence in this country, which people seem to be in agreement is on the rise. Do you share that assessment, and do you believe that it's only a problem emanating from the left?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think here's the bottom line, and that is if you look at President Trump, those efforts to assassinate him not once but twice, yes; there was an attack against elected officials in Minnesota as well earlier this year, and we saw that. We saw the assassination of Charlie Kirk in front of the whole world. And I would say what's most stunning about Charlie and what happened to him - look, for a lot of people in the White House, myself included, this wasn't just a political assassination. It was the assassination of someone we knew personally, someone we've gotten to know, someone many of us have worked with in the past who we knew as a person, not just as a figure. It doesn't make it any less tragic, obviously, but it makes it even sadder.
But the irony with Charlie is that what he was doing was engaging those who disagreed with him in debate, in the kind of conversation that we need to be having in American politics. Some of these are very contentious issues. But the alternative to violence is the ability to debate through them. And that's what he did, not just on college campuses but in podcasts, in interviews. He would go on shows. He would go on the shows of people who he disagreed with. And for him to be assassinated for doing that I think was not just an attack against Charlie Kirk but was an attack against this willingness to engage in political debate in this country.
So I do think it has the potential to have a chilling effect, and we can't let it have that impact because it's a - that is a direct threat to our - not just our democracy but our freedom of speech and our ability to communicate in this country.
QUESTION: Your deputy has been calling out on social media foreigners who he says are celebrating, glorifying, Charlie's murder. Do you have any plans to restrict visa access —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Sure.
QUESTION: — or even revoke visas?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, and here's why. A visa, okay, it's different from being a U.S. citizen. A visa means you're a visitor. You're a visitor to the United States. We are not in the business of inviting people to visit our country who are going to be involved in negative and destructive behavior, okay? So why should - if I invite someone - if we invite someone to visit the United States of America as a student, as a tourist, as whatever, then they have a different - the standard they should be held to is very high.
We shouldn't be bringing people into this country - we should not be giving visas to people - who are going to come to the United States and do things like celebrate the murder, the execution, the assassination, of a political figure. We should not - and if they're already here, we should be revoking their visa. Why would we want to bring people into our country that are going to engage in negative and destructive behavior? It makes no sense.
QUESTION: I wanted to be mindful of your time. Is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you would like to talk about? Or —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, we touched a lot.
