QUESTION: Now it's time to bring in Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking time with us during this —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: — crucial period in terms of the ongoing negotiations. We appreciate it.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: So, sir, on Monday President Trump gave Hamas a deadline of 6:00 p.m. tonight to accept all 20 points of his proposed plan. Then Friday, Hamas came forward and said, well, we accept one. Are you concerned at all that this is a play for more time, a stalling tactic?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, and I don't think that's an accurate - fairly an accurate description of what's happened here too. The way to think about this is twofold. Number one is Hamas has accepted the entire construct of President Trump's proposal for releasing the hostages. That's number one, okay? Forty-eight - 20 that are alive, 28 that are deceased - and now what's happening, even as I speak to you right now, is there's talks ongoing, which we hope will be finalized very quickly, on the logistics of that - who's going to go in, what time are they going to be released, how is all that going to work?
So that's good news. I think that we are the closest we have been in a very long time to having no hostages held by Hamas, either living or deceased.
The second part of this - and it's going to be a much tougher part of it - is what happens after that. Who's going to run Gaza moving forward? It can't be Hamas; it can't be a terrorist organization. It has to be governed. I mean, the Israelis want it to be governed by Palestinian technocrats that aren't building tunnels and aren't launching rockets and aren't conducting terrorist attacks. And that - and the details on that part of the deal are going to be difficult to work through. We've got general outlines of it, and - which Hamas has generally accepted, though not entirely. Some of it is going to have to be discussed moving back and forth.
But ultimately, that is what permanent peace is going to be dependent upon, and that is that Gaza is no longer controlled by a terrorist organization like Hamas, and the demobilization of terrorism in Gaza is the end goal here in terms of ensuring that this never happens again. That's going to be hard. That's going to take a lot of work and a little bit of time. But we've got a good outline for getting there that has a lot of support from the Arab world and that President Trump deserves a lot of credit for putting together.
So that's the way I would view it. We've got to get the hostages out, we've got to get the war stopped, and then we've got to find a permanent solution to this so it never happens again. And we're working on all three as we speak, where the top priority, first and foremost, is all 48 hostages being released as soon as possible.
QUESTION: So in a best-case scenario, sir, according to this, the roadmap that we have seen, Hamas releases the 20 hostages we believe remain alive, and as well as the remains of the 28 other people who they have killed, and then in exchange the Israelis will release, we believe, in the ballpark of hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists and then gradually phase out of Gaza. It seems like a bitter pill for the Israelis to swallow.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, it most certainly - I mean, look, this is not unprecedented, unfortunately. We have seen, in the past, hundreds of Palestinian terrorists be released in exchange for one Israeli soldier. I mean, this is an unfortunate thing that we've seen in the past happen as well. But the Israelis are very committed. All the people of Israel and their government are very committed to getting these hostages back to their families. As unfair and as unjust and as unbalanced as a deal like that may be, that's how important life is to them.
And it's not just phasing out - they would drop back to what's called the yellow line, which is basically where Israel stood inside of Gaza in the middle of August. And then at that point, the work would begin about building out who's going to govern Gaza moving forward, and that's where the international partners are going to be so critical - not just with personnel but with money and resources - to create a governance structure led by non-Hamas, non-terrorist Palestinians. But that's going to take some time, not just to set up but to build and to stabilize, and there's a lot of work that needs to happen.
I mean, look, Gaza has been - as you know, a lot of damage been done there. That whole place has to be rebuilt. That's not going to happen in 72 hours or six weeks. I mean, that's going to take some time. And who's going to be in charge of it afterwards is going to take some time to create as well. But this is the closest we have been, this is the most progress we have seen with regards to ending this conflict and getting these hostages released in a very long time, and it all happened because President Trump put that on the table and built this international coalition, including Arab and Islamic countries. Without him putting that together, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.
QUESTION: Sir, overnight, Liran Berman, who - the brother of two hostages in Hamas captivity described the feeling for Israeli family members of hostages right now as being suspended between hope and dread. It reflects very poignantly, I think, how a lot of Americans and Israelis and even Palestinian civilians are feeling about this moment. Nobody, as you well know, sir, wants false reassurances. To your point a moment ago, what is different on the ground right now that gives you so much confidence a deal is going to finally go over the finish line in the next few days?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think what's different - look, no one here can tell you this is 100 percent guaranteed. We are dealing, at the end of the day, with Hamas. This is the group that, on October 7th two years ago, came in and basically butchered babies and teenage girls at a music concert and took hostage and did horrific atrocities. That's who we're dealing with here, okay? We're not dealing with a political movement; we are dealing with killers and savages and terrorists. That's who we're dealing with.
That said, what gives you hope here is that at least there now is a framework for how all of this can come to an end and those hostages can be released. What gives you hope here is the fact that for the first time in this entire endeavor, you have the United Arab Emirates, you have Qatar, you have Saudi Arabia, you have Türkiye, you have Egypt, you have Jordan, you have Indonesia, you have all these countries - the European countries - all lined up behind a plan and putting a tremendous amount of pressure to make it happen. And President Trump is the one that put that together. He put together this coalition pushing in the same direction with us to try to get this - not just the hostages released, but this thing resolved.
So, I understand the hope and the dread because many of these hostage families have been living - they've been living this for over two years, but they have seen other efforts in the past fail. They have seen efforts to release hostages that didn't include their loved ones. So, we understand that. We do. And that's why everyone from the highest levels of our administration are so committed to getting this done. That's why even as I speak to you now, talks are ongoing between the mediators to create the conditions and the logistics so we can get those hostages out ASAP.
QUESTION: Well, you certainly have, I think, the hope of the world, sir, at your back going into the week. And I want to switch gears while I have you, quickly, to ask about the administration's fourth attack that was just announced on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat in waters off the coast of Venezuela. We know that in the first two strikes alone, 14 people were taken out. Can you reassure and promise the American people that every single person who was on the four boats taken out so far is a narcotrafficker - cartel-affiliated trafficker - who was in the process of carrying out crimes when they were killed?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I can - yeah, I can tell you this: The Department of Defense doesn't take this lightly. There are many boats running through that region, some of which you - we suspect may have drugs on them, and they don't take shots at them because they need to know with 100 percent certainty. I can't tell you the tactics or how it comes about in terms of how we gather the intelligence, but suffice it to say the Department of War has tremendous confidence in the way they are gathering information. They know who's on those boats; they know what those boats are doing. And I would ask people for some common sense, okay? What is a boat doing 15 miles into international waters with four 450 engines on the back of it, no fishing rods, clear markings of drugs on those boats? We know who these boats are. We've known who these boats are for a very long time.
In the past there's been efforts to interdict them; now the effort is to stop them. They are headed towards the United States through a logistics chain they've created in the Caribbean, and that needs to stop. For the first time in our history, the U.S. military is operating in our region, in our hemisphere, against these traffickers of poison who are ultimately winding up in our streets, contributing to crime in our streets, not to mention the death of Americans.
So, they have the highest confidence in this because of the work that goes into this, because of the tremendous amount of caution they're taking in deciding who to strike and who not to strike. And by the way, it's already had a dramatic impact: The number of boats coming out running drugs has dramatically decreased in the last few weeks. That alone has already had an impact. There are - there are drugs that are not in the streets of the United States right now because of what President Trump and his administration is doing.
QUESTION: Sir, you may or may not be aware of this, but apparently your star is on the rise among President Trump's inner circle, and people have been talking about you this week. A senior official told the Miami Herald, quote, "Frankly, his job is foreign policy, but in domestic policy too - [there is] not an area where he" - you - "doesn't have some awareness or an ability to provide decent counsel." And then Steve Witkoff said, "There is one leader. His name is Donald Trump, and in the area of foreign policy, just under Donald Trump is Marco Rubio." And you know, sir, the President himself has floated you as a possible successor to his MAGA movement in the future. Would you run for office in 2028 if he wants you to?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the next Republican nominee, I believe, will be Vice President Vance if he chooses to run, and he's a good friend of mine and he's doing a great job, and I would say we have a great team, and we all work for the President. Let's be clear here, okay? The President of the - our job - and that's something people get confused sometimes. Our job is to implement the President's agenda. Can we give advice? Can we give ideas? Yes. But ultimately, he is the person who Americans have elected.
The President of the United States was - Donald J. Trump was elected by the American people to - and nothing he does is more important than national security and foreign policy, and it's an honor to be part of a great team. You mentioned Steve Witkoff. Steve has been a valuable member of this team. In fact, this whole conversation we're having right now about Hamas and the hostages would have been impossible had it not been for the efforts of Steve Witkoff and the team working with him. We've just got a great team of people - Susie Wiles, the chief of staff.
But ultimately, we work for the President. He's providing guidance. And I would say that this Gaza deal would have been impossible without President Trump. I don't know of any other President in my lifetime that could have put together the deal that brought all of these countries together on one side pushing forward on it.
Now, we still have to execute; we still have to make it happen. It's not all dependent on us. These countries have to agree; Hamas has to agree. But we wouldn't be where we are right now were it not for the President, and we work for him, and he's the one the American people elected.
QUESTION: I mean, I didn't hear a no in there, but we'll take the answer. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for taking time with us during this crucial rundown period.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay.
QUESTION: We wish you, obviously, only the best going forward as we approach this 6:00 p.m. deadline.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay, thank you.
QUESTION: Thanks.
