QUESTION: First of the top stories breaking today, we're going to start with President Trump returning to the United Nations today for the first time since his reelection. He's also going to meet with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. So we want to bring in his Secretary of State right now, Marco Rubio. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Good morning.
QUESTION: I want to start out with that meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. It's been more than a month since President Trump met with President Putin in Alaska. Since then, Putin has intensified his attacks on Ukraine. He's crossed into NATO airspace as well. The President has repeatedly threatened to take action, but repeatedly backed off those threats against President Putin. How much more time is he going to give him?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think he has taken action. So, for example, we've imposed additional tariffs on India - and they're a very close partner of ours - and we had meetings with them again yesterday, and it has to do with their purchase of Russian oil. In addition, we've worked very hard on —
QUESTION: But nothing directly on Russia.
SECRETARY RUBIO: — and continue to work and made a lot of progress - well, it's - look, you look at the bill that Congress was considering, and on putting forward the Lindsey Graham bill. That bill was about tariffs on India and China for the purchase of oil and gas from Russia. I think the President has also called on Europe to step up to the plate. There are countries in Europe that are still buying massive amounts of natural gas and oil from Russia, in essence directly fueling the war effort. The President has also instructed us and we've made a lot of progress working on security guarantees. Shortly after the Alaska meeting, all of these leaders from Europe came to Washington. We agreed to work on security guarantees for the future of Ukraine after the end of this conflict. We've made a tremendous amount of progress in creating the outlines for that, and that's going to be essential in any negotiated end to the war.
QUESTION: It doesn't appear to be making any difference with President Putin.
SECRETARY RUBIO: And then the President - well, I think that's right in the sense that we continue to see the war being carried out - by the way, by both sides. The Ukrainians, to their credit, have also inflicted substantial damage on the Russians. So as an example, 20 percent of Russian refining capacity has been taken offline because of Ukrainian strikes. And I think the Ukrainians have been very brave and worked very - and done incredible things despite being a smaller country here, not just in defending their country but in imposing costs on Russia.
Look, at the end of the day, the only leader in the world - that everyone agrees to this; no one - and this is why Zelenskyy keeps wanting to meet with him and all the European leaders want to meet with him - is President Trump. He's the only one that can talk to both sides and try to make progress. He has dedicated a lot of time and energy to it. We hope to achieve it. He has expressed his deep disappointment at the direction this continues to go. He is well aware at this point of what our options are under his current authorities to impose more costs on Russia if they don't agree to peace. And that moment may arrive.
But I hope it doesn't arrive because I hope we still have time to convince them to end this war. The impact it's having - it's a stupid war. It really is. I mean, the Russians in July lost 20,000 soldiers, were killed in action. Twenty thousand. Way out of ratio with what Ukraine has lost, and a staggering number. This war needs to end. The President is going to do everything he can to end it, but at some point he'll have to take action if it doesn't.
QUESTION: You and others in the administration have said several times that no one has died because of the administration's cuts to humanitarian aid and the shuttering of the Agency for International Development. A host of international aid organizations have disputed that. They've detailed how many lives have been lost. Also Nick Kristof of The New York Times had an extensive piece in The New York Times on Sunday, firsthand reporting on the deaths being caused by the cuts in aid.
And he went on to say this. I want to show a tweet he put up. He said: I also obtained an internal Trump Administration memo stating that the cost of shutting down USAID is $6.4 billion over two years. That sum could save more than a million children's lives. Instead, it is being spent to shut down programs that saves lives.
How do you account for that? How do you respond?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that wasn't a memo. That was somebody who wrote an email giving their opinion internally. That is not an official document. That's someone who didn't agree with our decision. This is not about cutting aid. We're going to do it. We're going to give more humanitarian aid.
QUESTION: It does cost money to shut down AID, doesn't it? That's a fact.
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, we didn't shut it down. We moved - well, a couple things. We shut down AID because it was a dysfunctional organization. We moved it under the State Department. Number two, we are going to do more foreign aid than any country in the world. Than any country in the world. We're going to do more than anyone in the world again this year, but we're going to do it the right way. We're going to do it holistically. We're going to do it as part of an integrated foreign policy. We are not going to fund an NGO industrial complex that built itself up that was taking a substantial percentage of the money and not going directly to the recipients; it was going to these organizations that had multibillion-dollar projects and budgets. We're not going to continue to do it that way.
We are going to provide aid. We're providing aid now. We just rolled out our new initiative on health. It's going to be much more successful and much more effective. We're going to enter into direct compacts with the countries. We're going to empower our embassies and our ambassadors to direct which projects we fund and how much money countries are going to be receiving. We're going to - so we are restructuring the way we do aid. It's going to be far more effective and it's going to be integrated into our holistic foreign policy.
QUESTION: That's - that's all in - that's all in the future. But are you standing by that comment? Are you saying that no one has died?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, it's happening now. That's not in the future; it's happening now. No.
QUESTION: No one has died because of the aid cuts? Are all those aid organizations lying?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That's ridiculous. Well, first of all - well, then they died because England didn't give enough money or Canada didn't give more or China didn't. Let's blame the other countries who don't do any foreign aid. How about China? I mean, China's the second largest economy in the world. They don't give money to these projects. So did people die because China didn't give more money?
QUESTION: So you're no longer disputing that the aid cuts have cost people's lives? You're no longer disputing that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: It didn't - I think anybody who tells you that somehow it's the United States - if we cut a dollar, somehow we're responsible for some horrific thing that's going on in the world. It's just not true. Beyond that, I would say that in some of these places that they cite, the reason why the aid didn't get there —
QUESTION: Well, if that dollar's not going to feeding someone or medicine, someone's going to die, aren't they?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No. Excuse me, George. One of the reasons why some of these places didn't get the aid is not because we cut the aid. It's because there's a war going on and the aid never got to the people. So in Sudan, for example, it's not just a humanitarian catastrophe; it's a war zone. Okay? The aid is stolen. The aid is impeded. In fact, they use aid as a tool against the people, and so blocking aid is a tool and an arm of war. So in some of these places, the reason why the aid isn't getting there is it can't be distributed.
Look at Haiti. One of the reasons why aid can't be distributed in Haiti is you can send all the aid in the world you want; it gets hijacked and stolen by criminal gangs that control the country. And so they're the ones to blame for whatever happening there, not us, who've provided more aid than anybody else to Haiti, in Africa, in virtually every part of the world.
QUESTION: Well, let me just try one more time. Are you standing by the - are you standing by your contention that no one has died?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No one has died because the United States has cut aid, no. People have died because gangs steal the aid. People have died because the distributors of aid have not done well. People have died because other countries haven't stepped up. But the United States has saved more lives, and continues to save more lives, than any other country in the world. And we're going to continue to do it, but we're going to do it the right way and in a responsible way. We're not going to continue to pour billions of dollars out the door of American taxpayer funds for programs that don't work and in some cases were flat-out corrupt.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time this morning.
