On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a press gaggle on his flight to Miami, Florida.
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00:00Under your rationale, the Hong Kong authorities were the...
00:03Well, every country in the world can deny visas to whoever they want.
00:06It's that simple. That's a fact.
00:08Whether we like it or not, they can deny visas.
00:10Number two, that movement was not a movement in favor of a group that slaughtered babies and innocents.
00:15That's not what that...
00:16That movement, there were people that were complaining because there was no democracy,
00:19but I mean, and they were upset about the direction Hong Kong was headed,
00:23and the Chinese law that was being imposed,
00:25but they have...
00:27Every country in the world has a right to deny you a visa.
00:29I'm not entitled to a visa.
00:31You're not entitled to a visa.
00:32Nobody is entitled to a visa in any other country.
00:34They can determine it and they can revoke it at any time they want.
00:37Now, let's...
00:39I think it's important that there's a clear distinction between
00:41protesting against democratic order
00:45and protesting in favor of groups that advocate for slaughter and murder of innocent people,
00:50which is what many of these groups are supportive of.
00:53Beyond that, these groups are not just taking over.
00:55These are not sit-ins we're talking about.
00:57We are talking about buildings that have been vandalized, defaced,
01:03for months on end in some cases.
01:06We're just not going to continue to allow...
01:08I don't understand what people don't get.
01:10A visa is a gift, it's a voluntary thing.
01:12We decide to give you a visa.
01:14We deny visas all over the world every day for a variety of reasons,
01:18and that means we can also revoke those visas.
01:20No one's entitled to a visa.
01:22Some of the examples that have come up,
01:24like a student at Tufts University,
01:26letting him just write an op-ed for a student newspaper,
01:29advocating for a certain victim or not.
01:31As far as we can tell, they haven't openly advocated for LaVos.
01:35We won't let those...
01:37I think they seek to self-deport.
01:40They can do that, because that's what we've done.
01:42We're basically asking them to leave the country.
01:44That's why they've been detained.
01:46They can do so tomorrow, buy an airplane ticket and leave.
01:48But I would add to this that
01:50I would caution you against solely going off of
01:53what the media has been able to identify.
01:55And those presentations, if necessary, will be made in court.
01:59But for example, in that former student,
02:02in the Tufts student case I asked you today,
02:05did she have... has she committed,
02:08or has she carried out any of those things that you just listed?
02:11The activities presented to me meet the standard
02:13of what I've just described to you.
02:15People that are supportive of movements that run counter
02:17to the foreign policy of the United States.
02:19If necessary, and a court compels us,
02:21we'll provide that information.
02:23But ultimately, it's a visa.
02:25Judges don't issue student visas.
02:27There is no right to a student visa.
02:29We can cancel a student visa under the law
02:31just the same way that we can deny a student visa under the law.
02:34And we will do so in cases we find appropriate.
02:37The overwhelming majority of student visas in this country will not be revoked.
02:41The overwhelming majority of people that are coming to this country to study
02:44are not involved and associated or aligned with
02:47organizations that seek to do damage in this country.
02:50And that, frankly, organizations that hate the United States government,
02:53that hate our way of life.
02:55So I just think it's crazy to continue to provide visas
02:58so people can come here and advocate for policies
03:00that are in direct contradiction of our national interests.
03:03Are the schools or the schools where these organizations are now?
03:06Well, I'm sure they are.
03:08Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure they are.
03:12Oh, bringing them to us?
03:14Well, we're not going to talk about the process by which we're identifying it
03:17because, obviously, we're looking for more people.
03:19Have you seen the videos of her being detained?
03:22I haven't.
03:23But, look, detention is simple.
03:25Your visa's expired. Your visa's revoked. You have to leave.
03:27But, like, six or eight figures would pass
03:30and these people identify themselves
03:32until they've already been grabbed or arrested.
03:34Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, our agents...
03:36I mean, I'm not... That's the DHS, right?
03:38So I don't know what their practices are.
03:40But our agents have had to protect their identity
03:42because they've found themselves targeted.
03:44Targeted for violence, targeted for operations against them.
03:48I would say most of these protesters are wearing masks, too.
03:50And they're not in law enforcement.
03:52Can I ask you a different topic?
03:54You must go to the media.
03:56You're pretty a Marti, and so there's some background information.
03:58What do you think of that?
04:00Well, first of all, they're not part of this...
04:02You know, they're not... We don't control them.
04:04That's a separate entity that does it.
04:06My understanding is that Marti's actually started
04:08rebroadcasting today and a few others.
04:10I think the executive order called for them to be...
04:13All these agencies to be reduced to the statutory minimum.
04:16And I think the goal, ultimately, over time,
04:18as I understand it, is to reform these entities
04:20so that they provide news that, frankly,
04:23favors and advances the national interest in the United States.
04:26We have plenty of independent media outlets,
04:29including all of you.
04:31And then we are interested in media outlets
04:33that present America's point of view
04:35from our foreign policy standpoint.
04:37And so that review will be ongoing,
04:39but obviously that's outside the State Department's.
04:41I don't control those.
04:43I wish I did know, but I don't.
04:45But anyway, maybe we'll see. But I don't know.
04:47It could change the world.
04:51Yeah, well, some of them we're not.
04:53Some of them will be restudied over the time.
04:55I think, ultimately, we're trying to find programs
04:57that are effective.
04:59No one's been...
05:02Yeah, but there's...
05:04There's a bunch that we improved,
05:06that not even got waived,
05:08but just got restarted, and we're doing them.
05:10There's others that we suspended
05:12because we didn't think we were getting
05:14enough investment.
05:16That money may be repurposed
05:18to a program that works better
05:20for the same cost.
05:24Yeah.
05:26Not just more violent.
05:28Very well organized.
05:30They were able to communicate with each other,
05:32hand signals, all kinds of...
05:34I mean, this is a prison gang,
05:36so it doesn't surprise me.
05:38That's how the treatment originates from.
05:40So it doesn't surprise me that they're
05:42prison gangs in your country.
05:44They grow, they metastasize.
05:46MS-13 was actually a group that was started
05:48by either Salvadoran refugees
05:50and or actually people
05:52born in the U.S. of Salvadoran descent
05:54in prisons.
05:56MS-13 did not originate in El Salvador.
05:58They originated in U.S. prisons
06:00and spread down and back to El Salvador.
06:02Prison gangs are very dangerous
06:04because they recruit,
06:06and they almost create academies
06:08within the prison that then metastasize
06:10and they're allowed to the general population.
06:14I spoke to one that was in Guantanamo
06:16because I know them through a family friend,
06:18but I've also spoken
06:20to both Pete Hexeth about this
06:22and, if I'm not mistaken,
06:24Secretary Noem as well.
06:26When I asked them, is this true,
06:28they both confirmed.
06:30That's what their officers
06:32and people on the ground were telling them.
06:34So I actually heard this from a personal acquaintance
06:36and then I actually had it affirmed to me
06:38that some of the people sent down
06:40to El Salvador's prison
06:42were actually gang members,
06:44but that, for example,
06:46that tattoo, that was a very odd symptom.
06:48Even an odd symptom,
06:50but it looked like a gang tattoo
06:52to an immigration agent
06:54in the United States.
06:56How do you address that?
06:58Ultimately, all of that was the work of
07:00the Department of Homeland Security.
07:02They've identified them.
07:04I have confidence in the assessment that they made.
07:07We're not involved in compiling them,
07:09but I have no reason to back out.
07:11I'm confident that they compiled a good list
07:13and if we have an opportunity to send more, we will.
07:15More gang members, MS-13,
07:17whatever we can send.
07:25Well, every single one of them was deportable
07:27for reasons even beyond the Alien Enemies Act,
07:29the MS-13 as well.
07:31They were all deportable.
07:33Many of these people had orders of deportation already
07:36and were either in custody
07:38or had been recently apprehended.
07:40So every single person that was sent there was deportable.
07:42Unfortunately, if they're of Venezuelan descent,
07:44up until this week,
07:46the Venezuelans were not picking anybody up.
07:48They were not allowing anybody to go back.
07:50They're the only country in the hemisphere
07:52that was refusing to accept anyone.
07:54They have restarted those suddenly
07:56and hopefully they'll continue
07:58and then we won't have to use El Salvador.
08:00So why use the Alien Enemies Act
08:02if we're going to use El Salvador?
08:05No, I think the expedited nature of it,
08:07these gangs were organized.
08:09They were presenting very real and immediate risks
08:11to the number of communities in our country.
08:13And in an organized fashion,
08:15we have reason to believe that they were actually
08:17being pushed towards the United States
08:19in large numbers by the regime in Venezuela.
08:21You saw just yesterday,
08:23one of them arrived in Venezuela
08:25and was greeted on the tarmac as a hero.
08:27This is an individual that was arrested for
08:29and caught on video,
08:31attacked by a gang member,
08:34attacking police officers in Times Square,
08:36mocked law enforcement after doing so.
08:38So we believe that in many ways
08:40the Venezuelan regime has encouraged
08:42that flow of these groups
08:44towards the United States
08:46to create harm in our country.
08:48One of the reasons I asked is that
08:50you know that on Thursday,
08:52when you bring them back on Thursday,
08:54you left with one and you spoke
08:56to the president of the United States
08:58twice.
09:00I've spoken to him a number of times
09:03Not just the only time you were around.
09:05No, no, no, this is a quote.
09:07It's Thursday, Thursday night.
09:09So now we have a Friday
09:11and we hear that he's transferred
09:13to the Atlantic Coast,
09:15to the South,
09:17to get money,
09:19money ready, money ready
09:21for a person to appear
09:23as a judicial judge
09:25and we hear that the president
09:27is going to go outside
09:29the ADA
09:32and get money ready
09:34for a person to appear
09:36as a judicial judge.
09:38Well, about the ADA declaration,
09:40that came from the White House.
09:42My conversations with President Bukele
09:44were as a follow-up and to finalize
09:46in a verbal agreement we had reached
09:48in my visit to El Salvador
09:50on my first trip as a secretary.
09:52So it was just sort of following up on that
09:54and how we were going to proceed with it.
09:56We were ready now to execute
09:58at some point.
10:01And that's what those calls were about.
10:03It was just sort of to
10:05finalize what we had agreed on.
10:18I can't speak to the timing
10:20of why they released it when they did.
10:22I can tell you, and I think you were on that trip,
10:24that the agreement to house criminal aliens
10:26was reached with President Bukele
10:28back in February.
10:30And so I've spoken to him
10:32since then, but obviously
10:34those days that I was there, we did
10:36because we had a couple of questions
10:38that we wanted answers to and that he wanted answers to.
10:40We were finalizing that.
10:42On Russia, about a month ago
10:44when we were in Riyadh, we were first starting
10:46on speaking to Putin, and he said something.
10:48He said, you know, we're going to find out
10:50whether they're acting in good faith
10:52or not, and we'll test it out.
10:54So a month later, where do you stand on that?
10:56Well, I'm not prepared to pass judgment on it.
10:58They're meeting with us. They're talking to us.
11:00They're making proposals. They're agreeing
11:02to cease fires, but with conditions that we need to analyze.
11:04So is that dragging their feet, actually?
11:06I'm not prepared to characterize it
11:08as one or the other. What I've said almost
11:10at the beginning is that this war is complex.
11:12As you can see, it's now going on
11:14three years, and I've never said it was going
11:16to be simple. There's a lot
11:18of work to be done with both sides
11:20in particular, but, you know, the Russian side
11:22we haven't talked to in years.
11:24So...
11:26How long before the end of the trade peace negotiations
11:28is it going to be?
11:30We're trying to achieve peace. We're committed
11:32to trying to achieve peace as long as it takes.
11:34That doesn't mean that I can guarantee you
11:36that there's going to be an agreement in a week or a month.
11:38I just can't put a time frame on it
11:40because it doesn't depend on us. It depends on the Russians.
11:42It depends on the Ukrainians.
11:44It also depends on our partners in Europe
11:46who have sanctions that will have to be
11:48taken into account, I believe, as part of
11:50any final deal.
11:52But I always think it's
11:54progress when at least specifics are being
11:56agreed to, even though they may not have been
11:58agreeable to both sides, because we get to determine
12:00sort of the negotiating posture
12:02and what the impediments are to peace.
12:04So I think when you negotiate,
12:06when you sit down with people
12:08and you talk about these things
12:10and they have to memorialize these things in documents,
12:12at least it begins to give definition
12:14to what the impediments to peace are.
12:16As far as willingness,
12:18that'll be tested when the time
12:20comes to decide.
12:22Or if we've dealt with impediments
12:24and there's still resistance from one side
12:26or the other, then we'll know. But we're not at that stage yet.
12:28Do you guys anticipate this will be
12:30the season final at the technical level
12:32and then back to a higher level?
12:34Well, I think you have to make more progress
12:36on the technical level at this point, but we'll see.
12:38We're going to analyze, and as I said,
12:40when they arrive back from Saudi Arabia,
12:42I want to sit and talk to our team that was on the ground
12:44and get a better sense of how those
12:46negotiations went, because a lot of it
12:48isn't just what was written, it's what was said
12:50over 12 hours. And by the way, we met
12:52with the Ukrainians twice as well, so we want to get that
12:54perspective, because we met with them on Sunday
12:56and again on Tuesday, the Russians on Monday,
12:58so I need to hear from them directly
13:00a little bit more about how it went.
13:02And then we'll present that, we'll meet
13:04with the team, and we'll present that to the President
13:06and decide on the path,
13:08what the next steps are.
13:10Okay, so one more topic, Sudan.
13:12We've seen several episodes of violence.
13:14Yes.
13:16The Army says they have kicked out
13:18from the presidential palace.
13:20Is there anything to plan in the U.S.?
13:22We're engaged. I've had conversations with a number
13:24of countries, with Ethiopia, with Kenya,
13:26just over the last 72 hours, so we've been
13:28raising that.
13:30And we're very concerned that we're going
13:32to backslide to where we were a decade
13:34or less ago, and so we don't want
13:36to see that. And so we're
13:38trying to figure out, and we've been engaging with our partners
13:40about soliciting their
13:42ideas about what can we do
13:44on this matter to
13:46what contribution
13:48can the United States make to stabilizing
13:50that. There are a number of places we're doing that.
13:52We're doing that with DRC Rwanda as well.
13:54So there are a couple places
13:56like that that we find ourselves
13:58sort of asking our regional partners
14:00how do they believe we can be most
14:02helpful in engaging.
14:04And with our partners outside the region as well,
14:06we've spoken, I spoke to the
14:08foreign minister of the U.K.
14:10yesterday about this problem.
14:12What's the current situation with Iran
14:14in that exchange of letters?
14:16Oh, you just asked me that, but you couldn't hear.
14:18No, it's okay. Now I have to remember the answer
14:20because it has to be identical.
14:24It's been publicly reported
14:26that the president
14:28sent a message.
14:30I anticipate a response,
14:32but we have
14:34nothing else to announce on that.
14:36Is that pretty much what I told you?
14:38All right.
14:40The game's going to start.
14:44I don't hate ecotourism.
14:46No, no, no.
14:48I'm not a fan of ecotourism.
14:50I'm not against it. People like to do that stuff.
14:52To me, a vacation does not involve snakes and spiders.
14:54That's my view.
14:56Maybe that'll change. I don't know.
14:58All right. Thank you.