Trump Cabinet Meeting: Rubio Highlights Iran Red Line and New Armenia Deal

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is one of the great surprises of President Trump's second term; he has shown himself to be the best Secretary of State since Cordell Hull; maybe since Thomas Jefferson. He's adept, he thinks on his feet, and when he's in any assemblage of foreign diplomats, he's almost always the smartest guy in the room.

First, Secretary Rubio talked about Iran and its nuclear program, then went into several other topics. Watch:

.@SecRubio provides an update at the Cabinet meeting: One of the places I stopped last night was to initial the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity in Armenia... and in addition to that, we also signed a critical minerals MoU with them. pic.twitter.com/iF5k7pscDg
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 27, 2026

About Iran, Secretary Rubio said:

First of all, the bottom line is Iran's never going to have a nuclear weapon. And if recent events have done anything, it just reminds us once again that they are the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. And they can never have a nuclear weapon. Now, the president's preference, Mr. President, your preference, as he's told us repeatedly, as always, is to negotiate these things and to figure out if we can have agreements. Diplomacy is our first option, and we continue to work on that through envoys, Mr. Witkoff, and Kushner and others, the vice president, who has been very involved. There's an agreement to be made; we want that to happen. I think there's been some progress and some interest. We'll see over the next few hours or days whether progress can be made.
But I just want to remind everybody, Mr. President, as you know as well, there are other options available to you if that doesn't work. But the bottom line is we would prefer a negotiated diplomatic route, and we're going to give every chance to succeed. I know you're giving it every chance to succeed, Mr. President. But here's the bottom line: I keep getting asked, what this is all about, and it's very simple: Iran and the people in charge of Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and they will never have a nuclear weapon, and they most certainly will not have one as long as you are President of the United States. On that point, it's very clear.

There's an old saying that I've cited before, that states "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie, nice doggie' until you can find a rock." Well, Iran has been taking a beating from that rock for some time now, and we're still saying "Nice doggie."

No nukes, as the administration has made abundantly clear, is the red line. Secretary Rubio continues:

Just two quick things I want to touch upon. One, we touched upon the border and security. Part of securing our border is dealing with the people that are in this country unlawfully, many of whom do not want to go back to the country they originally came from for a variety of reasons. Either we can't send them there or some judge ties us up. And one of the key things achieved is now 20 countries have signed third-country national agreements, meaning these are safe countries where individuals who refuse to go back to their country of origin could be sent to that country instead. We've got 20 countries around the world who've signed agreements that allow us to deport people to those places. What often happens when you go to the person who is here unlawfully, 'We're going to send you to this third country,' is all of a sudden, they decide that they'd rather go back to their home country instead. It gives us the ability to enforce our laws. And we work very closely with the Department of Homeland Security on that front.

That's an interesting data point. Plenty of us (me included) have long suspected that the "asylum seekers" and "refugees" among the waves of illegal immigrants had a high proportion of phonies. This would appear to confirm that.

Now, on Ebola:

Something else that I know is concerning people because it's in the news is Ebola. Our number one obligation, you know, we're involved in foreign policy but even in our foreign policy, our number one priority of our foreign policy is to protect the American people. We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States. So we are, the State Department and other agencies represented here, the Centers for Disease Control, HHS, others, are working very very hard to contain this crisis in the countries where it's currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo. And so we have surged assistance that is being contained there. And obviously multiple agencies involved here are also very involved in tracking people just to make sure nobody comes into the country who has Ebola and creates a problem for us. We feel like we've got good efforts in place to do that, and Americans should feel assured the President is doing everything they can to protect them on this front.

There have been, as of this writing, no Ebola cases reported in the United States, so it's working. That's a good thing; Ebola, especially in the first couple of generations of an outbreak, has an absolutely horrifyingly low recovery rate; assuming you are near any modern medical facility, your survival odds are better if you take a 9mm bullet through a lung than they are if you contract Ebola.

Next, another mineral deal is done:

My last point: I said I was all over the place. One of the places I stopped in last night was to initial the Trump Route for Prosperity in Armenia. This is a key linchpin of the peace deal you were able to achieve between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And, in addition to that, we also signed a critical minerals MoU with them, and a strategic engagement as well. So just a reminder of another war you helped to settle, Mr. President. But from that has now, we are seeing the emergence of a great new relationship with Armenia that really had grown stagnant for a long period of time. So, we're doing well on this front as well. Thank you.

Minerals are as vital to our economy as oil and gas; it's good to see yet another deal there.

Rubio to Cuba's Communist Thugs: Stop Blaming America for the Misery You Created

Finally, President Trump asked for an update on Cuba and Venezuela, in which Secretary Rubio said:

In Venezuela, the process continues, that three-phase process, of, obviously, stabilization, recovery, and transition. I would say since January 3rd of this year, I think this number is right, Chris or Doug can correct me on this, but I think over 10 million barrels of Venezuelan oil have been delivered to the United States since the 3rd of January. That industry is being professionalized for the first time ever. It's going to the benefit of the Venezuelan people. They are selling oil in the market at market rates. The money is going into an account in the United States to be held and monitored by the Treasury, audited by KPMG, and for the first time, the money's not being stolen. It's going to the benefit of the Venezuelan people.
Cuba is in a lot of trouble because, unfortunately for them, it's run by a bunch of incompetent communists. Being communist is bad, but being an incompetent communist is like the worst. But the country has been taken over by this company called GAESA that basically controls 70 percent of the economy. None of the money in that company goes to help the Cuban people. None of it. So we'll be talking to them, we'll be working on it, we want something good for the Cuban people. And hopefully, there will be a good outcome for them there. There needs to be. It's 90 miles from our shores, and having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.

There's a lot to absorb there. Thumbnail: Venezuela seems to be moving in the right direction, although I would caution that nothing there is certain until they have fair elections; that's likely why the receipts from the sale of Venezuelan oil is being held by the United States. As for Cuba, it's likely that the communist regime there will hold on until some major collapse forces them out.

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