Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio
Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined the Breitbart News Daily Podcast to discuss no-fly zones, the Biden Administration’s oil production policies, the threat of China, and more. See below for highlights and listen to the full interview here.
On President Zelenskyy’s address to Congress:
“I think he’s going to continue to outline the things he’s asking for to fight Vladimir Putin, and the equipment he needs at this stage of the conflict, and the supplies. He’s done that with Canada yesterday and the UK last week. I think he’s speaking to the Spanish parliament tomorrow, as he’s going through all these legislative bodies. It’s a smart thing. In these democracies, these are the entities that have to support this and provide the funding for it. We’ll see what he has to say, but that’s our expectation. I think it’s been previewed this morning.”
On the U.S. establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine:
“The no fly zone isn’t just like you announce it, put it out there, and everybody follows it. You’ve got to enforce it, which means first you can’t have a no-fly zone if you have surface-to-air missiles that can shoot down your planes. You’ve got to knock out all those surface-to-air missile batteries. Those are Russian surface-to-air missile batteries. They’re in Belarus, they’re inside of Russia, and inside of Ukraine. You got to knock those out.
“Second, you have to put jets up in the air, and you’ve got to be willing to shoot down any planes that violate the no-fly zone. If you shoot at their planes, they’re going to shoot at ours, and then you’ll be in a hot war. That’s the thing I think most people don’t understand… when they use this phrase, they think it’s like an FAA requirement or something. It’s not some rule you put out. It’s an act of engagement.”
On the aid Ukraine needs to fight Putin:
“In terms of the aid that we can provide, I think their biggest need right now [is for] basic things to begin with. They need fuel, as [it] is going to become a problem. They need ammunition, and they continue to need it. They need all the things they’re getting now….
“Things that [would] probably [be] very helpful for them [are] the surface-to-air missiles…. The ability to go after these planes, like these strategic bombers that are flying at a high level, the ability to go after those and knock those down. Because they can get the lower flying aircraft with the Stingers. They can’t get those bombers that are up high without surface-to-air missiles. It’s got to be a system they know how to run and operate. They have to be trained in that.
“[Ukraine needs] something to deal with these … missile launches and rockets that are being used against them, in addition to artillery. Because that’s really how they’re being attacked right now, primarily through artillery and missile launches, short range missiles.”
On the Biden Administration’s decision to import foreign oil rather than produce it domestically:
“This has nothing to do with oil. At the end of the day, this is an excuse that they’re using. Venezuela can’t sell us any oil, okay? Their Marxism doesn’t work. Communism is a disaster. Socialism is a disaster. They’ve destroyed their oil industry. They used to produce 3 million barrels a day. They’re down to 700,000 barrels a day. They sent most of it to China because that’s how they pay off the loans. They don’t have money to pay China, so they pay them in oil. And then 10 percent of it goes automatically to Cuba. They just can’t ramp up production. They would take billions of dollars of investment and years and years before they ever produced enough to make a difference for us.
“This has to do with people inside of the Biden Administration, particularly Juan Gonzalez at the National Security Council and some people at the State Department, who have been dying to cozy up to Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, whoever they can get close to. If you hate America, they want to cut a deal with you. This was for them. This is a perfect excuse. ‘Let’s go over there and pull this off.’ They even leaked it to make themselves look like they’re some heroic figures, and obviously it blew up in their faces. Now we’ll see. I don’t trust anything they say in a press conference because they may announce that [a deal is off] publicly but privately still be working on it. I imagine Maduro was overjoyed by this, and he’ll still be an ally to China, Iran, and Russia. He gets to have sanctions lifted on him. I think that’s a perfect deal for him. A terrible deal for us.”
On the Hispanic population in America shifting towards the Republican Party:
“I think what all these experts and people who think they’re smart keep ignoring and haven’t figured out yet, is that Hispanic voters’ primary identity isn’t the pronunciation of their last name. Their primary identity is that they’re working class voters. They’re moms and dads, husbands and wives, small business owners, and people that work for a living. They’re getting crushed by the Biden economy. On top of that, they have to deal with all this woke garbage.
“We have this bill we just passed in the Florida legislature. The bill basically says that you can’t be leading discussions with five, six, or seven-year-olds about gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation….. You tell that to the average person, not to mention the average working class person, Hispanic or not, they’d say, ‘Yeah, of course. Why are we talking to seven year olds about that stuff?’ Apparently these people think we do [need to]. The Surgeon General went on a Twitter rant about how harmful this is for kids at seven and eight years of age not to talk to them about it. That’s turning off working class voters.
“You add to that the sort of notion where … if you’re a socialist, if you’re a Marxist, if you hate America, we’re always trying to cut a deal with you, be it Iran [or] Venezuela. But, if you’re an ally of America, like Colombia, we’re always undermining you. We’re declassifying the Marxist narco-terrorist groups that are attacking you. We’re going to classify them as no longer terrorist groups… People…reach their own conclusions on it. I think you’re seeing that express itself in the polling, and ultimately in the elections.”
On the threat of China:
“China is Russia times 100. It won’t be as easy to sanction China as it is to sanction Russia because we just depend too much on [China.]
“The first thing is we need to begin to decouple our economies. This idea that capitalism [was] going to change China turned out to be a massive, terrible mistake. It’s China that’s used capitalism against us. We need to stop letting them steal our intellectual property. We need to start going after their spies. Two weeks ago, the Justice Department announced that we’re going to get rid of the special unit that goes after Chinese espionage because they were afraid it was leading to anti-Asian prosecutions. A lot of the people that have been caught spying for China are not Asian, they’re Americans that got paid to do it. We need to start calling out these corporations that are happy to do business in China and not say a word about them putting Uyghur Muslims in work camps, but are the first ones to buy a billboard and attack [others, like] Disney right now is doing in Florida, attacking political leaders here in America. They won’t say a word about what happens in China.
“We need to build up our military capability. We need to strengthen our alliances around the world. We need to have our own industries. We need to start making things in America again. We need to have our own energy. We need to make our own medicine. We need to start making things because it creates jobs for Americans. But most importantly, it doesn’t leave us dependent on China.
“If China cuts us off from these things, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble — they know that, and they’re using it against us. We’ve got stupid people in charge of a lot of important things that apparently don’t realize it, or there’s just too much money being made right now to care about it.”