After being unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Monday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was officially sworn in by Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday morning.
Rubio joined ABC’s “Good Morning America” ahead of the ceremony, where he discussed Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters, TikTok and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Rubio sidestepped directly weighing on the pardons, saying his “focus needs to be 100% on how I interact with our counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world to keep this country safe, to make it prosperous.”
Marco Rubio is sworn in as Secretary of State by U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, Jan. 21, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
When asked about Trump’s campaign pledge to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Day 1, Rubio contended the matter is more complex and that negotiations would not be played out in public.
“Look this is a complex, tragic conflict, one that was started by Vladimir Putin that’s inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on Ukraine and also on Russia, I would argue, but also on the stability of Europe,” Rubio said. “So the only way to solve these things, we got to get back to pragmatism, but we also get back to seriousness here, and that is the hard work of diplomacy. The U.S. has a role to play here. We’ve been supportive of Ukraine, but this conflict has to end.”
Secretary Marco Rubio talks Trump’s international agenda
The newly-confirmed Secretary of State talks about becoming the first Latino to occupy the job, plans for the TikTok ban and President Donald Trump’s pardon of Jan. 6 defendants.
ABCNews.com
