Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to comment this morning on Trump’s pardons of 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters despite saying after the 2021 attack on the Capitol that it was “one of the saddest days in American history.”
In an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show, he was asked what message the pardons send to the rest of the world, but deflected the question as outside his foreign policy purview.
“We’re going to focus on what makes America stronger and more prosperous and safer,” Rubio said. “I’m not going to engage in domestic political debates. I can’t in the role of State Department. My job is to focus on the president’s foreign policy.”
Pressed again to react to the pardons, he said, “My days at least in the time I’m at Department of State, my engaging in domestic politics will be put aside as I focus on the affairs of the United States has around the world.”
Rubio said he’s going to be working on foreign policy issues and criticized host Craig Melvin for asking questions about domestic politics.
After the Jan. 6 riot, Rubio put the attack in foreign policy terms. “Today, America looks like the countries that they came here to get away from. Vladimir Putin loved everything that happened today, because what happened is better than anything he could have ever come up with to make us look like we’re falling apart,” he said.”
