Aliens, Cuba, and a 'corpse on the plane': US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as you've never heard him before
The US Secretary of State recounted how, on a flight from China, he watched with concern as a senior American official lay in the plane's conference room without moving: 'I didn't want to discover a corpse on the plane.' Furthermore, Marco Rubio revealed that flying 'objects' are observed over military facilities and explained how Donald Trump informed him that he would be Secretary of State.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is used to dealing with wars, international crises, and conversations with leaders, but it was in a joint interview today (Wednesday) with his wife Jeanette for the podcast of Katie Miller, wife of Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House Stephen Miller, that the US Secretary of State provided a rare and amusing glimpse into life at the top of the Donald Trump administration.
Among Marco Rubio's experiences is a particularly bizarre story about a flight on Air Force One during which, for about an hour and a half, he and other people feared that one of the passengers, a senior administration official, had simply died.
When asked what the funniest thing was that happened on a government plane that had not yet been published, Marco Rubio initially replied cautiously: 'That I can tell?'. And then he recalled a flight back from China. According to him, a person whose identity he refused to reveal fell asleep on one of the sofas in the plane's conference room — but at a certain stage, the sleep seemed a bit too deep.
'For a significant part of the flight, there was an argument about whether this person was dead,' Marco Rubio said. 'I couldn't see any chest movement. I couldn't identify a consistent breathing pattern.' But then an unusual dilemma arose: to wake the man and risk embarrassment — or to do nothing and risk that a corpse was lying next to him. 'I didn't want to discover a corpse. I don't even know what the protocol is for that.' The fear increased because even the noise and lights on the plane did not cause the man to react. Fortunately, the passenger was alive and well.
Flying objects over military facilities
Another moment in the interview touched on one of the mysteries that has occupied the American security establishment for years. Marco Rubio raised the subject of UAP — the official American designation for unidentified anomalous phenomena in the air.
'I don't know who it is. I don't know what it is,' he said, 'but there are things flying over our military facilities and they are not ours. We need to check this and treat it seriously.' Marco Rubio clarified that he is not claiming these are aliens, but the fact that something unidentified is penetrating sensitive airspace requires answers. He insisted that if the Donald Trump administration held dramatic evidence of extraterrestrial life, the president would have likely revealed it himself in a prime-time address.
'You are going to be Secretary of State'
The interview also provided a glimpse into a less amusing side of the Secretary of State's life — a work routine where a phone call at 2:30 AM can herald a major crisis. Marco Rubio said that these days the USA is 'quite busy on the national security front because of Iran,' and developments can arrive at any hour. When asked what bothers him at 2:30 AM, he replied simply: 'Everything bothers me.'
Even the way Marco Rubio arrived at one of the most powerful positions in the world sounds less like an orderly recruitment process and more like a notification. When asked how Donald Trump offered him the position, he corrected: 'Offered is not exactly the word.' According to him, shortly after the elections, Donald Trump simply informed him: 'You are going to be Secretary of State.'
'Cuba is next'
Finally, the Secretary of State provided an unusual political forecast regarding Cuba. After being asked if 'Cuba is next,' Marco Rubio said he is convinced that by the end of the Donald Trump administration's term, Cuba will be 'on an irreversible path toward a very different future.' He compared the process to the changes that Eastern European countries underwent after the fall of communism, clarifying that a change of direction in Cuba is a goal of the administration.
