Secretary of State Marco Rubio on unrest in the Red Sea, tariffs, and more

(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about unrest in the Red Sea.

According to Brennan, the Red Sea is a "really important transit point for global shipping," with the "Houthis out of Yemen" distrupting transit there for some time. Brennan also said these concerns were cited by President Donald Trump when the president announced the strikes.

This prompted Brennan to ask Secretary Rubio how long will the campaign last, and Rubio said, "It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that."

Brennan then followed up by asking Rubio if ground raids could be involved in the campaign, to which Rubio responded saying:

"Those are military decisions to be made, but I've heard no talk of ground raids. I don't think there's a necessity for it right now. I can tell you that as of last night, some of the key people involved in those missile launches are no longer with us, and I can tell you that some of the facilities that they use are no longer existing, and that will continue...It's bottom line, easy way to understand it, okay, these guys are able to control what ships can go through there. They've attacked the U.S. Navy 174 times. They've attacked the United States Navy. We're not going to have people sitting around with the missiles attacking the U.S. Navy. It's not going to happen, not under President Trump."

During the interview, Brennan and Rubio talked about the ability of the Houthis, with Brennan asking Rubio if the strike in Yemen is a signal to Iran, and Rubio said:

"This strike in Yemen is about their ability, the ability of the Houthis, to strike global shipping and attack the U.S. Navy, and their willingness to do it. 174 times against the U.S. Navy, 145 sometimes against global shipping. That's what the strike is about. What we can't ignore, and the reason why the President mentioned Iran is because the Iranians have supported the Houthis. They provided them intelligence, they provided them guidance, they provided them weaponry. I mean, there's no way the Houthis, okay, the Houthis would have the ability to do this kind of thing unless they had support from Iran. And so this was a message to Iran, don't keep supporting them, because then you will also be responsible for what they are doing in attacking Navy ships and attacking global shipping."

Brennan and Rubio also talked about President Trump's tariff plan.

"The president rightfully believes that the balance of global trade is completely off gilt-kilter. For 30 or 40 years, we have allowed countries to treat us unfairly in global trade, much of it during the Cold War because we wanted them to be rich and prosperous because they were our allies in the Cold War, but now that has to change. You look at the European Union. The European Union's economy is about the same size as ours. It's not a low wage economy. It's very comparable to ours in terms of its composition and so forth. Why do they have a trade surplus with us? So what the President is saying is two things. Number one, there are critical industries like aluminum, like steel, like semiconductors, like automobile manufacturing, that he rightfully believes, President Trump rightfully believes, the U.S. needs to have a domestic capability and the way you protect those industries and build that capability is by ensuring that there's economic incentives to produce in the United States. The second is global, and that is, we are going to put tariffs on countries reciprocal to what they impose on us. And so this is a global, it's not against Canada, it's not against Mexico, it's not against the EU, it's everybody. And then from that new baseline of fairness and reciprocity, we will engage, potentially in bilateral negotiations with countries around the world on new trade arrangements that make sense for both sides. Fairness, but right now, it's not fair. We're going to reset the baseline, and then we can enter into these bilateral agreements, potentially, with countries so that our trade is fair."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Rubio talked about the negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine, with Brennan reporting what Rubio said the meeting between Ambassador Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which happened last week, "would answer the fundamental question of whether we're moving towards a ceasefire, or whether Putin is using a delay tactic," to which Brennan asked Rubio if this was a delay tactic, and Rubio answered saying:

"I think that was a promising meeting. As I've said repeatedly, we're not going to negotiate this in the public. Hopefully we'll have something to announce at some point fairly soon. I can't guarantee that, but I certainly think the meeting was promising, the exchange was promising. I don't take away from Steve's meeting, from Ambassador Witkoff's meeting, negativity. There are some challenges. This is a complex, three-year war that's been ongoing along a very long military front, with a lot of complexity to it. So no one's claiming that it's easy, but I want everyone to understand, here's the plan. Plan A is, get the shooting to stop so that we can move to Plan B, phase two, which is have everybody at a table..maybe with some shuttle diplomacy, to figure out a way to permanently end this war in a way that's enduring and it respects everybody's needs and so forth. No one is saying that that second part is easy, but we can't get even to that second part until we get past the first part. It's hard to negotiate an enduring end of a war as long as they're shooting at each other, and so the president wants a ceasefire. That's what we're working on, assuming we can get that done. That won't be easy in and of itself. We move to the second phase, which is negotiating something more enduring and permanent. That will be hard. It will involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both sides, but it has to happen. This war cannot continue. The president has been clear about that, and he's doing everything he can to bring it to an end."

Brennan and Rubio then talked about Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and pro-Palestinan activist who was arrested by ICE from his Columbia University apartment last week.

This prompted Brennan to ask Rubio if he can "substantiate any form of material support for terrorism, specifically to Hamas, from [Khalil], or was it simply that he was espousing a controversial political point of view," and Rubio responded saying:

"Not just [Khalil], we're going to do more. In fact...every day now we're approving visa revocations, and if that visa led to a green card, the green card process as well and here's why, it's very simple. When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest, and you're coming as a student, you're coming as a tourist, or what have you. And in it, you have to make certain assertations and if you tell us when you apply for a visa, I'm coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events, that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America. It's that simple. So, you lied. You came- if you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa. Now you're here. Now you do it. You lied to us. You're out. It's that simple. It's that straight forward."

Brennan then followed up by asking Rubio if it's only "pro-Palestinian people who are going to have their visas remote- revoked, or other points of view as well," and Rubio said:

"No, I think anybody who's here in favor...look, we want to get rid of Tren de Aragua gang members. They're terrorists too. We, the president, designated them, asked me to designate and I did, as a terrorist organization. We want to get rid of them as well. You're- we don't want terrorists in America. I don't know how hard that is to understand. We want people- we don't want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety. It's that simple, especially people that are here as guests. That is what a visa is. I don't know what we've gotten it in our head that a visa is some sort of birthright. It is not. It is a visitor into our country, and if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Rubio, click here.