Secretary Rubio [White House press conference]: As you know, over the weekend the president announced this Project Freedom, and the goal of it is to, frankly, if you want to talk about it, it's to rescue almost twenty-three thousand civilians from eighty-seven different countries that are trapped inside of the Gulf and left for dead, in the Persian Gulf by this Iranian regime. For more than two months now, these innocent sailors and commercial crewmembers have been stranded out at sea because Iran has conducted; it's not just criminal, it's criminal for sure, but it's desperate and destructive, this blockade of the Straits of Hormuz.

Secretary Rubio: International law on this is very clear. International waterways, no country can control them. There is no international law that allows you to say, ' I am going to put mines in an international body of water, and I'm going to blow up ships that don't listen to us and try to go through'. That's what Iran is doing. This is a criminal act, and someone needs to do something about it. Something needs to be done. It's completely illegal, completely illegitimate, and completely unacceptable. And that's why the United States Military is guiding stranded commercial ships safely through the Strait, and is working to restore freedom of navigation and putting an end to these efforts to hold the global economy hostage.

Secretary Rubio: Any foreign financial institution or commercial actor that enables Iran's sanction evasion is going to face secondary sanction exposure, and loss of access to the U.S. financial system. As President Trump has said, and the facts clearly bear out, the United States of America holds all the cards.

Secretary Rubio: There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per say. Here's what's happening with Cuba. Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. Used to give them a bunch of free oil. They would take like sixty percent of that oil and resell it for cash. It wouldn't even go to benefit the people. So the only blockade that's happened is, the Venezuelans have decided we're not giving you free oil anymore.

Secretary Rubio: By the way, on the topic of Hezbollah and Lebanon, who is behind Hezbollah? Why do they exist? They are an agent of Iran. If you go through that Middle East, and you identify every problem; Hamas, Hezbollah, to some extent the Houthis, obviously, and others, behind every one of these groups is Tehran. So apart from the nuclear weapons, apart from all these other things, these guys are behind all the bad actors. Hezbollah is a wing, it's an extension of Iranian desire to destabilize the region.

Secretary Rubio: What was Iran's plan? You have to understand what their plan was. Their plan was they were going to build this conventional shield where they would have so many thousands of missiles, and drones, and rockets, that they couldn't be attacked. And behind that conventional shield that they were trying to build, they would then break out and do whatever they wanted with their nuclear program. They no longer have that conventional shield.

Secretary Rubio: What is the purpose of the UN? The UN is supposed to be a place where you can peacefully resolve global conflict. Right now, you have a country who is unlawfully, criminally, and illegally, taking possession of an international waterway, and blowing up commercial vessels, and putting mines in the water. I don't know if people appreciate like how outrageous this is. How unacceptable this is. That any country would fire and try to sink commercial vessels, or put mines in the water. Both of these things are illegal. And so, we're going to take it to the UN. We're going to give it another chance to be a forum in which; we're not even asking people, like, commit troops to the region and help blow up their Iranian boats. All we're asking them to do is condemn it. To call on Iran to stop blowing ships, to remove these mines, and to allow humanitarian relief to come through.

Secretary Rubio: You're not ready for my DJ name.

kek

Secretary Rubio: The War Powers Act is unconstitutional. One hundred percent. Now this is not the position of me, not the position of the president of the United States now, this is the position of every single president that has occupied this position since the day that law passed. It is completely unconstitutional.