This week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who sits on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared on Trey Gowdy’s show on Fox News to weigh in on international events.
Rubio offered his takes on the Wagner Group’s attempted mutiny in Russia.
“It’s a lot like a mafia movie. Prigozhin had a long-time problem with the defense minister and the chief of staff of the army. Wagner is full of criminals, and he’s a criminal. But they outperformed the Russian military and embarrassed them. I think he concluded they were going to come after him, so he needed to go after them first,” Rubio said. “So he marched on Rostov, which is where their headquarters were, and tried to at least capture and put on trial or whatever he wanted to do to Gerasimov, who was the head of the army. But the guy escaped, and then [Prigozhin] started marching on Moscow. I think he realized that that probably would not be wise. [Wagner] would probably be defeated at some point in that. And so he cut this deal through the mediation of the fake president of Belarus. And then Putin goes on TV a couple of days later and says, whatever promises were made to you, we’re not going to keep them.
“I think this was a survival thing more than anything else for [Prigozhin]. He wanted to get rid of those guys, and he thought embarrassing them and or capturing them would force Putin to do it. And now we’ll see what happens. It’s quite uncertain. The loss of Wagner in Ukraine is going to badly hurt the Russians. They’re actually better equipped, better trained, better fed than regular Russian troops,” Rubio added.
Rubio also weighed in on China’s increased operations in Cuba.
“Both China and Russia have had an intelligence presence in Cuba for a while. I think there’s concern now, as it’s been reported in the media, that they’re expanding their ability to collect electronically on us, listen out of Cuba. Obviously your position [in Cuba is] great [for espionage]. Central Command is in Tampa. Special Operations Command is in Tampa. Southern Command is in Miami. NASA, multiple military installations are up to the southeast. So it’s a huge intelligence threat,” Rubio said before turning to the early 1960s for a historic comparison.
“The thing I keep an eye on very closely beyond that is, is there now going to be a Chinese military presence, a base of some sort, which is something the Chinese intend to do somewhere in the Western hemisphere. It would be the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in which you have a large, permanent contingent of a foreign adversary, a military presence, not just in our hemisphere, but 90 miles off the coast of Key West,” said Rubio. “[It would be] an unacceptable situation and one that I think this administration should be focused on and making very clear that we will not tolerate or not allow, making it very clear to the Cuban regime that if they cross that line, we will have to take measures against them. We really shouldn’t limit what those measures would be in that scenario, because that would be the most direct challenge to our national security in the Western Hemisphere since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Rubio also turned to the situation in the Middle East.
“Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia has a terrible relationship with the Biden administration. They view themselves as an emerging regional power, and they’re leveraging [that power], like a lot of these developing countries are in the Middle East. And they’re trying to create a relationship, as well, with this group called the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, [and South Africa] – and maybe even conduct some transactions away from the U.S. dollar, in a different currency, which is a direct challenge to the dollar as the global reserve currency,” said Rubio.
“That and of course this Iran deal. The administration is cooking up some sort of secret deal with Iran. We find out now that the person in charge of that for Biden is being investigated. His clearances have been suspended. I think that story is going to get even worse. And we don’t know anything about the secret deal, which has a tremendous impact. I think now more than ever, Congress not only needs to be aware of what’s in the secret deal, but actually weigh in on it, and I include in that Democrats. We need to know what this deal is, especially if it’s been negotiated by a guy who right now has been suspended because he may have violated the laws of this country,” Rubio added.
