Rubio sticks to Trump's firm stance but takes softer tone in speech to European allies

CBS News ^ | Feb 14, 2026

[McGruff]

While offering a calmer and more reassuring tone than the one often heard over the past year, Rubio made clear that the Trump administration is sticking to its guns on policy. He denounced "a climate cult" and "an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies."

Rubio argued that the "euphoria" of the Western victory in the Cold War led to a "dangerous delusion that we had entered 'the end of history,' that every nation would now be a liberal democracy, that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood ... and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world."

"We made these mistakes together and now together we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild," Rubio said.

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TOPICS: European Union; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: europe; littlefrtroll; littlemarco; maro; rubio; rubio2028; thefuture

[FreedomPoster]

>While offering a calmer and more reassuring tone

Good cop / bad cop approach to diplomacy.

[ComputerGuy]

I liked it.

[SueRae]

Great speech by the best Secretary of State I have ever seen. Worth listening and watching the whole speech.

[nwrep]

Indeed. Rubio has really been a great star.

[Redmen4ever]

Marco Rubio, little Marco, has shown himself up to the tasks of being U.S. Secretary of State. This job usually exhausts its office holder. And, perhaps, it will do so again. But, so far, just over one year into Trump’s second presidency, this man shows a remarkable ability to rationalize Trump’s foreign policy, to speak with directness and diplomacy with our friends and allies, and to be effective in resolving one after another geo-political problem. (To be sure, we have many remaining geo-political problem to address.)