Pope Leo XIV and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on Thursday during the latter's trip to Rome, with hopes of improving relations between the Vatican and Washington at a time when United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the pontiff. On Friday, Leo marks his first year leading the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church.
The article, published on Monday, cited four individuals familiar with the talks and included revelations that negotiators demanded that President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the leader of the Cuba's communist government, would need to go during talks as the island grapples with fuel shortages and a power grid outage.
Here's a reminder that no matter how high and mighty you get in Trump's White House, a Latino is still an exotic "other." Tokenizing someone is always an ugly thing - yet Rubio deserves no tears. He has made a career out of wearing his latinidad like a shiny guayabera when convenient, long casting himself as the boy-faced exception to the corrupt, ineffectual Latino politician archetype.
The United States demanded on Wednesday that Cuba undertake very dramatic changes very soon, while increasing pressure on an island facing its worst economic crisis in decades. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is holding conversations with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of Raul Castro, the regime's strongman, according to the U.S. outlet Axios, which claims these talks are taking place outside the Cuban government's official channels in Havana.
In what bordered on an explicit political endorsement, Rubio told Orban that relations between Hungary and the US had entered a golden age and would stay like that for as long as Orban remains in power. If you face financial struggles, if you face things that are impediments to growth, if you face things that threaten the stability of your country,
You'll make it back, one way or the other, Trump said. You're all going to do very well. Rubio slid Trump the note, which the president held up and acknowledged out loud. Marco just gave me a note: Go back to Chevron. They want to discuss something,' Trump read as Rubio laughed. Go ahead, I'm going back to Chevron! Trump exclaimed, before slapping Rubio on the back and saying, Thank you, Marco!
The website (www.whitehouse.gov/j6) omitted numerous facts about President Donald Trump's culpability in baselessly claiming the 2020 election was fraudulent, inspiring the riot, further agitating the rioters against then-Vice President Mike Pence, and dragging his feet sending a tweet asking them to depart the Capitol peacefully, and seeks to shift blame to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Democrats, Republicans who criticized Trump, and even the Capitol Police, accusing them of causing the violence by behaving aggressively with provocative tactics that escalate[d] tensions.
In a cable dated December 9 and obtained by Reuters, Rubio reportedly wrote: "To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department's written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface." (The subject line of the directive is, "Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper.")
Secretary Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon, Rounds said. I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives. It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received. And as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it. And we did not release it. It was leaked. It was not released by our members or our representatives.
