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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined CNN News to discuss President-elect Donald Trump’s historic victory, immigration law enforcement, and the United States’ foreign policy challenges. See below for highlights and watch the full interview on YouTube and Rumble.

On the 2024 U.S. presidential election: 

“What I’m most impressed by is not just the size of the victory, I know the numbers are still growing, but the way Donald Trump won this election. He won it by fundamentally remaking the Republican Party, but I hope, also, by revealing that for voters in the United States of America, their primary identity is not their ethnicity. It’s not their race. It’s what they do for a living. It’s who they are in their daily lives. 

“I just saw, a moment ago, you had a segment on the Hispanic vote in all these different places. And every expert in the world was saying, ‘There’s no way Donald Trump can even be competitive because Bad Bunny is not supporting him, and Jennifer Lopez and George Lopez, whoever, came out against him.’ [But] these people are workers. These people are fathers and mothers, and they have children, and they own small businesses, and they’re employees of a company who’s sending jobs overseas. They have to be appealed to as Americans, because that’s what they are.

“And when these migrants come, and they’re criminals in their own home country—say somebody comes here from El Salvador, and they’re a criminal. They’re not criminals because they’re migrants. They’re criminals because they’re criminals. And then they’re coming here—what neighborhood are they going to? They’re going to these Hispanic neighborhoods. That’s what we heard in Pennsylvania. That’s what you saw Osceola County put up a moment ago, which is an enormous community, a strong Puerto Rican presence. They’re very concerned about the cost of living, the cost of groceries. 

“And Donald Trump appealed to Americans. As Americans, irrespective of your background or your customs or what music you listen to or how your last name is pronounced, this is more than just a realignment. I hope it’s a realization that when you come to this country, and you put your roots down here, and you raise your children here, you become an American. And everything, from our economy to our safety to our national security, matters as much to you as they do to anybody else in this country.”

On the emerging realignment among American voters: 

“I don’t believe in anything permanent anymore, because American politics moves so quickly and so rapidly. I saw again, a moment ago, we were talking about Miami-Dade County, and Miami-Dade County flipped in about eight years. Dramatic change. So nothing is permanent. Let me put it to you this way: From now on, anybody who’s running, at least for the foreseeable future, [will be more likely to say]: ‘I’m going to put the priorities of Americans first. I am going to ensure that our laws are enforced when it comes to immigration. We’re not going to be anti-immigrant, but we’re going to be anti-illegal immigration and chaos, and we’re going to try to keep America out of wars.’ 

“We’re entering into an era of pragmatic foreign policy, in which the world is rapidly changing. Adversaries are uniting in North Korea, Iran, China, Russia. They’re increasingly coordinating. It’s going to require us to be very pragmatic and wise in how we invest overseas and what we do and how we approach things. I think that message is going to transcend traditional ideological and partisan lines. Six years from now, it may be the Democrat who’s saying that. 

“So I don’t think any of us could just sit back and say that this is permanent. This is not a partisan realignment. It is an American realignment. And Donald Trump just happens to be the candidate, over the last 10 years, that’s truly not just revealed that, but captured it and communicated it in a very unique way. But it’s incumbent upon those of us who are in office now to turn that into policy and ultimately to continue it as a movement. Otherwise, someone else will learn from it, and they’ll adopt it.”

On the work ahead of Congress:

“This is not a college football game where we celebrate because our team won. [Voters are] not sending us up [to Congress] to celebrate. They’re sending us up there to work and to try to turn the message of this campaign into public policy for the benefit of all Americans. And that means, begin to secure our borders, begin to rebuild our economy in a way where working people—hardworking, everyday people—can afford life, get ahead, and do basic  things that we used to take for granted. If you work hard, you should have a job that pays you enough to own a home and start a family and retire with dignity. We want to get back to an economy that makes that possible.

“And we wake up every single day to bad news after bad news. We’ve got to start taking this pretty seriously. When you’ve got North Korean troops embedded alongside Russians in the middle of Europe, when you’ve got the Chinese now habitually and routinely harassing not just Taiwan, but the Philippines, and, of course, an Iran that continues its ambitions, including trying to kill Donald Trump, I think we’ve got a very dangerous world that’s going to require immediate attention.”

On enforcing existing immigration laws:

“The first mass deportation, and the one that’s most important, is criminals. If you are a convicted murderer or a killer or some very dangerous individual that has a criminal record in another country, or have committed crimes here, you need to be removed from the country. I don’t care where you came from. You’re here illegally. On top of the fact that, you’re here to commit crimes. You must be…removed immediately from the United States of America. That’s without a doubt. 

“Beyond that, I do think we have to have immigration laws, and they have to be enforced. That is the law of the country. The laws of our country today are, ‘If you are here unlawfully, you are to be detained through removal.’ You can decide who to prioritize, and you can decide who you want to move to the front of the line, in terms of enforcing that. But that has to be the law of the country. If you don’t enforce that, then what you’re basically telling people all over the world is: ‘Come to America. You’re not supposed to be here, but we’ll let you in, and then you’re going to get to stay.’ 

“Look, every year, over a million people get green cards. They get U.S. residency. No other nation in the world is as generous as that. I think everyone would admit there are things we need to do to modernize our legal immigration system right now. We simply can’t do it, because we have millions of people a year that are entering the country illegally, and some of them are very dangerous criminals—from all over the world, not just from Latin America—many of whom we have no idea of who they are. And then they come here and commit serious crimes and pose threats to the country. That’s where you start. That has to be the priority. But yes, I support enforcing the immigration laws of the United States, because if we don’t, then we don’t have immigration laws.… 

“I’m not going to be making pronouncements about what the Trump Administration [will do]. I can guarantee you their number one priority is going to be, first and foremost, people who are here illegally, unlawfully, and have committed—or are committing—serious crimes, or are a threat to the country. If you’re a convicted murderer in El Salvador or a convicted murderer in Venezuela or wherever, and now you got into the United States unlawfully, you need to be removed. I don’t care how many children you have in the United States, you’re here unlawfully. You need to go, because you’re a threat to the country. You work your way down from that. But the most important thing is, if you do not begin to enforce your immigration laws, if you do not send the message that there are people in this country unlawfully, and they’re going to be removed, then more people are going to come. 

“It’s entirely incentive-based. The reason why so many people have come is because, rightfully, they believe that if they come, they will be admitted, they will be released, and they will be told, ‘Come back for a hearing.’ And that’s not going to happen any time in the near future, and they’re going to get to stay. That’s acted as a magnet, as an incentive for people to come and, frankly, for people to be trafficked here. That’s the piece that everyone’s forgetting. They are paying some criminal organization to traffic their loved ones or themselves into this country. It’s a very dangerous situation, and it’s just not sustainable. No country in the world would allow it. We shouldn’t either.”

On reports of a Russian plot against the United States: 

“I won’t comment on articles that are based on things that are supposed to be classified intelligence. But let me say generally, and I think this has been reported publicly, that we know that the Russians and Vladimir Putin have undertaken sabotage operations in Europe to try to punish countries that are assisting Ukraine. We know that that’s an ongoing threat… I think, in some ways, this comes down to the fact that they simply do not respect or do not fear what the reaction would be from the Biden Administration. 

“These are very serious threats. It’s a very serious problem. If there’s anything that’s explosive on an aircraft, be it cargo or passenger, it’s a very serious thing and something that needs to be dealt with very firmly. But let me just point you back to the fact that we know that the Russians have been involved in attempted sabotage operations throughout Europe as a way of inflicting costs on nations in Europe that are assisting Ukraine. I think that’s an area we need to focus on, and that the Trump Administration would make a priority.”