Arrival Address to State
Department Employees as U.S. Secretary of State
delivered 21
January 2025, Harry S. Truman Building, Washington, D.C.
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text
version below transcribed directly from audio]
Thank you so much. Thank you. It’s a blessing and
an honor to be with all of you today. And I want to introduce you to my family.
I want you to meet them. I -- We’ve been able to manage them for the last
twenty-something years and -- and counting. And so it’s -- I said this earlier today
when the Vice President swore me in: My -- My most important job, I believe the most
important job any of us will ever have, is the job we do at home. And -- And I don’t
mean that -- both here at home domestically in our politics, but domestic -- but in our lives.
And I’m very proud of my wife and my four children and their support. My wife
Jeanette, who -- her parents immigrated here from
Colombia. Anybody here from
Colombia? Anybody cover Colombia? Yeah. Yeah. And then my -- my oldest daughter, Amanda. Say
hello, Amanda. And then came Daniella. And now Anthony. And our youngest,
Dominick.
So these three -- these three are in school,
meaning, you know, college and even jobs. We got -- we’re still working; he’s doing
good. He’s...a junior in high school. And -- Any obviously, my -- my family
beyond that is here, who made this possible. Jeanette’s mom Maria is here, and
my sisters Barbara and Veronica are here, and a lot of friends that came from
Miami who joined us here today. And I’m grateful, and thank you.
I also want to recognize my former colleagues from the congressional branch, who
also happen to be appropriators and authorizers. And so I thought it was
important. Three people I’ve known for a long time, and by coincidence Florida
is very well represented in the authorization and appropriations in the House.
Mario Díaz-Balart, who I -- who I’ve known as a personal friend; we served
together in the Florida legislature -- in fact, sat next to each other on the
floor. Who would’ve thought, Mario, back in the day? And -- And now here we are,
you know. And
two Cuban Americans. If we had a third, they’d call it a conspiracy, but there’s
only two, so we’re in shape.
Congresswoman Lois Frankel -- we also served in the legislature together. Again,
I know this -- I know it looks suspicious -- she just happens to be from Florida
as well, and they happen to -- she happens to be on that committee. And then of
course my colleague, who -- Brian Mast, who -- thank you for being here as well.
Yeah. I have asked them as a personal favor to be nice to each of you who we send over
to testify and appear before their committees, so -- and -- and to be nice to us when
they write those appropriations bills and pass those laws. And -- But we are --
I’m really grateful you joined us, because our partnership will be critically
important.
I want to thank President Trump for nominating me. This is an extraordinary
honor and a privilege to serve in this role, to be here; frankly, to oversee the
greatest, the most effective, the most talented, the most experienced diplomatic
corps in the history of the world resides in this building.
And it’s important to remember that obviously they
serve our national interest and our foreign policy; they also serve Americans.
And as a member of the Senate, we often would get calls -- for a brief period of
time, panicked calls about passports, as you remember that era when everyone
forgot their passport expired and their cruise was on Saturday, and it’s Friday
5:00 p.m. So we were -- why are you guys chuckling? Is that -- you know it’s
true. It’s happened. And then of course -- but we also serve Americans that
sometimes find themselves overseas and lost their passport, or even worse,
something terrible or tragic happened and their families are -- are impacted by it. And
so it’s important -- it’s an important task and one that I know is -- is critical to
our mission.
Beyond that, this is the face of the United States. In fact, if you think about
it, for many people on this -- on this planet, their only interaction with America -- most
will never travel here -- their only interaction with America in many cases --
whether they be leaders or everyday people -- will be the men and women who
serve us abroad and do so with tremendous integrity and dedication. They are
literally the face of our country -- whether it’s through the aid we’ve provided
or through the services.
I also want to say hello -- and is this being livestreamed somewhere? Like,
people watching this in all of our missions? Good. I want to thank them. I know
they can’t be with us here today and depending on where they are in the world,
it’s probably not as cold as it’s been -- at least for a Floridian. So I also
think the brilliance of this organization shows by hosting these events indoors
which...it’s already showing, and we’re grateful for that as well. But I want
to tell you that I want to thank you -- all of those who were serving overseas
and abroad, some in places that are strong and stable and others that are more
tenuous and dangerous.
And I want to do something also special -- I want to also thank the locally
employed staff, the nationals of those countries who work with us. Without --
Without their
help, without their support, it would be impossible for us to conduct our
mission, and in many ways years later I’ve run into people -- literally run into
people in the United States that are either conducting business or visiting as
tourists or what have you, and they will tell me they were a locally employed in
our -- they were locally -- local employees of our missions abroad, and as a
result their love for their -- our country is never-ending.
I am new to this department. Today is my first day on the job literally, but I
am not a stranger to it. I have interacted with many of you -- both in my
travels abroad and in our daily functions. My job now is different. And our job
in some ways will be different. In our republic, the voters decide the course of
our nation, both domestically and abroad, and they have elected Donald J. Trump
as our President when it comes to foreign policy on a very clear mission. And
that mission is to ensure that our foreign policy is centered on one thing and
that is the advancement of our national interest, which they have clearly
defined through his campaign as anything that makes us stronger or safer or more
prosperous. And that will be our mission. That will be our job across the world,
is to -- is to ensure that we have a foreign policy that advances the national interest
of the United States.
I expect every nation on earth to advance their national interests. And in those
instances -- and I hope there will be many -- in which our national interest and
theirs align, we look forward to working with them. This is in many ways -- and
again, it was referenced by President Trump yesterday in his -- in
his speech that he
designs -- that his overriding goal for global policy is the promotion of peace,
the avoidance of conflict, and no agency will more -- be more critical in that
regard than this one. In fact, it’s its founding principle and purpose. And
that’s what we endeavor to do -- to promote peace around the world, because
that’s in our national interest. Without peace, it is hard to be a strong
nation, a prosperous nation, and -- and one that is better off.
But there will also be challenges. We recognize that there will be those times
unfortunately, as humans interact with one another because of our nature, that
there will be conflict. We will seek to prevent them and avoid them, but never
at the expense of our national security, never at the expense of our national
interest, and never at the expense of our core values as a nation and as a
people. We are -- at the end of the day -- a nation founded on a powerful
principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal,
because our rights come from God our Creator -- not from our laws, not from our
governments.
And we hope the entire world can one day live under that, and we will always, always be strong defenders of that principle -- never at the expense of our
national interest, never at the expense of pragmatic foreign policy, never at
the expense of the reality that oftentimes in foreign policy our choices are not
between -- are between two -- a bad option and a good option. Sometimes in
foreign relations our options are two bad ones, and we’re just trying to figure
out which one of them is least bad. And that’s unfortunate, but it is true. And
that’s a tough job. It’s our job. And we’ll seek to do it right and well. That
is the core mission of this agency, and it will be the core mission while Donald
Trump is President, and we will be effective on his behalf.
I also want this agency to be -- and I don’t mean -- not that it’s irrelevant
now, but I want it to be where it belongs. I want the Department of State to be
at the center of how America engages the world -- not just how we execute on it,
but on how we formulate it. Some of the brightest minds in foreign policy reside
within this building and within this government, and we need to ensure that we
have an environment here that’s conducive to creativity, to boldness, to new
ideas, to recognizing the dynamic world in which we live -- one that is changing
faster than it has ever changed before. And we need to be ahead of it.
When the time comes for the principals to gather or even deputies, I want the
Department of State to have the best ideas and the best options available for
the President, and then I want us to be able to execute them better than any
agency in our government. That will also be a task of mine. I have watched from
the congressional side from time to time, administrations in both parties, in
which sometimes the Department of State has been sort of relegated to a
secondary role because some other agency can move faster or seems to be bolder
or more creative. It’s not your fault, but we’re going to change that. We want
to be at the centerpiece, and we want to be at the core of how we formulate
foreign policy, because we’re going to have the best ideas of any agency and
because we’re going to execute it better and faster and more effectively than
any other agency in our government. And I know we have the right team to do it.
There’s no other agency in the world -- there’s no other agency in our
government -- that I’d rather lead because of the talent that’s collected here
in this room and those watching around the world. That will be our mission, and
I hope we will be able to do it together. There will be changes, but the changes
are not meant to be destructive; they’re not meant to be punitive; they’re not
out of -- the -- the changes will be because we need to be a 21st century agency that
can move, by a cliche that’s used by many, "at the speed of relevance." But we
need to move faster than we ever have because the world is changing faster than
we ever have, and we have to have a view that some say is called “look around
the corner," but we really need to be thinking about where are we going to be in
five, seven, 10, or 15 years.
Some of the issues that confront humanity today have no precedent. They have no
historic precedent. Some of the challenges we face have no historic precedent.
We can compare it to another era, to another time, but they’re not the same.
Things are moving faster than ever. Think about how much the world has changed
in the last five years. Imagine how much it will change over the next 25 years.
And my sincerest hope and my prayer is that we will, as a nation, be able to
leave the future generations with a country and a planet safer and better than
the one that was left for us, and you will be a big part of achieving that goal.
It is an honor to be able to lead this agency. I hope to do it with distinction
and with integrity, working harder than anyone ever has at this role. And that
will not be easy, because some pretty hard-working people have come before me.
But I know that we are up to the task, and I’m glad that I’m in the job, that
I’m in the job on day one. I was
sworn in at about 9:15. I didn’t mess up the
oath. And -- And we’re ready to go to work and I know you are as well.
Thank you.
God
bless all of you.
God bless our country.
Thank you.
Original Text Source:
State.gov
Original Video Source: DVDShub.net
Video Note: Frame interpolated from
29fps to 60fps
Page Created: 1/23/25
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AmericanRhetoric.com.
