President Donald Trump got some unintentional laughs on Tuesday as he searched a room for Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Where is Marco? Where is Marco?” Trump asked at the start of his Shield of the Americas meeting.
“Right here,” Rubio said, sheepishly raising a finger.
He was seated right next to Trump.
“There’s Marco!” Trump said. “He’s never very far away.”
Some in the room chuckled, including Rubio.
Rubio followed Trump to the seats but didn’t sit immediately. Instead, he stopped and signaled to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to sit on the president’s other side. Rubio had been sitting next to the president for about 40 seconds when Trump asked where he was.
That wasn’t the only odd moment between the pair. Trump also made a joke about Cuba that didn’t quite land.
Earlier in the day, while speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump predicted that Cuba “will fall.” Those comments prompted Cuba’s delegation to walk out.
At his Shield of the Americas meeting, Trump said Cuba was “not looking so good” and suggested an unconventional way for Rubio ― whose parents were born there ― to intervene.
“We’re going to someday, in the near future, drop him off in the middle of Cuba,” Trump said. “Just on the way back from Iran, we’re gonna have one of those big, beautiful aircraft carriers fly him in, drop him off, and he’ll figure out the rest. He always does.”