Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Americans are heirs of Western civilization and must stop apologizing for it, a message he calls the core of America First foreign policy.
In a long-form on-camera interview at the State Department, Rubio defended his recent address at the Acropolis in Athens and tied it directly to how the Trump administration wants the United States and its allies to carry themselves abroad.
The sit-down with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle was filmed Thursday, October 15, 2026, in the Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room in Washington. It was Rubio’s first major exclusive long-form on-camera interview after the Athens speech, and it laid out why he believes Western nations have to recover pride in their own inheritance.
Breitbart News reported that Rubio framed the Acropolis message as central to the administration’s approach, not a side note.
Rubio put it plainly when asked about the speech’s meaning.
"Well, I think the message is at the core of a lot of what we’re trying to instill in our foreign policy."
He then spelled out the larger claim: America’s system, culture, and values did not appear from nowhere. They rest on a long civilizational line that runs through Greece, Rome, and Europe.
Rubio rejected the idea that defending the West is a slap at other cultures. He said every culture should be proud of itself. The problem, in his view, is that the West alone acts ashamed of its record.
He told Boyle the cost of that shame shows up in foreign policy.
"I think people sometimes forget, like look around our system of government, our culture, our values, the things we believe as a country are important. They’re not just words on a paper. They are backed up by thousands of years of civilization. We are the heirs, we inherited from Greece and from Rome, and ultimately through Europe, many of the values that today underpin our country. A lot of people view that as an attack on other cultures. It’s not. I’m just saying every culture should be proud of themselves. The only culture and the only civilization in the world today who seems apologetic about its history and its achievements is the West, and it’s having a dramatic impact on foreign policy. It is important for us to remind ourselves that we too are heirs to a great civilization that has done great things for humanity and for the world. That many of the things we take for granted in our everyday life, whether it’s the size and wealth of our country, whether it’s our democracy and our republic, whether it’s all of these things, they didn’t come from nowhere. They came from a shared history that we need to rediscover and embrace. We’re doing that here in this country under President Trump. We want more Western leaders to do the same."
That is the through-line from the Acropolis to the State Department interview: recover the inheritance, stop treating it as a liability, and expect allied leaders to do likewise.
Rubio also pointed to earlier signals in the same direction. He had given a related speech at the Munich Security Conference earlier in the year. Vice President JD Vance delivered a similar message the year before. President Trump, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly last month relative to the interview, described America First as using American power to advance American interests. Rubio’s Athens address fits that same frame.
Asked whether foreign leaders are open to the message, Rubio said he sees real receptivity, including in private.
"Yeah, I think I’ve noticed they are receptive to what we’re saying, and even privately, a lot of leaders will tell you ‘that was a great speech, we agree with you.’"
But he did not pretend private agreement instantly becomes public policy. He said leaders still fear blowback from the far left, media, academia, and entrenched bureaucracies that have stigmatized the view as something evil instead of something good.
Rubio’s prediction was blunt: the shift will show up first in elections, as more leaders willing to say these things win office. That, he argued, is what will change how other countries answer shared interests.
The interview package placed that claim against a wider European backdrop. Aleksandar Vucic, the former Serbian president running to become prime minister after stepping down earlier this year under term limits, has embraced Trump’s view and told Breitbart in Belgrade that Trump would receive a hero’s welcome in Serbia. Marine Le Pen was described as the favorite in France’s 2027 presidential race. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned violent leftist riots in Milan, while Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, a more hard-edged conservative nationalist, had sat for a Breitbart interview in Milan earlier in the year. Trump had shared several of those Breitbart interviews on Truth Social, including conversations with Vucic, Salvini, and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
After Rubio’s interview was filmed, the same reporting noted violent leftist riots across Europe, from France to Italy to Albania and beyond, with Meloni condemning the unrest in Milan. The details of scale and arrests were not given. The political point in the package was simpler: the fight over Western confidence is not abstract. It is playing out in streets and election calendars.
Rubio used energy policy to show what happens when Western governments treat basic strength as optional.
He said the last 10 years were full of “silliness” about de-emphasizing energy and even bragging that fossil fuels needed to become expensive so they would disappear. That talk, he said, is gone.
"Well, if you noticed, there was a lot of silliness around the world for the last 10 years about how energy, trying to de-emphasize energy, in fact, bragging about how expensive energy needed to become, fossil fuels in order to get rid of them, no one’s talking about that anymore, right?"
A global crisis, in his account, reminded governments that daily life, industry, and defense all run on energy. Greece, he argued, is unusually well placed to act on that fact.
Politically, Rubio said, Greece is open to energy exploration, encouraged by it, and backed by a public that seems to support it. Geographically, it sits as a historic connector among Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, a natural transit corridor for pipelines and power. Energy only matters if it can move. Greece can help move it north into Europe and south toward Israel and the broader Middle East.
Greece and Cyprus have been partnering with American energy firms on natural gas reserves in nearby seas. The “Vertical Corridor” concept in the reporting describes moving American, and ideally Greek, Cypriot, and other Western, gas through pipelines and routes into central, northern, and eastern Europe, including toward Ukraine. Rubio answered “absolutely” when asked whether the Trump administration hopes the rest of Europe comes around to Greece’s energy stance.
He also revisited a first-term Trump warning that European elites mocked.
"I remember I was in the Senate at the time, but President Trump, in his first term, said that the Germans had left themselves vulnerable to Russian energy as a tool of blackmail in case of conflict and they laughed, they mocked him."
Rubio said American media mocked Trump too and celebrated the European leaders who laughed. Then reality arrived. Dependence on Russian energy, he argued, was one reason Vladimir Putin went into Ukraine: Moscow believed Europe would not respond with real force. Rubio said he hopes Europe has learned. Reversing roughly twenty years of green hyperbole and over-reliance on a single supply line, he added, will take time. High fuel costs for electricity and transport were already punishing European economies before the latest conflicts; stagnation followed. Europe’s future, in his words, depends on fixing it.
The interview came about 48 hours after Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Rubio moved quickly to separate personnel news from the alliance itself.
He called Greece a great ally of the United States and a cornerstone for energy independence, regional stability, and NATO. Greece, the reporting noted, was one of the countries that raised defense spending on its own, not merely under American pressure. Rubio said Athens deserves a strong ambassador with access to the president and the president’s confidence.
Because the resignation was so fresh, he described the search as early-stage. A confirmation process will follow. In the meantime, he said, a solid team will remain on the ground. Nothing about the vacancy, he insisted, should be read as a downgrade of the U.S.-Greece relationship. He had met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and, according to sources familiar with the matter cited in the interview write-up, discussed energy at length. Mitsotakis had also done prior Breitbart interviews over the previous two years that Trump praised.
Boyle asked about 2028. Rubio shut the door.
He said he has already answered those questions and would not keep answering them. It was not personal, he told the interviewer. Too many reporters ask about little else.
"I’ve said everything. I’ve already said things. Like it doesn’t matter how many times you say it. So at this point, I’m just not answering any more 2028 questions."
Rubio said he has two jobs, they consume every hour of the day, and some days there are not enough hours. He cast the Acropolis speech as part of the work, not a campaign teaser: the secretary of state is supposed to represent the country on the world stage. If Americans liked the speech, he said, they should be glad their secretary of state is delivering a serious message abroad.
He widened the point to the whole senior team. Vance, he said, was out campaigning for candidates to hold congressional majorities. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was “crushing Iran with sanctions.” Everyone, Rubio said, is doing a job on the same team, and the right response is to want the team to do those jobs well.
That answer kept the focus where the administration wants it: governing first, palace intrigue last. It also matched the larger theme of the interview. Western countries get stronger when leaders defend their inheritance, secure energy, back serious allies, and stop treating confidence as a scandal.
Allies who still whisper agreement in private while fearing their own media and bureaucracies will not stay strong forever. Voters, energy bills, and hard power have a way of forcing the issue.
