Rubio says Trump would go on primetime TV if the government had real answers on UAPs

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says President Trump would deliver a national address with pictures and video if the administration had definitive answers about unidentified anomalous phenomena, but one leading UAP investigator warns that silence from the top may not mean there is nothing to find.

Rubio made the remarks during a Tuesday appearance on "The Katie Miller Podcast," where the host asked him about conspiracy theories. Rubio steered the conversation toward UAPs, the government's updated term for UFOs, and offered a blunt assessment: objects are flying over American military installations, they do not belong to the United States, and the government should take the matter seriously.

Fox News Digital reported that Rubio pushed back against the idea that asking questions about UAPs amounts to conspiracy thinking, while also making an unusual admission about his own history with the subject.

Rubio admits UAPs doubled as a "diversionary tactic" in the Senate

Rubio acknowledged he used UAPs as a tool to redirect reporters during his time in the Senate. He did not hedge the point.

"I did that for a long time in the Senate... It was extraordinarily effective as a diversionary tactic. In addition to, now, that said, it's also a very legitimate topic that we should be covering."

That candid admission drew immediate criticism from at least one prominent figure in the UAP research community. Joshua Golembeske, the lead UFO investigator for the streaming platform Gaia and host of "Cosmic Disclosure," told Fox News Digital that Rubio's words undercut the very culture change the secretary once championed.

"This is the same guy who spent years saying the stigma is the problem, that guys won't report what they see because they'll get laughed at. And now the Secretary of State is on a podcast saying he used it to change the subject. Pilots hear that. Witnesses hear that. That's the exact thing he was trying to fix."

Golembeske credited Rubio's work on the Senate Intelligence Committee as a major reason the UAP report existed in the first place, which made the "diversionary tactic" line land harder. The investigator's complaint was not that Rubio lacked credibility on the issue. It was that Rubio was eroding the credibility he had built.

The tension between Rubio's two positions, genuine interest and political convenience, is worth noting. For years, advocates inside and outside government have argued that the biggest obstacle to UAP transparency is stigma. Military pilots and intelligence personnel, the argument goes, stay quiet because they fear professional ridicule. A sitting secretary of state joking about the topic as a press-management trick does not help that problem, regardless of how legitimate he says the underlying questions are.

That dynamic mirrors a pattern across the Trump administration's relationship with entrenched government secrecy. The president has repeatedly pushed to release information that prior administrations kept locked away, from classified documents to internal agency records, and revelations from figures like Anthony Fauci's private diaries have shown how much Washington's permanent class preferred to operate behind closed doors.

"If we knew, the president would be all over it"

Rubio's most direct statement on the podcast was his assurance that the Trump administration is not sitting on explosive UAP evidence.

"And I assure you, like in this administration, if we knew, like, the president would be all over. Like there would be a primetime address. He would, he'd be showing the pictures and the videos."

Rubio framed the issue not as a cover-up but as an open question the government has yet to answer. He said objects are operating in restricted airspace and the United States does not know who or what is behind them.

"I don't know who it is. I don't know what it is, but there are things flying over our military installations, and they're not ours, and we should look into this, be serious about it."

Golembeske was not persuaded by the "if we knew" framing. He pointed to the testimony of intelligence whistleblower David Grusch, who appeared before Congress and alleged under oath that UAP-related programs had been deliberately hidden from both lawmakers and from AARO, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the very body created to investigate these phenomena.

"Where he says if we knew, Trump would be on primetime showing the pictures. Maybe. But that assumes he'd be told. [Intelligence whistleblower David Grusch] testified under oath that these programs were kept from Congress, kept from AARO, the office we built to look into it. Rubio himself said whistleblowers came to him scared of retaliation. So 'I wasn't briefed' doesn't mean there's nothing there. It might just mean the compartment did its job."

That is the core dispute in the UAP debate, and Golembeske put it plainly. If secret programs exist in compartmented channels that even senior officials cannot access, then a secretary of state saying "we don't know" is not evidence of nothing, it may be evidence that the system is working exactly as designed to keep people out.

Trump's NDA directive opened a narrow door in July

The administration has not been passive on the issue. In July, President Trump directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to allow former government employees and contractors with relevant UAP information to come forward and have their prior nondisclosure agreements waived. Those individuals may now speak with designated representatives from AARO or from PURSUE, the president's UAP task force.

A senior administration official with AARO described the directive's scope to Fox News Digital:

"President Trump recently directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to allow former government employees or contractors that have relevant information about the disclosure of UAP, to come forward to meet with designated government representatives, AARO or the President's UAP taskforce, 'PURSUE', and have their prior NDAs abrogated."

A second unnamed senior administration official clarified that the move was not a declassification directive. Former employees may come forward, but only through official government channels. The distinction matters: waiving an NDA so a retired contractor can talk to AARO is not the same as releasing classified material to the public.

The Pentagon also released several UAP videos in 2026, though the specific number and content were not detailed. The administration has framed these steps as part of a broader transparency push, one that extends well beyond UAPs. Trump has moved to release government files across multiple areas where prior administrations chose secrecy, and his allies argue the results have consistently vindicated the president's instincts about what Washington was hiding.

White House calls Trump "the most transparent president in history"

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly issued a statement to Fox News Digital that leaned into the administration's disclosure record. She said Trump directed the Department of War to identify and release government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, UAPs, and UFOs.

"President Trump directed the Department of War to identify and release government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects because he is the most transparent president in history."

Kelly drew a contrast with previous administrations, saying they had tried to "discredit or dissuade the American people" on the subject.

"While past administrations have sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, the President is focused on providing maximum disclosure to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files."

The White House framing positions Trump as the first president willing to let the public see what the government has. Whether the files released so far satisfy UAP researchers and whistleblower advocates is a separate question, and one the administration has not fully answered. But the contrast with prior administrations is real. For decades, the official posture from Washington on UFOs ranged from dismissal to active ridicule. The fact that a sitting secretary of state now discusses the topic openly on a podcast, even while admitting he once used it as a press distraction, represents a shift in how seriously the government treats the subject publicly.

The broader pattern of this administration confronting institutional secrecy has played out across multiple fronts. From congressional investigations into prosecutorial conduct to the release of long-classified documents, the Trump White House has consistently pushed against the permanent bureaucracy's preference for keeping the public in the dark.

Open questions the administration has not addressed

Several significant gaps remain. The full scope of Trump's directive to the Department of War, which files, on what timeline, with what redactions, has not been publicly detailed. The operational status, membership, and authority of PURSUE, the president's UAP task force, remain unclear. And the administration has not addressed the core allegation raised by Grusch's congressional testimony: that UAP-related programs were deliberately compartmented away from the officials and offices tasked with investigating them.

Rubio himself acknowledged the limits of what he knows. He did not claim the government has no UAP secrets. He said he does not have the answers and does not know whether a cover-up exists, only that the questions deserve serious attention.

"So, I don't call it a conspiracy. I don't know if I, I don't know the answer to any of it. I'm just, you know, asking the questions about, we should know what's flying over our airspace. But I don't think that's a conspiracy theory as much as it is just, it can be in some sense, because people do believe we're covering something up."

That measured tone from the nation's top diplomat stands in contrast to how Washington handled these questions for generations. Past administrations mocked the subject. This one waived NDAs, released videos, and put the secretary of state on a podcast to discuss it. Whether those steps go far enough depends on what is still locked inside the compartments that even Rubio says he cannot see into.

The administration has shown a willingness to challenge entrenched secrecy that its predecessors protected. On UAPs, as on so many other fronts where critics have tried to discredit the president's instincts, the question is not whether Trump is willing to disclose. It is whether the bureaucracy will let him.

When the biggest obstacle to government transparency is the government itself, executive orders and NDA waivers are a start, but the people who built the compartments are still the ones holding the keys.