Informal Communication

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

The Benjamin Franklin Room

QUESTION:  And joining me now is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  Mr. Secretary, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good morning, Kristen.

QUESTION:  So the big question on everyone’s mind, Mr. Secretary:  How did Israel, how did the United States miss what Hamas was planning?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, first, put this in perspective –

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Regions: Iran , Israel , United Kingdom , United States

Topics: Countering Terrorism, Energy, Refugee and Humanitarian Assistance

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.  I know you’ve been working through the day, through the weekend.  What is the United States doing right now?  What comes next?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, George, first, to put this in perspective – and as some of your correspondents just said – this is the worst attack on Israel since 1973, the Yom Kipp

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Austin, Texas

The University of Texas at Austin

MR EDGAR:  All right.  Welcome, everyone.  Please, if you haven’t already, take your seats, and we’ll begin the program shortly.  My name is Paul Edgar, and I am the interim executive director of the Clements Center for National Security.  On behalf of the Clements Center and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, welcome to a conversation on the state of foreign aff

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon.  Welcome.  Welcome back to the State Department for so many of you.  Welcome to the Ben Franklin Room, newly refurbished.  A lot went into this.  And I think maybe a word about Ben Franklin before we get to today’s event.

As you all know, he was America’s first diplomat, ambassador to France, negotiated our first treaty, charted the Gulf Stream, pioneered el

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK:  Good evening, everyone.  Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the State Department and to the Benjamin Franklin Room.  Esteemed guests and friends from across the Pacific, it is my honor to welcome you tonight to our dinner program and to introduce our co-hosts, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfi

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

New York City, New York

Palace Hotel

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good afternoon, everyone.  First, thanks to each and every one of you for being here today.  We have a remarkable roundtable of people with us, starting first of all with our friend and colleague from Ukraine, the Minister of Strategic Industries, Oleksandr Kamyshin.  Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here.  And of course, the indomitable ambassador from Ukraine to t

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

New York City, New York

Palace Hotel

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you, Uzra.  And I actually did not want to interrupt the important intervention that was going on.  (Laughter.)  So we can continue that, or I’m – I’ll pick it up later.  But I am so gratified to see so many colleagues here today both from governments but also from the private sector.  I think it speaks to the importance that we all attach to this effort, initiative,

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Treaty Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Crown Prince Salman, Your Royal Highness, welcome back to the State Department, to Washington, a city that I know you know very well from your student days just up the road at American University.  We’ve had the chance to discuss that before.  Things have changed a little bit on campus, but we’re delighted to have you back in Washington.

And to the National Security Advisor

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.

AUDIENCE:  Good morning.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Dean Steinberg, Jim, thank you for the honor of joining the SAIS community to help inaugurate this truly magnificent new home.

Jim has contributed so much over his remarkable career, but his most lasting contribution is the generation of thinkers, the generation of d

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Press Briefing Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good morning.  Good morning.

QUESTION:  Good morning.

QUESTION:  Well, barely morning.  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Speak for yourself, Matt.

Very good to see everyone here.  Actually, I kind of hoped more of you might be on vacation by now but – (laughter) – I see we have a pretty full house

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Brisbane, Australia

Government House Queensland

QUESTION:  Well, you’ve just wrapped up two days of intense talks.  What’s been the tone of the discussions here?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  It’s hard to overstate how, first of all, much genuine friendship there is among the four of us – among the Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, among the Foreign Minister Penny Wong and myself and Lloyd Austin.  So it starts

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Aspen, Colorado

Aspen Meadows Resort

MS MITCHELL:  Good morning, everyone.  It’s wonderful to be back in Aspen, and especially after such a great program all week, and most especially to be with Secretary Blinken.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.

MS MITCHELL:  Tony Blinken, of course, you all know, but – (applause) – I think this is your first time here since becoming Secretary.

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Karuizawa, Japan

The Prince Karuizawa

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon, everyone.  Let me – let me start with the situation in Sudan.  For the past 36 hours, we and our partners have been focused on how to stop the widespread fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.  Indiscriminate military operations have resulted in significant civilian deaths and injuries, and are recklessly endangering the Su

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Brussels, Belgium

European Council Building

HIGH REPRESENTATIVE BORRELL: Good morning. Good morning. I’m very happy to welcome you, Secretary Blinken, in Brussels. We just had a very good bilateral meeting marking our great transatlantic cooperation. Now we will co-chair the EU-U.S. Energy Council, and later we will see each other also at the NATO Ministerial.

Allow me some words about our bilateral discussion.  Certainly

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone.  Thank you all so much for joining.  It’s very good to be with friends and partners from around the world as we prepare to open the second Summit for Democracy.

In his first year in office, President Biden launched the summit to look at the future of democracy, which we see is at an inflection point.  Worldwide, we see autocrats violating human right

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Dirksen Senate Office Building

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, thank you very much, Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Risch, committee members.  Very good to be with you today as always, and thanks for the opportunity to speak to the administration’s proposed FY24 budget for the State Department and the Agency for International Development.

We meet at an inflection point and I think that’s reflected actually in what both

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Dirksen Senate Office Building

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very, very much.  Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, very good to be with you.  Chair Murray, Vice Chair Collins, to all the committee members here today, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about our proposed FY24 budget for the State Department and USAID.

And I think as you’ve both laid out in different ways, we are meeting at

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Niamey, Niger

Presidential Palace

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for taking this opportunity.  We appreciate it.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thanks, Shaun.  Good to be with you.

QUESTION:  Thanks.  I wanted to ask you – I understand you’re going to announce some assistance today for the Sahel, but I wanted to ask you more broadly about the Sahel strategy.  This has been a few months since the French ended th

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Addis Ababa University

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good evening, everyone.  It is great to be back in Africa, but also to make my first appearance to Ethiopia as Secretary of State.

I’m here in Ethiopia – and then on to Niger – to reaffirm the pledge that President Biden made at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit late last year.  As he put it, the United States is “all in on Africa, and all in with Africa.”  That mea

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Topics: Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Climate and Environment, Coronavirus (COVID-19), Economic Prosperity and Trade Policy, Energy, Global Health, Human Rights and Democracy, Refugee and Humanitarian Assistance, Science, Technology, and Innovation