Secretary of State Marco Rubio recounted an odd episode from a past Air Force One flight in which he spent roughly 90 minutes trying to determine whether a fellow passenger asleep on a couch was still breathing.
Rubio shared the story with his wife, Jeanette Rubio, during an appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
Host Katie Miller asked him for the funniest Air Force One story he had not yet told.
Marco then described a return flight from China when he noticed someone lying motionless on a couch in the plane’s conference room.
“For a significant period of this flight, it was debatable whether this person had passed away or not,” Marco said.
90 minutes of uncertainty
Marco said he could not see any chest movement or establish a regular breathing pattern, but he was reluctant to intervene. Waking someone who was simply asleep would be awkward, he explained, while discovering a death aboard the presidential aircraft would create an entirely different set of problems because he was unsure what protocol would apply.
The situation was even stranger because the cabin was noisy and the lights were on, yet the person remained motionless. Marco said he occasionally saw what appeared to be a breath but wondered how anyone could remain alive while breathing so infrequently.
When Jeanette asked whether he had been watching the person the entire time, Marco said he kept checking because, if the person had actually died, he wanted to be able to explain when he had first noticed the situation and what he had done about it.
He was aboard an Air Force One trip to China in May that included Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Eric Trump and Lara Trump, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and business leaders including Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook. There is no indication, however, that the flight was the one Marco described.
A wide-ranging interview
The story was one of several personal topics discussed during the interview, which also touched on Marco’s admiration for the late rapper Tupac Shakur and a lighter exchange about why he sometimes carries oversized cosmetics belonging to his wife because they do not fit in her handbag.
The interview also touched on UAPs, with Marco saying objects have been observed over U.S. military installations that officials have been unable to identify. He said the issue should be treated as a national security concern rather than evidence of a government cover-up.
A chaotic stretch aboard Air Force One
Marco’s story comes as Air Force One has been at the center of a separate and far more consequential episode. The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump was secretly moved between aircraft while departing a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, in July after U.S. officials identified what intelligence assessments described as a credible threat from Iran.
According to the report, Donald was seen boarding the older Air Force One on camera before being quietly transferred by an airport catering truck to a smaller military aircraft, a C-32A, for the actual return trip. Journalists and some staff who remained aboard the original plane reportedly were not told about the switch.