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Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks at the Unveiling of America.gov, Oct. 2, 2026

October 2, 2026 · U.S. Department of State · 0:14:43

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered the State Department’s segment of the America.gov unveiling, in remarks the department published on October 2, 2026 — following a presentation by Dr. Mehmet Oz, as Rubio noted from the stage. He recounted that Joe Gebbia had brought America.gov to his office earlier in the year as a whole-of-government project whose goal, in Rubio’s words, is “to make life better and easier for normal Americans,” and took the department’s own piece of it: passports.

Rubio walked the passport from the paper document of 1781 through the booklet, the photograph, and the electronic chip, arguing that while the book kept evolving, “the process of getting one did not” — “if you actually want to apply, that is where the maze starts.” He unveiled the redesigned passport book, its pages carrying the sweep of American history from the Patriots of 1776 to the Artemis splashdown, with an animated eagle security feature he demonstrated from the stage, and a presentation worthy of the document, he said, in place of the plain mailer he showed the audience. The promises attached: “we’re not waiting until 2027” for “a passport application experience you can complete entirely from home,” and “in 2028, a beautiful new United States passport,” with the stated goal of making passports and passport cards accessible to more Americans.

Why it matters

Passports are the State Department’s most-touched citizen service, and the Secretary personally fronting America.gov’s consular piece ties the administration’s government-efficiency rollout to the 250th anniversary: the document itself redesigned as a piece of the national story, and the application rebuilt as a from-home digital service. The President’s own America.gov launch remarks (September 29) are paged separately on this site; this page is the Secretary’s segment of the same rollout.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the dated deliverables the Secretary announced — a fully-from-home passport application experience ahead of 2027, and the new United States passport book in 2028. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks at the Unveiling of America.gov” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks as delivered; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store.