Marco Rubio slides a personal note to Donald Trump during a televised press conference. Trump looks down and reads it out loud

Need to know

• President Donald Trump reads aloud a private note from Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a press conference at the White House on Jan. 9.

• Trump, who was meeting with oil and gas executives, read Rubio’s directive to “go back to Chevron” in front of the entire room.

• However, the president did not seem to fully understand Rubio’s directive

President Donald Trump appeared to embarrass Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a press conference as he read his private note aloud on live television.

Trump, 79, was attending a meeting with oil and gas executives at the White House on Friday, January 9, when the incident happened.

The president sat between Vice President JD Vance and Rubio, 54, at the press conference. After Trump called ConocoPhillips’ Ryan Lance to speak, Rubio can be seen passing a handwritten note to Trump while Vance, 41, looks confused.

“Marco just gave me a note,” Trump said in the executive suite. Rubio capped his pen and looked down, but as the president began to read the note aloud, he quickly looked up at him.

“Go back to Chevron,” Trump read from Rubio’s note. “They want to discuss something. Back to Chevron.”

As he spoke, Vance was clearly amused, laughing on one side of the president as Rubio smiled in obvious discomfort on the other.

“Go ahead, I’m going back to Chevron,” Trump said, placing the note on the table.

He then patted Rubio on the back and told him, “Thanks, Marco.”

“Any questions, Mr. President?” A voice off camera could be heard asking Trump, who picked up the paper again as he said, “Yeah, go ahead,” before asking, “Marco, what’s up, what are you saying here?”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright then asked Mark Nelson of Chevron to share updates from the company. As Nelson spoke, Rubio withdrew the note and turned it over before tucking it away.

Rubio also made headlines for another note he wrote to Trump in the fall, which he gave the president on Oct. 8, 2025, during a meeting with conservative influencers and the press.

The contents of the note, which was captured by photographers in the room, told Trump he needed to approve a statement on social media about a temporary peace deal between Israel and Hamas.

Rubio pointed to Trump’s attention during the meeting about the need to “approve” a social media post before sharing a private update with the president, suggesting that Trump had not written the post himself.

A photo taken by the Associated Press revealed the message, which read: “You need to approve the Truth Social post soon so you can announce the deal first.” Trump quickly told the meeting attendees that he had good news.

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“The secretary of state just gave me a note saying that we are very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they need me soon,” he said. “Then we’ll take more questions.”

The AP reported at the time that Trump continued the meeting for another 10 minutes before telling the group to “try and resolve some of the issues in the Middle East.”

“Although I am very well represented by our Secretary of State. He could probably do a better job than me, but who knows,” he continued. “We don’t want to take any chances. So we’re going to go and do it.”

Read the original article on People