Rubio Demolishes Sen. Van Hollen: ‘We Deported Gang Members, Including the One You had a Margarita With’
Rubio ate Van Hollen’s lunch and then some. My goodness. So delicious.
I despise hearings because the representatives and senators use their time to produce video clips and never allow the testifier to speak.
State Secretary Marco Rubio is testifying in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio isn’t standing for the usual nonsense at these hearings. He asked Chairman James Risch (R-ID) to respond to Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) seven-minute spiel.
Yes, Rubio took a shot at Van Hollan for having margaritas with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged wife-beater, human trafficker, and MS-13 gang member.
I transcribed the four-minute video for you, but I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. Good for Rubio for putting Van Hollen in his place:
VAN HOLLEN: I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for secretary of state. I yield back.
RUBIO: May I respond?
RISCH: You may.
RUBIO: Well, first of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job. Based on what I know…
VAN HOLLEN: That’s just a flippant statement, Mr. Secretary.
RUBIO: Can I respond, Mr. Chairman?
RISCH: You may.
VAN HOLLAN: I didn’t ask…
RISCH: Senator, please let the secretary…
VAN HOLLEN: I’d be happy to, but then I can respond to his…
RISCH: Your time’s up, Senator. And willfully used, I might add. Your remarks do not represent the view of this committee. Mr. Secretary, please.
RUBIO: I can’t respond to everything he said because much of these are untrue, but I’ll go through a few.
First of all, I’m actually very proud of the work we’ve done with USAID. For example, I don’t regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don’t know how that makes us stronger and more prosperous as a nation. I don’t regret cycle and social support services…
VAN HOLLAN: I raised Sudan, Mr. Secretary.
RISCH: Senator I’d ask you to suspend. You had seven straight minutes.
VAN HOLLAN: I chose to use my time that way, Mr. Chairman, that’s my right to…
RISCH: Please suspend, sir. Secretary Rubio.
RUBIO: Well, I can go on. I mean, there’s other things here. We spent $227,000 for Big Cat’s YouTube channel from USAID. We spent $14 million for social cohesion in Maui, whatever the hell that means, so I can go on and on. I got the list here. And there’s more that I didn’t even bring the whole list.
In the case of El Salvador, absolutely. We deported gang members. Gang members, including the one that you had a margarita with and that guy is a human trafficker and that guy is a gang banger, and the evidence is going to be clear, in the days…
VAN HOLLEN: Mr. Chairman…
RISCH: Secretary Rubio has the floor.
VAN HOLLAN: He can’t make unsubstantiated comments like that.
RISCH: Senator, Secretary Rubio has the floor. You had your time.
VAN HOLLAN: Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to federal court of the United States because he hasn’t done it under oath.
RISCH: Senator…
RUBIO: Here’s another point, okay? There is a division in our government between the federal branch and the judicial branch. No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner, what I need to say to them, and if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I have under no obligation to share that with a judiciary branch, just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia. They cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador. And if I did negotiate with them, which we have responded to them and we’ve told them we’ve had communications with the president of El Salvador, I am under no obligation under our division of powers in this country and to share with the judicial branch how I conducted diplomacy of the United States.
It would actually be counterproductive if I started sharing with courts or, frankly, with the media, my conversations with foreign leaders and all of their details. No foreign leader would talk to me again and we would break trust with them. So I have complied with every court order. What I won’t comply with is an order to disclose what I’m saying and what we’re talking about with a foreign leader, because then they won’t talk to me. Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.
About the student visas, let me say this. I don’t deport anybody, and I don’t snatch anybody. The state department does not have officers in the street snatching everybody. What I do is revoke visas. And it’s very simple. A visa is not a right. It is a privilege. People apply for student visas to come into the United States and study and if you tell me that you’re coming to the United States to lead campus crusades to take over libraries and burn down, try to burn down buildings and acts of violence. We’re not going to give you a visa.
VAN HOLLEN: Is that what Ms. Ozturk did, Mr. Secretary? Is that what she did? You’re just blowing smoke.
RUBIO: The bottom line is if you disturb trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, and if this applies to you, we will revoke it.
VAN HOLLEN: Does the First Amendment apply to people living in the United States?
RUBIO: We’re going to do more. There are more coming. We’re going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facility. People are paying money. These kids pay money to go to school and they have to walk right through a bunch of lunatics who are here on student visas.
VAN HOLLEN: Do writing op-eds to the Tufts school newspaper disrupt foreign policy of the United States. That’s pathetic, Mr. Secretary.
RUBIO: I want to do more. I hope. We can find more of these people. In fact, the other day, some guys led a riot, I forgot what university it was, and I asked please, can you find the. Arrest records of all the people that were arrested at that riot, at that campus, because if any of them have a visa we’re going to revoke it.
VAN HOLLAN: I feel so much safe. When we lock up people like Ms. Ozturk, Mr. Secretary.
Sen. @ChrisVanHollen: "I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State."@SecRubio: "Your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job."
Van Hollen: "That's a flippant statement." pic.twitter.com/2UHH7tkkrT
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 20, 2025
The senator referred to Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Tufts PhD student.
No, ICE did not detain Ozturk over an op-ed.
ICE detained Ozturk after DHS found her “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
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Comments
Van Hollen is an arrogant @$$ who doesn’t know when to shut up. He deserved everything he got and so much more. Rubio is turning out to be the kind of Secretary of State we need. Good for him.
.
You’ll have to forgive him. He’s been drinking too many margaritas.
nice job again..by one I didnt like for a while…rubio..but hes doing the job!
Slick burn Sec Ribio. I don’t always agree with him but I’ve liked him since he first ran for president. Always seems prepared and command of the facts.
As for Van Hollen (D-Gangbangers, What a tool he is and always has been. Poster child for never voting for progressives. The people in his state should be ashamed they voted for him but sadly they are not, and we are all worse because of it.
Rubio is likely running for president NOW.
Don’t care as long as he keeps doing the job he has now,
It would be rather delicious irony if Rubio became Presidebt on the votes of Hispanics that Democrats have been trying to get across the border for decades.
It turns out that people who stood in line and came here the right way really don’t like those who cut the line.
Van Hollen shows clearly that Reps from the House do not make good Senators. They are so petty and small-minded that having to think instead of making stupid remarks, they are unable to do their job. Schiff for brains is another good example.
Drinking a margarita in El Salvador with Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a hoax.
Claim unclear. Are you saying Van Hollen committed some kind of hoax, or the people who reported and took photos of it are committing some kind of hoax?
There are pictures of the two of them sitting at a table with margaritas. Are you saying that they didn’t touch the drinks in front of them and simply sat there and talked?
Progressives insist that reality is whatever they chose it to be. That way gang bangers can become victims, terrorist sympathizers can become oppressed martyrs for free speech, and men can become women. They get really triggered if you call them on that, it’s fun to watch.
Van Hollen needs to go eat some shoe stew in a van down by the rio Grande. What a schmuck.
He needs to go live in El Salvador so he can sip margaritas all day and visit MS-13 gang members.
Maybe get some tattoos on his hands.
Look at Little Marco, doing us all proud.
As SoS and National Security Advisor, he’s Big Marco, now.
At one time it was a taunt, now it’s more of a an affectation
I understand; I’m just saying, the man’s nickname is worthy of an upgrade.
Van Hollen is such a twit, a clown, a poser, a loser. The Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks are an embarrassment. Subversive and malicious fifth columnists, all of them.
How many times does a chair have to tell an out-of-control, out-of-order member to STFU before he can actually penalize him in some way?
I’d actually feel safer if they locked up you (Van Hollen). That is what Rubio or the chair should have said.
I’ve actually wondered that because it never seems to happen. It’s been clear for years that hearings are nothing but opportunities for Congress to grandstand and let loose a little diatribe to get some campaign money. Dems are especially bad. When they have nothing they constantly interrupt, won’t let answers be heard etc. “I reclaim my time” is another way of saying “shut up before you tell people the truth”.
People can be escorted from the chamber. And have been. That’s the Chair’s prerogative.
He may deserve that, but allowing him to publicly display his ignorance also has some value to the community.
There are conditions of behavior required to retain eligibility to remain in the USA as a non-Citizen. It isn’t a complicated issue. If they wish to support terrorist organizations and individual terrorists they gotta do so outside the USA. The internet and social media allows world-wide communication to reach audiences on whatever lawful topics you want to discuss.
Disturbing the peace, creating chaos, denying ingress and egress, refusing to apply for a permit, conducting ‘protests’ in restricted areas, refusing to ID during an investigation, refusing to.disburse, refusing to obey other lawful LEO commands are not protected activities. They are crimes. As are any ‘unwanted touching’ (simple battery) making credible threats of violence/harm, much less aggravated battery. The impacted Students/Faculty should be filing civil.suits against the protesters, the organizers and their financial backers for the multiple tort violations these protesters routinely engage in.
Trumps Cabinet members are on fire in the hearings. The beatdowns of silly Democrats that try to grand stand with nothing to say is fantastic and exactly the right way to respond to these weasels. RFK Jr taking Patti Murry to the woodshed is epic.
EVERYONE from EVERYWHERE has the right to free speech., it isa right that all are born with.
The Constitution is how the government, empowered by the people of the United States, protects and is enjoined from infringing on that right for the citizens of the United States.
Other nations, and the peoples thereof, have their own procedures with regard to the fundamental right of freedom of speech. The United States is under no obligation to protect the rights of people who are openly subject to jurisdictions other than it’s own. When it does so, it does so as a courtesy.
If you come here, with the intent to abridge the rights of the citizens of the United States to their free speech by impeding them, attacking them, refusing to allow them access to the places they need or want to go, then you can be made –not ‘asked’, not ‘told’, but MADE, to leave.
And good riddance.
Amen!!