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.
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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