Rubio testifies on Capitol Hill for the 1st time since start of Iran war

[0:43] the united states senate foreign relations committee will come to order uh it wasn't [0:48] orderly to begin with but it's orderly now thanks to our good crew and we welcome here as always [0:55] our secretary of state marco rubio a distinguished alumni of this committee and i know he's always [1:01] glad to come back here and visit with us uh we uh marco we haven't haven't had this kind of [1:08] excitement since you've been here last time i know you think this is the way it is every time but [1:12] it's not so uh in any event uh we're glad to have you um uh for the uh information of the committee [1:20] the secretary has four hearings in these two days so we have negotiated a hard stop at 12 30. to that [1:28] end uh we'll use the usual uh array of the way we do things here and that is uh first of all um i will [1:37] uh make an opening statement and then i'll yield to senator shaheen and then we'll turn the floor [1:43] over to senator rubio then we'll do a uh five uh minute round of questions uh based on uh arrival [1:51] time so uh with that uh secretary it's good to see you here again um you're not on the hill often a lot [2:01] has changed obviously since the last time you testified on the president's international affairs [2:05] budget last year the department has undergone a major reorganization making it uh operate more [2:11] efficiently and more in line with america's interests uh as uh we discussed before you even took the job [2:18] and uh that's uh been being executed i think quite well at long last uh foreign governments are being [2:25] encouraged and when necessary pushed to live up to their responsibilities to respond to the needs [2:31] of their own citizens america will stand up uh by our allies and provide life-saving assistance to [2:38] people in their hour of need but we are not the world's atm and so the department is testing new [2:43] ways of providing strategic assistance and breaking the cycle of dependence on aid renewed emphasis on [2:49] trade over uh aid will help the american people and lift up countries around the world this is american [2:57] generosity and ingenuity uh in action through this budget the administration is holding un [3:03] organizations to account badly badly overdue and alongside ambassador waltz making sure american [3:10] values are leading in international organizations you've made securing the western hemisphere a top [3:16] policy and budget priority uh and have successfully reduced illegal immigration uh at the southern border [3:23] to the lowest level in half a century that has not gone unnoticed you've helped curb the trafficking of [3:29] illegal fentanyl into the united states saving countless lives the budget prioritizes countering [3:34] china's unfair trade practices expanding military and malign influence operations around the world [3:40] and uh which pose some of the greatest threats in modern history to the american people at the same [3:46] time you've been working to ensure these efforts are strategic targeted effective and we appreciate that [3:52] the administration has also taken care to ensure taxpayer dollars don't go to those who are unable [3:58] who are able but unwilling to pay for their own defense through concerted effort by you and your [4:03] colleagues our nato allies have increased their defense spending and have committed to reach the five [4:08] percent by 2035. this is a major change from the way you and i used to deal with this for the decade [4:16] or more before this together we need to create a next generation nato that is stronger [4:21] more interoperable and takes advantage of the industrial potential of american and european [4:27] economies we also must continue to coordinate with our european partners as they take greater [4:32] responsibility for suppress for supporting ukraine and work with our partners to deny russia strategic [4:38] gains the administration has prior prioritized efforts to end conflicts in africa which undermine [4:46] decades of investment in economic growth and global health security all is not well there [4:52] the latest ebola outbreak in eastern congo now affecting the entire region highlights how [4:57] conflict and humanitarian crises abroad threaten the health and security of the american people here [5:04] at home i know the department is working hard to protect us from this threat and i look forward to [5:08] hearing how the budget supports these efforts and of course the administration has taken decisive action [5:13] to protect american citizens from the threat posed by iranian nuclear capabilities and ambitions on behalf of the [5:21] american people thank you for your hard work on that yeah you and i've been through this before and [5:26] we know how difficult it is change is hard but it is also necessary your efforts to make the state [5:31] department more responsive to the needs of americans will help us all meet the challenges of the 21st century [5:38] i look forward to discussing how the budget will further those efforts with that i will turn it over to the [5:43] the distinguished ranking member senator shaheen well thank you mr chairman um good morning secretary rubio [5:51] mr secretary you were a senator you sat on this committee you sat on the intelligence committee [6:00] you know as well as anyone that effective american foreign policy requires a strong partnership with [6:06] congress allies need to know that our commitments can stand the test of time and that only happens if [6:13] congress is brought into the discussion congress cannot be a partner if it's kept in the dark [6:20] i have a long list of unanswered requests sitting on your department's desk and mr chairman i'd like [6:27] to ask that these letters be submitted for the record they'll be spinning i've requested a briefing on [6:36] changes to u.s force posture in europe and after 33 days we still have no response we've requested a [6:43] briefing from the iran war on displacement after 90 days we still have no response we've asked for a [6:52] briefing on ukraine on a number of issues after 180 days we still have no response we've asked for a [7:00] briefing on lifting millerad dodick's sanctions and after 225 days we still have no response we've asked [7:10] for a briefing for the u.s agency for global media no response after 344 days the romanian visa program [7:19] termination we've followed up five times over 435 days and we've still gotten no response in january [7:29] when you were before this committee i asked if you would report to this committee once an audit system [7:35] was in place to track venezuelan oil revenues you said and i quote oh absolutely yeah we are still [7:43] waiting and when you do notify congress it's to inform us of decisions you have already made that is not [7:51] consultation as you well know that is not advice and consent congress has been clear on a bipartisan basis [8:00] we do not want to cede ground to china yet this administration is closing consulates and cutting [8:06] funding in the indo-pacific the same pattern extends to global health usaid supported ebola detection [8:14] and prevention activities in drc and uganda for years and we can see in this poster even elon musk [8:24] admitted that one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was ebola prevention well [8:36] those programs were dismantled and today we have to screen for ebola at dulles airport [8:41] rather than in the drc and uganda more than 7 000 miles away you're asking for a 44 reduction in [8:50] the state department budget that includes eliminating funding to the world health organization it includes [8:56] eliminating all disease specific funds in the middle of an ebola crisis that's affecting americans [9:03] yet no one from your department can explain to us why this is a good idea you sent congress one [9:10] notification saying you needed 19 billion dollars to close out usa id then you sent another saying [9:17] you needed some of that money to respond to disease outbreaks congress has asked for an explanation [9:23] and we still have not received one the same pattern extends to our alliances i just returned from a [9:30] bipartisan delegation to the arctic we are on the verge of losing the very alliances that we have built for [9:38] decades because the president manufactured a crisis over greenland and nowhere is that clearer than [9:44] with russia in 2017 you wrote as a senator that vladimir putin will never be a trusted ally or a reliable [9:53] constructive partner but since taking office you the president the vice president steve whitkopf not one of [10:01] you has been to ukraine and yet your envoys talked to putin on a regular basis the president has invited him [10:09] given him the red carpet treatment on american soil but yet you won't come up here and brief congress [10:15] on any of it and decisions congress has made on russia have been systematically undermined congress passed [10:23] support for ukraine the administration has slow walked it and instead of sanctioning russia the [10:29] administration issued oil licenses that have sent billions to moscow congress has asked what this [10:36] approach has produced russia has conducted five times more drone strikes on ukraine since 2024 more u.s [10:47] businesses are being directly targeted than at any point in this conflict and russia is providing [10:53] targeting intelligence to help iran hit our facilities and personnel in the middle east while we're helping [11:00] them fund this war when i talk to my constituents they ask for economic relief at home not regime change and [11:08] havana or caracas or tehran instead you sent congress a war powers notification saying we are not in active [11:17] hostilities with iran while the u.s was conducting strikes against iran and iran was bombing u.s embassies [11:23] and bases throughout the middle east that was not consultation it was an attempt to avoid answering [11:31] to this committee and this congress about this war congress has asked basic questions about the war [11:38] why are roughly half of our patriot interceptor stockpiles gone why does the strait of hormuz remain [11:44] closed why is gas up a dollar fifty why did 13 american service members lose their lives in this war [11:52] congress deserves to know why and americans deserve to know why mr secretary you would not have stood for [11:59] this kind of stonewalling by the administration when you were a senator and you certainly shouldn't stand [12:05] for it as secretary of state and national security advisor thank you mr chairman thank you senator we'll [12:10] now proceed to a round of five minute questions i'm sorry we'll try what did you want to do we talked [12:18] about that uh do you want one we actually talked about that but he thought that questioning might be [12:24] easier why don't you go ahead i have it in writing you want me to read it give us your mission okay well [12:29] thank you for having me here there'll be a lot to talk about today and i just want to remind everybody you [12:34] know our foreign policy is one uh that's solely focused on the national interest of the united [12:42] states of america on the defense of our country both its military defense and our security but also our [12:47] economic security and the vibrancy of our economy our sovereignty and our future we believe that america [12:53] should lead the world and i believe that we are and we'll have a very good story to tell about that [12:57] american leadership however should always be on behalf of the american interests i say this because i think [13:03] over a period of time in our foreign policy we lost focus on that the reality of it is that our [13:08] foreign policy first and foremost must always be what is in the national interest of the united [13:12] states of america and determining the national interest of oftentimes requires us to make pragmatic [13:17] decisions sometimes in foreign policy the choices are not between a good choice and a bad choice [13:23] it's between two less than ideal choices and you're trying to figure out which one of these two choices [13:27] is the one that is best for the united states and least harmful to our interests and that plays out every [13:32] single day that said we remain the world's sole global superpower the most powerful country on [13:37] earth we have the largest economy we have the most formidable and powerful military ever known to [13:42] man by the way our dollar remains the reserve currency of the world our language is used extensively [13:48] throughout the world to transact all sorts of business and many of our engagements but all this [13:53] means very little if that power is not used to protect the people who built it the people who it is [13:58] meant to protect i also remind everybody the united states government is not a charity we are not here [14:03] to play social worker we are here to win we are here to win on behalf of the american people and on [14:07] behalf of the national interest to win for our country to win for the people of america to win for the [14:13] things that are important for our future and that's what we exist to do the state department exists to [14:17] carry out the foreign policy of the united states both in diplomacy and in aid in a way that furthers the [14:22] national interest and helps the american people and it's guided every decision that's been made since january of [14:28] 2025 i give you a perfect examples in our own western hemisphere an area that this committee and many [14:34] of its members long argued as i did has long been neglected and not paid attention to we now have [14:39] in this hemisphere a coalition of friendly countries over a dozen who have aligned to work on not just [14:44] the issues of security that we all have in common but also economic prosperity that go hand in hand [14:50] it's an amazing story that basically other than nicaragua other than cuba obviously other than venezuela [14:56] remains with some challenges and of course brazil although they're in the midst of an election [15:00] cycle and and to some extent the current government in colombia as well at least the president's been [15:05] problematic but generally speaking it is now a region filled with american allies american friendly [15:10] leaders and an america friendly direction now obviously we have to operationalize that into action [15:15] after 20 years of neglect in which china and other global powers have intruded in our western hemisphere [15:20] to the detriment not just of american national interest but to the detriment in our view of the people [15:25] of those countries as well so um these are important achievements and one that i'm very happy about [15:32] i'm also happy about the way we've transformed foreign aid in any transition there will be you know uh [15:37] bumps in the road but largely speaking if you think about how those programs that existed in the past [15:42] were failing us the old model had to be replaced and the foreign assistance that remains is being brought [15:47] under the strategic direction of the state department so we're not just providing money we are also seeking [15:52] outcomes it's not just how much money you spend on a program it's whether you're getting outcomes from [15:56] it but it's also being guided through with our strategic view in mind and that means that we are [16:02] able to provide aid not just all over the world but specifically targeted at those most in needs and [16:07] those places around the world most important to the national interest of the united states that will [16:12] remain our guiding principle that's been our guiding principle in our reforms so you know the the i would [16:19] just i mean we can get into a lot of these details in our questions the bottom line is that all this [16:24] and more is a reflection of this belief that i outlined at the outset and that is that foreign policy [16:30] cannot be separated from economic policy from border policy from energy policy from any of these other [16:35] spheres that are critical to our national interest a country that cannot build ships or produce medicine [16:40] or control immigration or access vital resources cannot defend its people cannot defend its interests [16:46] and cannot defend its way of life so our foreign policy continues to be reoriented around the real [16:51] foundations of national strength this budget is yet another step i believe in that direction obviously [16:57] the appropriators here will have a huge say on the outcome of what that budget ultimately looks like [17:02] as we don't anticipate that for the first time in modern history congress will just take up our budget [17:08] and pass it we think it'll go through some substantial reforms along the way and we look forward to [17:13] engaging you like we did last year to produce what we think is a very good spending bill at that time [17:16] so anyways i look forward to your questions i think this is what it says here i'm not sure if i really [17:21] look forward to your questions i look forward probably half your questions thank you thank you uh secretary [17:28] rubio um we will now uh do a round of questions uh five minute questions uh based on order of uh attendance [17:36] and uh i'm going to start and i'm going to say thank you for the work you've done with respect to ron [17:41] uh we all all of us that have worked on this for years know how frustrating that is how difficult [17:46] it is to work with this regime uh who've uh sponsored terrorism kidnapping and killed thousands of [17:52] americans for the last 47 years thank you for doing something about it i know you and the president [17:57] are doing all you can to ensure this comes to a close sooner rather than later i wonder if you could [18:02] give us a at least a brief update on where we are well first let me remind everybody that while i've not [18:07] been before this committee since i believe february when we briefed on the venezuela operation i have [18:13] appeared on multiple occasions here both in my role as national security advisor and secretary of state [18:18] and both all senate briefings multiple times gang of eight briefings gang of 16 briefings um so we've [18:24] talked about this topic uh with some of you in those settings in the past you've heard from us [18:29] let me just lay the predicate here okay iran's desire to build a nuclear weapon was going to be built [18:36] was going to be effectuated behind a conventional shield they were going to build for themselves so [18:41] many missiles so many drones so many conventional weapons including a navy that at that point there's [18:48] nothing you could do about it what they tried to do is they were going to try to build a conventional [18:52] shield and hide behind that conventional shield and basically say to the world if you come and do [18:57] anything about our nuclear program we will overwhelm you with missiles we will overwhelm you with drones [19:02] and we will overwhelm you with our navy and you will not win you will not be able to do [19:06] anything about it they were seeking that point of immunity which is why the president chose to act [19:10] to deny them that point of immunity operation epic fury some of you didn't like it some of you did [19:16] was highly successful in achieving its military objectives which is dramatically reducing the defense [19:21] industrial base of iran the ability to build these missiles and and to build these drones especially [19:27] the missiles program substantially degraded a substantial percentage and i'll leave the exact numbers to [19:32] the department of war because i'm not a general and i'm not here to speak as a military planner [19:36] but a substantial degradation in the number of launchers that they have as well they still have [19:40] a lot of drones because these are easy to make we all know it's not an iran challenge this is a global [19:44] challenge and it's playing out every single day around the world i mean mexican cartels are using uavs [19:50] against each other we should imagine at some point may even use it against our own against our interest [19:56] so this is a pervasive problem around the world the economics of it is something we have to solve for [20:01] but nonetheless even their drone building capability has been eroded today there is no iranian navy there [20:07] is no such thing there's a bunch of boston whalers with machine guns on them but there is no navy there [20:12] is no iranian navy it lies at the bottom of the ocean and will soon uh within a number of years be prime [20:18] fishing spots because they'll turn into reefs so my whole point is that the the iraigning conventional [20:26] shield has been substantially erode eroded now in the aftermath of that two things have happened the [20:32] first is they entered into a ceasefire they agreed we agreed to stop but part of that agreement is that [20:36] they would reopen the straits they did not at which point the president decided and i think appropriately [20:43] we can't have a world in which iran only iranian ships get through the straits and so if they're [20:48] gonna if they're gonna shut down the straits for everybody we're gonna shut down the straits for [20:52] them and we have done that through a very effective blockade and by the way through the seizure of [20:57] sanctioned ships in the indo-pacific as well the cost to iran every single day and lost revenue [21:03] is in the hundreds of millions of dollars that they are losing in lost revenue that they're not [21:07] generating as a result of that now we are in talks and i say talks because talks with iran are not like [21:13] talks with switzerland okay they're very different they require the use of intermediaries unfortunately [21:19] but there is the prospect before us which could happen today it could happen tomorrow it could [21:23] happen next week that for the first time certainly in my memory they have agreed to negotiate aspects [21:31] of their nuclear program that just a month ago just a year ago they were refusing to even mention much [21:37] less enter into discussions about that is not a guarantee that ultimately will lead to a deal that's [21:41] acceptable to the senate or acceptable to the american people but we'll be able to engage them in a [21:46] process to truly test the proposition of how far they're willing to go complicating that process [21:52] unfortunately is their internal regime is somewhat fractured in the sense of it takes days to get [21:57] responses from their system we can go into more depth in your follow-up questions but but we're hopeful [22:03] that something like that could happen in which the straits would reopen we would enter into a period of [22:07] negotiations on very specific topics delineated negotiations in the hope of reaching an outcome [22:13] that's acceptable to us and something they would be able to do as well if it doesn't work out then [22:18] obviously we still have a problem with respect to their nuclear ambitions but what they won't have [22:24] is the conventional shield behind behind any longer thank you uh secretary i um i'm going to ask one more [22:31] question hopefully this will shorten as we go around there'll be more questions obviously on that topic [22:37] but um i know you just got back from china not long ago could you give us a quick update on the state of [22:42] u.s china really yeah look i mean china and the united states are the two largest economies in the [22:47] world the two most powerful militaries in the world the chinese government and the u.s government [22:52] have to speak i mean there's really it's not a choice here we we have to have some measure of [22:57] communication if for nothing else in order to de-escalate potential points of conflict that could [23:01] lead to something broader there are obviously very significant irritants in our relationship with china [23:07] some of these are long-term problems that we know we're going to have to address [23:11] and so what we're trying to do is mount manage a period of strategic stability while recognizing [23:16] that there are areas of our relationship in which we are going to have struggles not just for years [23:20] but perhaps for decades we recognize this but i think as much as anything else we have to recognize [23:26] that the united states and china have to be able to have points of dialogue and speak to one another [23:32] as i said for for no other reason than to be able to have a communication channel i think in our meetings [23:37] it was abundantly clear which are the areas that we do not have strong alignment or agreement on [23:41] we understand that there are areas in which long term we're going to have some real challenges [23:45] whether it's supply chains put it to you this way let's leave china aside for a moment the united [23:50] states and i would argue the world cannot depend on one country for 90 of anything especially 90 of [23:56] things that are critical to our economies to our not from our weapons systems to our pharmaceuticals we [24:02] just can't live in a world in which we rely on anybody for 90 percent of what we get in one sole [24:07] source that could be cut off at any time as leverage against us or punishment or in a time of conflict [24:13] and so we are actively searching and have plans in place and we're implementing these to diversify where [24:18] we get critical minerals where we get our supply chain secure that supply chain and obviously the [24:23] chinese would like to retain their monopoly position in some of these this is going to be a long-term issue [24:28] that we're going to have to continue to confront and work on work on that continues even even while [24:33] we are engaged in the ability to dialogue and speak to them because we we have to it's responsible and [24:38] we truly have no choice but to be able to do that it's to their benefit at ours and i would argue to the [24:42] benefit of the world that these two countries are able to speak to one another thank you uh secretary [24:47] and i think uh your comments about the uh supply chain and the critical minerals and everything else that's [24:53] in the bottleneck these are things that are relatively new to us they've always been there [24:58] but covet uh underscored that and then of course the ukraine war brought it out even more and [25:03] appreciate your remarks i think everybody at the status knows we are as a nation looking at that [25:09] with that senator shaheen thank you mr chairman um mr secretary at this budget hearing last year [25:16] you testified that no one had died as a result of foreign aid cuts um sadly i think we're seeing in [25:22] real time that that's not true today there are more than a thousand cases more than 200 ebola related [25:28] deaths and as we know um one of the entities that is a critical global health tool is gawe particularly [25:39] during a disease outbreak it plays a role in distributing ebola vaccines and it has committed [25:45] up to 40 million dollars to develop a vaccine for the current ebola strain that has no vaccine right now [25:53] so how are you making sure that secretary kennedy who has been sitting on those funds for months now [26:00] is going to release them so that they can go to help develop a vaccine to address the ebola outbreak [26:07] yeah um well a couple points on on gabi i would say that the president had asked that we allow secretary [26:13] kennedy to play a leading role on the gabi decision because of his strongly held views with regards to [26:18] vaccine safety and he wanted them to conduct some reforms i actually talked to senator schatz about [26:23] this last week as well and um so we're the state department's going to be re-engaging i'm not here to [26:28] tell you we're going to yank this thing and we're not going to listen to his points of view but the [26:31] state department will is a few weeks ago made the decision that we were going to re-engage [26:36] on this issue of gabi uh respecting you know what hhs views on it are as well and we want to take their [26:42] input but we'd like to get this issue resolved in an outcome that's acceptable uh both to congress and [26:48] and also to our goals on global health so uh it is an issue as i said i wouldn't use the word defer but [26:53] we have certainly allowed him to to uh play a leading role in determining what we're going to [26:58] do next but uh right now we're sort of at a stage where we we are going to re-engage the we need to [27:03] drive this to an outcome um i couldn't agree more and so do you commit to using the two billion dollars [27:09] that congress has appropriated for global health to actually help fund global health security well we [27:16] do fund global health security beyond gavi by the way and we can talk about that we can talk about the [27:20] compacts i think 32 that we've now entered into with countries all over the world we have a new [27:25] agreement to the un as well that they're very happy with the global fund we've hit our cap we are at our [27:35] 33 we've actually been able to attract additional donors from around the world to contribute to it [27:40] on this specific item i would say we intend to get this resolved we want to get this resolved it's an [27:45] important part of our matrix we will we will follow up and i hope you will share with this [27:50] committee as soon as you get it resolved um i want to go to oils russian oil sanctions and general [27:57] licenses because president trump gave russia a lifeline allowing it to sell oil globally through [28:04] licenses issued by the treasury department while i think the administration should have known that [28:11] the iran war would make russian oil more desirable they decided to remove the stigma on that oil and give [28:18] an extra windfall of cash to putin so can you let us know whether you believe or whether you will [28:28] support extending those licenses when that license when it comes back up mid-june yeah a couple points [28:35] first of all that those though the two things have happened the one is the actually the u.s [28:42] u.s production and u.s playing a role in the global energy supply has increased i think we had our [28:48] largest amount of exports from the united states we've ever seen so we've also benefited from this [28:53] and our energy dominance has really come into play the russian waivers were decision these are the [28:59] the policy the underlying policy remains on the sanctions what has changed is these time limited [29:03] extensions to sort of try to right alleviate the global right the problem we're facing too is [29:09] there's a contagion potential and that is that at some point we can do strategic reserves we can do [29:15] some of the other things that we've done to sort of alleviate global supply but at some point you have [29:21] to ensure this is not so much for us at the end of the day our economy is not in need of it but there [29:25] are other economies around the world that have benefited from this so these are time limited extensions [29:29] that ultimately we've certainly benefited china and russia's economy well china doesn't i mean china [29:34] refines oil they import a lot but they refine oil and they but they also benefit from russian oil [29:40] but my question for you is can you commit not to extend the general license again when it expires [29:46] on june 17th well that ultimately is a decision that's made by treasury but i will tell you it [29:50] depends on the circumstances at the time we would like to end it as soon as we possibly can because [29:55] the underlying policy of this country has been to sanction their oil these are time limited waivers for [30:00] the purpose of opening up more global supply i i understand that but if we continue to extend them [30:05] they're not time limited i want to get a final question in on food for peace because as you know [30:11] the closure of the strait of hormuz has deepened the humanitarian needs in food in secure countries [30:17] such as sudan south sudan and yet in your opening statement you said that our aid targets those who [30:24] are most in need but i think it's very concerning that the country selection process for food for peace [30:31] which i understand is led by the department of state includes only two priority countries from [30:37] world food program hunger hot spots that's haiti and the democratic republic of the congo so the question [30:45] i have is why are we adding countries that aren't facing acute food insecurity like el salvador guatemala [30:53] and rwanda why are we not helping countries who are facing acute well famine in some cases sudan gaza [31:02] afghanistan nigeria syria somalia these are all countries that are have humanitarian crises and [31:10] yet we're helping countries that don't have acute food dense yeah well so a couple points first of [31:15] all on gaza we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars including after the ceasefire and providing [31:20] through the world food program and other entities and we continue to do so i think if we're not the [31:25] world's largest donor i'd be surprised because it's a massive amount of money that we've provided through [31:29] those mechanisms of various means on the point of south of sudan in particular the complication in [31:35] sudan which i wish were different and we're very involved in this i mean we i had a meeting on sudan [31:39] yesterday the problem in sudan has largely not been our unwillingness to provide funds we are willing [31:44] to step forward and we have the flexibility through what we've been able to do with foreign aid [31:48] to surge up that it's been distribution it's been the ability to get that so as an example in these [31:53] conversations we're having between the warring sides one of the things we're trying to identify is four [31:58] safe spots where people can go receive humanitarian assistance where we can actually have the outside [32:04] groups the ngos the international organizations that we contract with have the ability to go in [32:09] and actually deliver the food without having their trucks hijacked or blown up or their workers killed [32:14] that's been the fundamental challenge in sudan is distribution the distribution is being threatened [32:19] because we don't have conditions on the ground that allow for it and so to allocate money towards [32:23] something that we can't distribute is unwise until we have that in place that's deeply tied [32:28] the ability to have a peace deal which i can tell you has been very frustrating on the one hand with [32:32] sudan we had a donor conference in berlin i i don't want to interrupt you mr secretary but i'm out of time [32:38] and it doesn't explain why we are providing food for countries that don't are not insecure i appreciate [32:46] the challenges in sudan we have those challenges in many places but because we have dismantled the [32:51] distribution network when we eliminated usa idea a id we've exacerbated those challenges in countries [32:58] around the world and we are not providing the help based on humanitarian needs and that's my concern [33:04] thank you mr chairman senator ricketts thank you very much mr chairman mr secretary of state thank you [33:11] for uh being here really appreciate good to see you communist china is trying to win the ai race [33:17] and they will use it for example to dominate our military if they're able to do that and so many [33:23] other ways a world where communist china is dominant and ai is very bad for the united states and for the [33:31] entire world that's why it's critical that us and our allies cannot lose this race semiconductor supply [33:38] chains particularly semiconductor manufacturing equipment smes are critical to winning this competition [33:45] it's one area that beijing is spending billions and billions of dollars to be able to produce chips [33:53] in china and they've failed to be able to produce those high-end ships so far president trump understands [34:00] this better than anyone because the trump administration was the first to utilize export [34:04] controls on smes to slow down communist china's advanced chip making industry since that time key allies [34:10] and partners have also imposed controls on smes to china however their controls have not [34:16] been as restrictive as us controls and this has allowed certain foreign countries to backfill the [34:21] chinese market with critical dual use tools uh secretary rubio do you agree that export controls on smes [34:29] are critical to maintaining our technological advantage over communist china it is it's actually where it's [34:35] most critical is in the high end um the areas you know that are not legacy that are broader than and [34:40] and that allow for that i think on the broader point of ai we share your view one of the initiatives that i [34:45] think jacob helbert has done a great job with at the state department is pack silica in which we've [34:50] signed up all these countries around the world i think we're up to 13 or 14 and including ourselves [34:54] and others who hope to join as well in which we can create this global consortium for all of the elements [35:00] of the ice ai supply needs it's not just the innovation it's obviously access to the minerals and the [35:07] critical elements necessary in order to produce these chips and all the things that it will take to lead the [35:11] world in ai i think it is safe to say the united states right now is a global leader on ai i think [35:16] it is also wise to say that that lead is not um is not irreversible it's it has to be sustained and [35:24] there will be a real challenge in sustaining it and we're going to have to stay focused on it the good [35:29] news is i do think we have a system of global alliances that view it the way we do and we want to [35:35] lead on it because it's not just about leading the technology in ai it's about also leading in the [35:40] standards that will govern how ai is used i don't want to monopolize this conversation on this point [35:45] but it's one that i think the senate should think about because i know we're starting to think about [35:49] it ai will have very positive impacts on on our economy and societies it will also have some down [35:55] some some detriments it will go there will be white collar jobs in this country that that will be [36:01] impacted and i think we have to start thinking not simply about the impact that ai will have on those [36:06] jobs but the societal pressures that that will create not just in the united states but in [36:10] economies all over the world it much like industrialization and and and automation did [36:16] it will make the worker more efficient and more valuable but it will eliminate some jobs and those [36:21] jobs will have to be replaced with new jobs or new skills that's not just an question an economic [36:26] issue that is a political issue that over time could destabilize societies all over the world [36:32] and we so we have to start thinking about ai in those terms as well you mentioned our allies [36:37] shouldn't they have to follow the same sort of standards u.s companies do when we're limiting the [36:40] amount of limiting the semi-manufacturing equipment that's going to communist china and that's our hope [36:45] is that we can create people that that we can create a coalition of nations that understand the [36:50] danger in this and and they're running through the same some are better than others but they're running [36:54] through the same problems that we run into and that is companies ultimately want to sell to the markets and [37:00] china's a large market but i agree and that's one of the goals behind pax silica is to create unanimity [37:06] and our consensus behind that thinking well mr secretary that's why i recently introduced the match act [37:11] with senators kim rish and schumer to level a playing field this bill would provide the state department [37:17] with the leverage in ongoing negotiations with our allies to align those controls and if agreement [37:22] cannot be reached it would ensure that foreign companies cannot sell the very choke point technologies [37:27] that we have restricted so i hope you'll support that as we move forward on it one other thing i just [37:34] want to hit before my time runs out here is that i was the co-sponsor of a bill to create the u.s [37:40] foundation for national security and counterterrorism this is a foundation that would be a public private [37:45] partnership it would help counter traffickers and insurgents operating in ungoverned spaces around the [37:50] developing world such as africa the state department however is not for over a year and a half now [37:57] launched this foundation and i encourage you to work expeditiously to implement it i think this is [38:02] something that as we're talking about especially the continent of africa can be very helpful to [38:07] making sure that we're not only helping conserve the environment and helping animals it's bad for [38:11] terrorists thank you mr chairman thank you look at that i kept it in my time good job can you do as [38:17] well senator do my best uh thank you mr chairman uh thank you mr secretary for being with us today [38:23] um despite the differences that existed between republicans and democrats prior to this administration [38:29] on how to approach iran's nuclear program the theory was basically the same that we're going to impose [38:35] significant harm on the iranian economy in order to force them to the table to negotiate what is [38:43] happening now is fundamentally different this war and the administration's decision to blockade [38:51] has now held the entire world economy and the u.s economy hostage to the ability to negotiate an agreement [39:02] with iran this is why the entire country is seized by the question of when there will be an agreement [39:09] because apparently until there is an agreement the strait of hamuz remains closed there is a cost to the [39:17] iranian economy but now there is a devastating cost to the u.s economy it has been indecipherable the [39:27] information coming from the administration especially in the past several weeks as we get signals that a [39:34] deal is imminent the president said yesterday he's bored by the negotiations he doesn't care whether we get [39:40] a deal i think it's really important for us to understand what your bottom lines are what you're [39:47] asking for in this negotiation what commitments you need iran to make in order for you to release the [39:56] blockade and we hope for them to release the blockade as well so give us a little insight into [40:04] what your bottom lines are what is going to get the strait reopened because this is kind of the only [40:12] question that matters for american consumers right now and every day we get wildly different signals [40:17] from the president as to whether he even is engaged in this question as to whether the strait is going [40:23] to reopen yeah i think your question gets right to the heart of the matter so i think that's a good [40:28] question the the let me let me first bifurcate two things the only reason there's a blockade the only [40:33] reason why there's a u.s blockade is because iran has closed this they're firing on commercial ships [40:39] and they've mined large segments of hormuz international waters and so the blockade is [40:44] only against iranian ships and it's very simple the notion is if if no one's ships are going to get [40:49] out then iran's ships aren't going to get out either we can't live in a world in which they get to close [40:53] the straits and tell everybody pay us a toll or we'll blow you up but their ships get to go out [40:57] unfettered so that's the reason why there's a blockade there wouldn't have been a blockade if [41:02] iran had agreed to do what they said they would do when the ceasefire kicked in which is they were [41:05] going to open the straits so let me just focus on the straits for a moment number one what they're [41:10] doing is unlawful and illegal there isn't a country on earth other than iran and maybe oman that flirted [41:15] with it who's in favor of what iran is doing in the straits the chinese are against it the russians [41:20] are against it everyone is against it the whole world is against it so condition number one is they [41:25] have to reopen the straits and reopening the straits means the following ships can sail through [41:29] international waters the way they can do through other choke points around the world without being [41:33] fired upon without paying a toll that's condition number one but the strait is the strait is closed [41:38] because of our decision to invade iran this is a consequence of our military action so i guess [41:45] i'm not interested in litigating that question we all know why the strait is closed because you took [41:49] military action against iran and we knew ahead of time that that would be their likely response [41:55] the question is how are we going to get it reopened are you going to drive a bargain that is so [42:00] tough and so hard that the strait remains closed so how are we going to get it open the first thing [42:06] that is a predicate to anything else happening the straits have to be reopened so the way to think [42:10] about it is this if iran wants to be able to move its oil again through the strait they will have to [42:15] reopen the straits if they refuse to do so then we have other options available to us but we would [42:19] prefer to negotiate the opening of this which means tell us about the negotiations what do you need [42:23] from them in order to get the strait reopened we need the strait reopened tomorrow well what needs [42:27] to happen is very simple they need this they need to announce that they will no longer fire on [42:31] commercial ships that are going through or threaten to fire on ships because in many cases ships just [42:35] won't move they won't go not because they got fired on but because of the risk of being fired upon [42:40] and so they have to announce very clearly the straits are now open we're not charging a toll we will help [42:45] remove the mines that they put in there and they will not fire on ship but the president says they also need [42:50] to make commitments on their nuclear program that's what i'm asking what oh i see what what commitments [42:55] do they need to make in order for the strait to be reopened the second they have to agree to as part of [43:00] this is so in addition to the straits that's the predicate that opens the door to phase two phase [43:05] two is they have to commit to very specific negotiations on highly enriched the disposition of [43:10] the highly enriched uranium that still is buried deep in a mountain somewhere they have to they have to [43:15] and they have to agree on negotiating severe if uh and long-term limitations and or cancellation of [43:23] enrichment in the second the second phase of negotiations well that would obviously these [43:27] are highly technical matters so i don't think you could work those out in five days you that would [43:31] require a team of experts to meet over a 30 60 90 day period and work out the details but they have to [43:37] commit to their willingness to do that for example they have to commit to say we will dispose of the [43:42] enriched uranium and the question now is what are the mechanisms by which we do so finally that can [43:47] be negotiated final question in order to get to that second phase are you willing to release [43:52] sanctions or release frozen money that the united states is withholding from right now everything [43:58] that's been discussed with them is that any sanctions relief now remember sanctions come there's [44:03] international sanctions there's congressional sanctions there's executive sanctions so some we can [44:06] release and some we cannot but any sanctions relief is condition-based which means it has to be in [44:11] return for the reason why those sanctions were put in place in the first place which is their [44:15] nuclear program so yeah look iran is being sanctioned because they enrich uranium iran is [44:20] being sanctioned because they've highly enriched uranium iran is being sanctioned because of their [44:24] nuclear activities if they agree to give up those things there will be sanctions relief associated [44:28] with their commitment and compliance with those agreements relief just in exchange for reopening [44:35] the strait no that's not been discussed that's not been offered [44:38] senator hagerty thank you mr chairman and secretary rubia it's good to see you here i want to commend [44:45] you and the administration for actually implementing a foreign policy that advances america's interest [44:50] thank you we could i'd like to start with the philippines an area that we know very well it's a [44:55] geographic center of the indo-pacific region it's an area that is along critical sea lanes where a tremendous [45:02] amount of world trade and energy uh commerce actually move a strong alliance with the philippines clearly is in [45:09] u.s national security interest it leads and supports our freedom of navigation [45:14] it also helps us deliver regional stability along the south china sea very critical area particularly [45:19] in the face of a very aggressive posture that the chinese have adopted i want to recognize my colleague [45:25] senator kane who's worked with me to put in place the philippines enhanced resilient act resilience act [45:31] that's 500 million dollars of fmf grants it's a billion dollars of loan and loan guarantees per year [45:37] to strengthen the philippines and the united states alliance to make us more interoperable and more [45:43] capable mr secretary i'd just like to get your comments your vision on the role of the philippines [45:48] the united states alliance it's actually i spoke to president marcos on sunday and um i have a lot [45:53] have had multiple engagements with them at a personal level we've had visits a couple good points [45:57] here the the first is we've actually entered into agreement with them in which they're i believe [46:01] it's an old u.s military facility inside the philippines that will now serve as sort of a i think it's a [46:06] four thousand acre um i'm very familiar with the area yeah you know it and uh that we'll be able [46:11] to do a lot of our activities together with regards to our joint interest in developing on ai and high [46:16] tech and diversifying helping diversify their economy the second is to continue with our defense [46:21] commitments that we've made to them and the ability to interoperate joint exercises which we've done now [46:26] multiple times over the last year obviously we're very concerned with scarborough we've seen in recent [46:31] days and we've demarched and made a very clear note uh this this issue came up uh during the first uh [46:37] meeting with the chinese it's come up in every engagement i've had with the chinese and it's come [46:42] up again now very recently through diplomatic channels and that is uh we're very concerned about recent [46:47] activity once again near scarborough and the build up of infrastructure that appears to [46:54] be exerting you know territorial claims that we have long argued are not valid this is one of those [47:00] irritants in the long term that i think we'll continue to have to manage but i view the [47:03] philippines as a critical partner and i think over the last i would say a couple of years our [47:08] relationship with them particularly under their new administration has dramatically improved our [47:12] ability to work with the philippines jointly on on a number of topics of interest well i want to [47:17] commend you the the 4 000 acre luzon corridor uh is anchored by the subic bay project which when i was [47:23] ambassador japan worked very hard to get that back for america and i see that as a tremendous [47:27] opportunity for us to deepen our economic ties and of course that has as you mentioned earlier [47:32] uh tremendous national security yeah can i just add one point there is you know some desire during [47:36] their chairmanship this year of haceania that to to reach a sort of uh code of conduct understanding [47:43] uh in in the indo-pacific and while i understand that desire i just want you to know and perhaps [47:48] many of you can help us in making this point a bad code of conduct agreement is worse than no code of [47:55] conduct agreement at all and i think that's very important because they are under withering constant [47:59] pressure in the region to agree to a code of conduct in the region that i think would be [48:04] detrimental would set a um would set a a precedent that i think is very dangerous in the world so [48:11] we'd love to see one but it has to be a good one we don't think that's possible in the current [48:14] conditions and a bad one is worse than none at all your points very well taken look forward to [48:18] working with your team mr secretary to advance that can i turn to another issue of concern and [48:22] against joy concern senator kane and i both worked on this and that is uh the actions that have been [48:28] taken by countries that have been perceived as their allies against u.s business interest and [48:32] against u.s investments in their country particularly i'd like to point to the example of [48:35] balkan materials that's a situation where u.s company put billions of dollars of investment into [48:41] the um into the yucatan peninsula both in port facilities and in quarrying operations only to be [48:48] confiscated by the mexican government then the mexican government came back in arrears by the [48:52] way retroactively tried to justify this taking as some sort of environmental move um sadly we had to [48:59] fight pretty hard the previous administration to to uh not allow this to happen and i think it's going [49:05] to take more bipartisan effort certainly you'll have it from here in congress to push back [49:09] on any government's effort to try to confiscate american corporate property what that will do is have the [49:15] effect of minimizing or de base basically reducing the incentive or de incentivizing our foreign [49:23] investment in other countries which again i think hurts the mission that you're on i'd love to get [49:27] your perspective on how the state department will stand up for american investments overseas we do every [49:32] day and in fact one of the great benefits of our reorganization is that it has empowered the regional [49:38] bureaus you know used to have a set aside economic bureaus that would do these things separately from the [49:42] missions in the field and having been a former ambassador perhaps you experienced that we've [49:47] now empowered the regional bureaus and through it by extension the embassies to play a leading role [49:53] in economic diplomacy and so i would argue that virtually every engagement i have with a foreign [49:57] leader involves some economic component to it and i would say if you talk to our charges and our ambassadors [50:02] around the world i would say more than 50 percent of their engagements now have to do with economic [50:07] matters and they involve one of two things either a finding creative opportunities in essence to host [50:12] country will say to them we have these areas these industries of investment and the embassies will [50:17] take an active role working with the bureau to identify american companies who could potentially go [50:21] down there and see if there's an opportunity for them and the second is what you just pointed to [50:25] and that is protecting existing american investments because the point we make with everyone we interact [50:30] with is you can't attract you can't ask for american investment into your countries when you have a history [50:37] of expropriating of takings and in some cases it's a local official that's trying to extort [50:42] an american business and say hey i'm the sheriff or i'm the local police officer if you don't pay us [50:48] your workers won't show up to work tomorrow we have problems like that as well around the world [50:52] that involve the local level and it's become a leading part of our diplomacy and it's happening at [50:58] the embassy level which is where i think it really needs to be led that's where your field generals are [51:02] and i applaud the sea change and you know you've got support on a bipartisan basis here in the congress to [51:07] to move this forward thank you mr secretary thank you senator hagerty senator kane thank you mr [51:10] chair and thanks to senator hagerty for mentioning our work together in philippines and mexico mr [51:15] secretary you won't be surprised that i'm going to ask you about the western hemisphere you and i [51:18] traded the gavel and the ranking on the western hemisphere subcommittee when you were on this [51:23] committee and that was good productive work i want to ask you about operation southern spear [51:29] the operation to strike um boats in the pacific and the caribbean that dozens of operations have now [51:35] killed more than 200 people have you been involved as secretary of state or national [51:40] security advisor in discussion about the targeting criteria that are used to decide which boats we [51:46] should strike no but not because i've avoided it but because those are largely legal decisions right [51:51] but but if you haven't been involved in discussion as the national security advisor are you aware of [51:57] what the targeting criteria are yeah i mean they go through an so every strike has a legal officer on [52:02] the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not and this is done by the [52:06] department of war the way it's been done in other theaters around the world here's here's what i [52:10] want to ask you about so you're generally aware of the targeting criteria i am not allowed i know what [52:16] the targeting criteria are because of briefings i've had in this committee in the armed services [52:20] committee it's all been in classified and i'm not allowed to discuss the targeting criteria because [52:24] they've only been shared and classified but i don't think i'm prohibited from describing things that [52:29] aren't targeting criteria so i'll give you an obvious example everyone on the boat is right-handed [52:36] that's not a targeting criteria it would be ridiculous everyone on the boat is what everybody [52:40] on the boat is right-handed that's not a targeting criteria it's obviously not a targeting criteria [52:46] it would be improper for it to be a targeting criteria here's one that's not so obvious and [52:51] that surprised me there's evidence of narcotics on the boat that is not a targeting criteria [52:59] i have been briefed on southern spears since the first operation on september 2 and most recently [53:04] within the last couple weeks and i've asked again and again have the targeting criteria [53:08] changed no they have not what are their criteria here's what they are i can't describe it here [53:13] but they're the presence of narcotics on the boat has never been a targeting criteria would you have [53:20] any ability to explain and the administration could have picked that as a targeting criteria they [53:26] they chose items that were targets that authorized the use of the u.s military to sink boats and kill [53:32] people but they have not used the presence of narcotics on the boat as one of the targeting criteria [53:39] and i would suggest to my colleagues if you go look at the individual files of all the strikes and [53:43] i've looked at the first 46 they are consistent with what i've just said about something that's [53:50] not on the list of targeting criteria why would the administration not include the presence of [53:57] narcotics on the boat as a targeting criteria operation southern spears as you just outlined i can't [54:03] discuss the specifics of the targeting criteria but i can tell you the one thing that is obvious is that the [54:07] targeting criteria is not single source in essence there are multiple checks there are there are [54:12] three elements to the targeting criteria right and and all of it informed and infused by intelligence [54:17] collection in essence they have to have true links i can tell you they do walk away from strikes there [54:21] are multiple times that i've been aware i'm not aware of every strike because i'm not it's not reported [54:25] on a regular basis delegated but there have been strikes that they've walked away from because it [54:29] doesn't meet the criteria or because i'm not saying that the strikes that i've reviewed don't meet the [54:34] targeting criteria but i'm saying how odd it is especially since the administration always [54:39] announced we've this is against narco traffickers we've attacked narco traffickers how odd it is [54:45] that the presence of narcotics on a vote is not one of the targeting criteria and i would encourage [54:51] my colleagues get the same briefing i've gotten take a look at the strike files you'll be as surprised [54:55] as i am here's the second question again in your dual role secretary state national security advisor [55:03] the administration's operation southern spear we could agree with it or not but the administration [55:09] presented a legal opinion from the doj that we could review absolute resolve the effort against maduro [55:17] the administration presented a legal rationale that we could review now we could review both in classified [55:22] they've not been made public we're 92 days into a war against iran and the administration will not [55:30] let congress look at the olc legal opinion justifying the war intel committee members sfrc members armed [55:37] services committee members rank and file members the administration will not make it available to us [55:44] now you can imagine a we're the oversight committee b you're here asking for a budget and in the armed [55:49] services committee they're asking for a trillion five an increase of 40 percent over last year's budget [55:56] but won't let us see the legal opinion and and mr secretary you know what kind of thinking we do if [56:02] if you've showed us the legal rationale for two wars and you won't show us the legal rationale for the [56:07] third hmm is there something in the rationale they don't want us to see is there a dissenting opinion that [56:13] says it's not legal are there conditions like you can't strike civilian infrastructure like schools and [56:19] bridges are there factual assertions like the war will be over in two days or iran will never close the [56:24] straits of hormuz by not sharing the legal opinion with the article one oversight branch you give [56:32] us the opinion that there's something in there you don't want us to see could you use your influence [56:37] as the president's chief national security advisor secretary of state nsa to get the administration to [56:45] share the iran war legal opinion with congress well look first of all second obviously the department of [56:50] state does not develop the uh the legal opinion that's like you're the legal counsel you're the chief [56:54] name so i think what you're asking is why haven't the office of legal counsel provided it they don't [56:58] work for the national security council they don't work for me will you use your influence as well i [57:03] will certainly inquire as to why here's what i'll do i can certainly inquire as to why it has not been [57:07] available i don't think there's a reason why i i i have not aware that in fact my understanding is they [57:13] have provided documentation to the committee and not not the opinion part of the war not well that's different [57:18] and and you wouldn't accept that all right well let me take that back and ask the office of legal [57:22] counsel but it's certainly they provided the legal rationale for the strike you're asking for the [57:27] actual written opinion the way it was they provided us in southern sphere an absolute result i'll take [57:32] that back thank you senator lee thank you mr chairman uh thanks secretary rubio for being you look like [57:40] rickets i apologize this through the office well look bald is beautiful and uh uh we we can't help that [57:46] um but thanks for all of your efforts um you you are a very effective spokesperson for not only president [57:55] trump and the administration but for the united states and i'm grateful for that i was wondering [57:59] at the outside if you could talk to us a little bit about the fractured iranian regime and how that [58:04] might be making negotiations more difficult one of the things i've wondered for example are whether the [58:10] diplomatic iranian channels are sort of crosswise at odds with or working hand in glove with the irgc [58:19] which is itself causing a lot of these ceasefire violations or is it is it all sort of coordinated [58:24] chaos to try to undermine uh and and tip the scales in favor of iran in the negotiations that's a great [58:33] question um let me try to give this answer to you in a way that's not boring or wonky because it's been [58:39] a shift obviously the you know i the the original supreme leader the one that was there is no longer [58:44] with us his son takes over nobody hears from him for a month by all reports open source reporting i [58:49] think you've all seen it he was severely injured in the same strike and so forth are you confident [58:54] he's still alive by the way yeah i think there's indications that in fact you we've not heard from [58:59] him publicly we haven't seen him publicly and i would imagine given uh what's happened to multiple [59:04] leaders in that system being very public is probably not something that's recommended for them [59:08] internally um but that said um i think there are indications out there that he is increasingly [59:14] engaging at some level although all of his communications have been in writing and through [59:18] intermediaries so you the way to think about is the following you have the supreme leader and [59:22] understand that at the end of the day the supreme leader in their system is there really is no analogy [59:26] to it in our system or anybody else's system it is the theological office it is it is it it was the [59:32] you know the the head of of the islamic uh republic in the sense of the ultimate decision maker and uh and [59:41] every major decision has to be run by them they are advised by a council it's not clear if it's six [59:47] people or eight people but there is a council made up of both irgc and other elements of the regime that [59:53] surround that supreme leader and ultimately that council has to sign off on anything and then there are the [59:58] people you see on tv like arachi who's out there every single day and galibov who's the speaker of [1:00:04] the mejils uh who's been playing a pretty prominent role and they are the ones that they have sent to [1:00:08] negotiations and so forth it is our view of the system as we understand it as it's been expressed [1:00:14] to us both by the intermediaries and by iran directly that what arachi and galibov bring or take from [1:00:23] us they then have to run back to this council and ultimately get guidance from them and that process [1:00:28] oftentimes take three to five days to get a response now some of it is logistical they're [1:00:33] operating probably using couriers and things of this nature part of it is internal fissures on [1:00:38] exactly what they should agree to or not agree to i think the second point that needs to be driven in [1:00:42] this regard is that there is evidence that there are communications issues within the regime as well [1:00:47] so for example uh um it's pretty clear that at the outset of of hostilities in the conflict [1:00:54] um they had delegated decision making to field commanders and so oftentimes field commanders had [1:01:01] delegated authority to act on a let's say a pre-operational planning that i already put in [1:01:06] place and so unlike our system where perhaps you know that the president or the secretary of war is [1:01:11] directly making orders and decisions or the chairman of the joint chiefs in their system a lot of decision [1:01:16] making at the tactical level like which ships to hit and so forth are being made at at the commander level [1:01:22] so that's why from the outset it can look like fire ready aim but it's part of the design of the [1:01:26] system perhaps well i think it was a design of the system in the sense of regime survival and the [1:01:30] ability to operate in case there was decapitation strikes or people removed but let's go back to the [1:01:34] essence of the negotiations what's complicated them is you ultimately are negotiating with people [1:01:39] who then have to negotiate within their own system to see what they're allowed to give and what [1:01:44] they're allowed to agree to what is abundantly clear is that iran is facing severe internal [1:01:49] like all the problems iran had before this conflict not only are still there but they're worse all the [1:01:55] things that led to the protest all of these are worse than they were before and i think there's [1:02:00] definitely elements within that regime that understand it and and then there are other elements [1:02:04] of it that are more immune to it and perhaps more resistant to making agreements and so what we are [1:02:09] working through is is in many cases is delays and getting the responses to people and this is why you [1:02:14] see reporting about there might be a deal in the next few days because internally it takes time to [1:02:19] get responses from them sometimes upward to five or six days undoubtedly they're using that to [1:02:24] their advantage sort of like the car dealer where the salesman has to go talk to his manager make you [1:02:29] wait and think about it for a while even more complicated even more complicated than that uh one [1:02:33] more question i think we could benefit uh uh from hearing from you about the need to zero out funding [1:02:40] for a couple of entities including the national endowment for democracy in us adf can you tell us about [1:02:45] that well look these programs i think are have served a purpose in the past and obviously there's [1:02:52] a congressional role to play here right i mean at the end of the day these programs have had especially [1:02:57] the national endowment for democracy has had support in congress in the past and look i was here for 16 [1:03:02] years i understand that you're going to pass an appropriations bill and the appropriations bill is [1:03:07] going to have things in it that we don't have in ours that's just the way it is and we understand it [1:03:11] we'll make it work but we are concerned or have been concerned in the past about organizations that [1:03:16] sort of have lost their purpose and what they're advancing and at the end of the day look we have [1:03:21] a lot of resources the united states is the richest country in the world we have the largest government [1:03:24] budget in the world but we don't have unlimited resources we we still have to be able to strategically [1:03:30] spend our money and the state department you know when i took over a lot of people like oh that's [1:03:34] a mess state department is not that big the majority of our employees are are local hires overseas [1:03:40] we have you know foreign service officers career civil servants but compared to some of these other [1:03:45] agencies that are out there we're not that large and yet we have a global footprint we're really [1:03:49] other than department i would say beyond the department of war we're the only ones that are [1:03:52] present almost everywhere on the planet so we have limited resources and we have to be able to allocate [1:03:58] those resources in ways that are driven by the core mission of advancing our national security and [1:04:04] oftentimes that will mean that things we have paid for in the past we can't continue to fund [1:04:09] because there are other things it might be good but there might be something else that's more [1:04:12] important and even better other cases we may still spend money on a purpose but we want to be driven [1:04:18] not just by we don't want to be judges by how much money we're spending on something we also want [1:04:22] outcomes for it we want to show outcomes that's been the goal behind these uh mous these compacts with the [1:04:28] 32 countries that we've entered into and we plan is we're not just trying to solve the disease problem this year [1:04:33] we're trying to build the local capacity so that five years from now they won't need aid anymore [1:04:37] because their local systems can handle it saying five years some countries may take 10 years but [1:04:42] nonetheless that's the goal and it's been very well received thank you thank you senator merckley [1:04:47] thank you mr chairman and mr secretary good good to see you uh as uh senator shaheen noted you've [1:04:55] expressed that no one died as a result of the sudden shutdown of of uh aid and i did ask you last time [1:05:02] you were here about that and i won't repeat all that but i want to note that the folks who study this [1:05:09] at the schools of public health harvard chen school the boston university school of public health [1:05:14] estimate that over 500 000 children have died from that sudden shutdown i want to kind of put a note [1:05:20] on that if you were to walk across this country you would see one dead child equivalent every [1:05:27] roughly 30 feet that's the level of carnage i know you disagree with that but many experts who are in [1:05:34] this field uh that is their their their estimate and i hope you'll ponder that as we strive to rebuild [1:05:43] our programs related to malaria tuberculosis aids hiv nutrition and certainly infectious diseases like ebola [1:05:51] i wanted to turn though to taiwan it's an area that you and i worked on quite a bit together when you [1:05:58] were here including the taiwan relations reinforcement act and the transnational repression policy act the [1:06:03] hong kong economic and trade-offs certification act and i'm very concerned about the president's [1:06:11] comments on his recent trip he noted that um arms sales to taiwan are a quote very good negotiating ship [1:06:21] and when he was asked about how much he talked about arms sales with china he said we discussed [1:06:26] arms sales quote in great detail the six assurances included that arms sales to taiwan would never be [1:06:33] a negotiating ship my concern is that the president now has kind of accentuated the arms sales by not [1:06:44] approving not putting the the stamp of approval and completing the arms sale that congress has already [1:06:51] funded uh and um that that this sets the stage for china to to um very much uh proceed to pursue more [1:07:03] aggressively their effort to incorporate taiwan uh into the broader uh framework of china including [1:07:11] extinguishing uh taiwan's democracy so i'd just like to hear your thoughts hopefully there's a path [1:07:17] here that will reaccentuate our support for taiwan taiwan's democracy thank you that's an important [1:07:22] question so let me first say on taiwan and i i actually i think i made this point myself either on [1:07:28] the trip in china or thereafter when we return there was there's been no change to u.s policy towards [1:07:33] taiwan i think there's obviously the chinese side would like to see a change in the verbiage but no [1:07:38] change has been made in that regard the second point i would make is i believe in december [1:07:43] i said well i know in december of this year we did approve an arms sale i think 11 billion dollars [1:07:47] i think it's the single largest arms sale ever it was a huge sale to taiwan this was just last [1:07:52] december um i think it's more than the totality of the four years under the biden administration [1:07:58] and i would recall that there were a six-year period of time under the obama administration where [1:08:02] there were no sales to taiwan there is a second pending sale which i think is the one you're referring [1:08:06] to it's the 14 billion dollar one and that remains under review and uh but we just did one in [1:08:12] december so i don't think it's you know and i'm not saying you're saying this but i don't think [1:08:16] it's fair to say that the u.s is not providing it but we just had a massive arms sales and it was so [1:08:20] big and so noticeable that the chinese became very aggressive about it and some of the incursions they [1:08:25] undertook as a result of it and and as i said it was more in one sale than we did in the entirety of [1:08:30] the biden administration if i'm if i'm correct and i think i am on that point so but but the most [1:08:36] important thing to understand is we want to see the status quo preserved as is at this moment that's [1:08:42] our policy that's what we've said that's what we continue to say it's a very as you know a very [1:08:47] delicate relationship to balance but our policy on taiwan is not changing it did not change on this trip [1:08:54] another issue that uh you and i worked on was the uger forced labor prevention act and it's really [1:09:00] been the most effective strategy for saying that the products produced by slave labor will not be [1:09:06] admitted into the united states and we've turned down a lot of products from china but then they're [1:09:11] trans shipped often just into canada it would be a far more effective policy if mexico canada and [1:09:18] europe were to join us is that a you can pursue in your role it is and uh and as you said it's an [1:09:25] enforcement challenge i think the initial enforcement is was easier because it was more straightforward i [1:09:29] think the transshipment issue makes it harder because it requires more paperwork more due diligence [1:09:33] and frankly in many cases some of it is obscured but i want to make this point there's clearly a [1:09:38] humanitarian aspect to it there's clearly a humane aspect to forced labor which is horrifying [1:09:44] separate but related there's an economic aspect to it it is also i mean unfair competition for our [1:09:49] companies to have to compete against someone who has free labor basically compelled and forced [1:09:54] labor so we've made the argument on two fronts not just is this immoral but it is and horrific but [1:10:00] it's also an enormous economic uh disadvantage not just for us but for companies all over the world [1:10:07] as you can imagine um depending on the country some are more willing to lean in on these issues than [1:10:13] others um i think just yesterday uh last week the foreign minister of of china was visiting canada and [1:10:22] where uh they sort of announced or at least you know put out the prospect of how canada can export more [1:10:29] to china next year you know that was the carrot what we don't know in those and i'm not blaming [1:10:33] canada i'm just saying in general they do this all over the world there's a stick associated with it [1:10:37] and i would imagine that china is putting i know that they put tremendous amount of pressures on [1:10:41] countries around the world not to comply with restrictions like the ones we put i agree we got [1:10:46] canada and mexico to agree given our current trade arrangements that would make it far more effective [1:10:52] to date we have not been successful at convincing them that they should do that because [1:10:55] among other things i think they fear retribution but um but we certainly will continue to raise [1:11:00] it because we think it harms them senator brasso thanks mr chairman mr secretary great to see you [1:11:06] again you opened by talking about american leadership and american interests and later this month the g7 [1:11:12] is going to be meeting in france and then next month nato meeting in turkey just overview what's the [1:11:20] what are the priorities you're going to go into those meetings with g7 g7 and nato yeah coming up next [1:11:25] month in this well nato will be a fun meeting um let's start with the g7 one the the the g7 forum [1:11:32] this year has largely been focused obviously because of the straits so when i went to the foreign ministers [1:11:36] meeting in march a lot of the conversations in april were about the straits and the one point we've made [1:11:41] is and what's interesting is a lot of the countries involved there even though it's not a military forum [1:11:45] per se the uk and france are members of it they've put together this initiative which they say they will [1:11:52] send mine sweepers and escort ships but they will do so once hostilities has ended kind of a catch-22 [1:11:58] on the one hand i mean why do you need naval escorts if no one's shooting at the ships that said i don't [1:12:04] diminish the utility of it because i would imagine the first few ships to go through are going to [1:12:08] like to be escorted so i think that's going to be a key feature of that conversation i think there's [1:12:13] a shared interest in all these countries on rare earth minerals and supply chains generally i think [1:12:18] there is a growing global consensus and we had a great uh maybe a few of you had attended part of [1:12:24] it we had a great um ministerial here earlier this year on on rare earths and supply chains that brought [1:12:32] in dozens of countries and all the g7 countries were represented at it and so i think that's going [1:12:36] to be a feature here is how do we create how do we diversify the global supply chain on anything from [1:12:42] rare earths to pharmaceuticals there's growing consensus so i think that point will be quite dominant [1:12:47] and then given the makeup of who's in the g7 the russia ukraine conflict will always come up [1:12:52] because obviously it directly impacts you know at least three or four of those members who are on [1:12:56] the continent um so we will also and i don't know i don't recall exactly who the french have invited [1:13:02] but in addition to the g7 they'll always invite two or three other countries to attend i believe ukraine [1:13:07] has been invited if i'm not mistaken there's usually a couple other countries that they'll invite that [1:13:11] are not members of g7 but i think those issues will dominate depending on where we are with the straits [1:13:16] and then clearly the critical minerals and supply chains has been a key focus of g7 actions the last [1:13:22] point is i think there's been an interest in and so and i think canada deserves credit for this the [1:13:28] canadians have really taken a lead and we've been very supportive of this and highlighting places like [1:13:33] haiti uh and and as a result of these g7 meetings we've actually had a number of countries in the g7 [1:13:39] including japan step up and contribute to the uh to the to the effort there and the reason i [1:13:45] have mentioned nato there's an article in the hill mr chairman i asked unanimous consent that we put [1:13:48] this in in the record it says sweden is now america's most valuable tech ally you're talking [1:13:54] about working together with other other countries it goes on to say this is just last week sweden joined [1:13:59] nato they've now signed the bilateral defense cooperation agreement they said in march sweden became the [1:14:04] first european member uh european union member state to sign the pax silica declaration washington's [1:14:11] flagship initiative to secure global ai and semiconductor supply chains and now the technology [1:14:16] prosperity deal i want to know how you know how you've accomplished so much and is this a model [1:14:21] for u.s relationships going forward with nato yeah the interesting thing about sweden is because they [1:14:26] and and finland to the some extent to the equal extent is because they were not members of nato for [1:14:32] many many years they had a self-sufficiency in their defenses and so now that they've joined they've [1:14:37] actually added to the equation i'm not here to beat up on any specific country but generally speaking [1:14:41] the countries you added to nato were countries that needed from nato sweden and finland have [1:14:46] actually contributed because they brought their own defense industry their own advanced technologies [1:14:50] so they've been a great partner they've been an extraordinary partner we were just there because [1:14:53] we had the nato foreign ministers meeting in sweden and it was phenomenal and i think that sweden is [1:14:58] a great ally in a country that we're continuing to find a lot of synergy and cooperation with [1:15:03] especially on the field of technology but also on defense i mean they have their own defense [1:15:07] industrial base which is an impressive defense industrial base i wish every country in nato had [1:15:11] what they have but i understand why sweden has it the uh in a number of travels a number of members [1:15:17] have done in bipartisan ways we found out as we go around europe that most countries will say [1:15:21] they've been too dependent on the united states for military too dependent on russia for energy and too [1:15:25] dependent on china for materials this administration has really made these nations step up to do what they [1:15:32] need to do in terms of putting the money forward in defense so i want to know what the next concrete [1:15:36] steps we can to in terms of making some of the pledges of moving from two percent to five percent [1:15:41] making sure that they deploy the military capabilities yeah well i mean look some countries [1:15:46] are on track to do that others are not let me let me just speak about it in general terms there's a real [1:15:51] challenge on the one hand they've made these pledges that they're going to increase their defense [1:15:54] spending and their defense capability it actually has to be on defense that's the first thing you can't say [1:16:00] that pensions for former soldiers and sailors is part of your five percent or your 3.5 i mean that [1:16:06] that can't happen but the bigger challenge that much of europe faces many countries in nato faces [1:16:12] their economies are not growing and in order to spend more money on defense they're going to either [1:16:17] have to raise taxes or cut social programs and part of the reality of nato whether we like to hear it [1:16:22] or not is that many of the countries in europe were able to build these very robust social safety nets [1:16:27] because they didn't have to spend it on defense because nato and the united states were providing [1:16:31] it for it so they're going to have to deal with that reality the second point is and and this is [1:16:35] not an anti-nato statement uh but but it is the reality the united states has global obligations [1:16:41] at the same time as i'm in nato i have to speak to the indo-pacific countries who are also worried [1:16:45] about what's our force posture they're going to be we obviously are involved in the middle east we have [1:16:50] counter-terrorism issues with regards to africa we have growing mill-to-mill cooperation in our own [1:16:55] western hemisphere especially taking on these transnational terrorist organizations and the [1:17:00] like so we and we don't have like unlimited military resources even though we have a very large budget [1:17:06] they're not unlimited and so we have to be able to allocate our resources and our personnel in [1:17:10] ways that make sense and it has to come at the expense of something and so um i think that's the [1:17:15] reality that we have shared with our nato partners from the very beginning of this administration [1:17:19] and have been consulting every step along the way but these countries will have to step up they [1:17:23] at a minimum have to be able to conventionally defend their own sovereign national territory for [1:17:28] the most part thank you mr chairman senator van holland you're next chairman and welcome mr secretary [1:17:38] this is your first public hearing since president trump and israeli prime minister netanyahu launched an [1:17:46] illegal war against iran netanyahu said he's been waiting 40 years to do this turns out he finally found a [1:17:56] president who was both stupid and reckless enough to join him the war has killed 14 american service [1:18:03] members wounded hundreds more and killed thousands of civilians it's driving up the price of gas food and [1:18:10] much more trump obviously doesn't care he called high gas prices peanuts and said i don't think about [1:18:18] americans financial situation that's from the president united states and all for what the president [1:18:25] told us 91 days ago that we had quote won the war in iran last year he told the country iran's key [1:18:33] enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated was that false let's face it mr [1:18:41] secretary the trump foreign policy has become a dumpster fire this is the same president who's more [1:18:48] interested in flattering vladimir putin than in protecting ukrainian sovereignty the president who [1:18:54] lifted restrictions on the transfer of sophisticated u.s chips to china but came back from his trip there [1:19:01] with nothing but ballroom envy he tweeted about that the other day this is the president who brought [1:19:06] on elon musk to take a chainsaw to aid which has enabled the current ebola outbreak in the drc [1:19:13] we've also witnessed corrupt crypto deals with the uae royal family that have enriched the trump [1:19:18] family at the expense of our national security we've seen an administration engage in extrajudicial [1:19:23] killings in the caribbean hijack venezuelan oil threaten to invade greenland and weaken the nato [1:19:30] alliance here at home a reagan appointed judge said that you and former secretary noem abused your [1:19:36] powers when you locked up and still seek to deport students for protesting the destruction of gaza the [1:19:43] reagan appointed judge said you did that quote primarily on account of their first amendment protected [1:19:49] political speech speaking of gaza the so-called board of peace seems to have run around around [1:19:56] meanwhile while senator rubio once proclaimed that the u.s must quote work to ensure that refugees who [1:20:03] flee war torture and persecution are provided safe environments to live and thrive in now as secretary of [1:20:11] state in this administration you have capped refugees at a record low of 17 500 and white south africans [1:20:22] africaners have comprised roughly 99 of those slots mr secretary a race-based refugee system the same time [1:20:33] the president's preventing cuban political refugees from entering the united states even as you've imposed [1:20:38] a near oil blockade on that repressive regime the stated goal is to change the government there but [1:20:46] the only real change is humanitarian crisis inflicted on millions of people not members of the regime [1:20:53] and in that regard mr secretary i have a question for you regarding the designation of cuba as a state [1:21:01] sponsor of terrorism on the very first week at least of this administration uh you reinstated the [1:21:08] administration reinstated that and in a recent january 26 eo you made statements suggesting connections [1:21:18] to hezbo and hamas the previous administration did a thorough review with the intelligence community [1:21:24] and community and and concluded that there was no evidence that cuba was engaged in ongoing state [1:21:30] sponsor of terrorism did you find new evidence to support that conclusion well first of all let me just [1:21:36] say that was that your question but you made this long statement of which i disagree most of it we [1:21:40] won't have time to address every point that you made so let's stick to cuba specific because that's [1:21:44] the question that you asked cuba has sponsored terrorism and supported groups for example virtually [1:21:49] every left-wing radical violent uh terrorist group in the western hemisphere has at some point [1:21:55] relied on support from cuba the eln the farc the farc dissidents including them have been involved [1:22:00] there we also know for example that cuba continues to host a pretty substantial collection uh intelligence [1:22:06] sites on behalf of the chinese and the russians but you you look at the region and you look at all [1:22:10] of these leftist marxist terrorist organizations all of them in many cases i can move on i noticed you [1:22:17] did not answer my question because my question specifically related to whether there was new evidence [1:22:22] new evidence to support that conclusion i can just tell you why would i need new evidence [1:22:25] be because you're claiming that they're a state-sponsored terrorism suggesting they're [1:22:30] ongoingly involved in that my final question to you mr secretary relates to the el oscar mox mosque [1:22:37] complex there have been reports that the united states is working with israel to take away [1:22:41] the kingdom of jordan's custodianship over the el oscar mox mosque complex in east jerusalem [1:22:47] can you confirm today that there's no i'm not even aware of those reports there are reports so i was [1:22:52] hoping you could like a media report or there have been several media reports ah well you know the [1:22:56] media is always accurate no they're not and that's why i'm yeah no i've never even heard that that's [1:23:00] the first time i even hear anybody discuss all right well i'm glad to hear that but we have a [1:23:04] great relationship with jordan you know we're very helpful i've just never heard that before you [1:23:08] should i don't know what article you're referring to just give it to me i'll look i'm i'm happy to [1:23:11] is it a credible website i'm glad i'm glad to hear you say mr secretary there's no truth i've never heard [1:23:16] that discussed by anybody you're up next oops i'm sorry uh senator deans was here earlier i apologize [1:23:26] senator deans chairman thank you rank member shaheen good to see you as well um one of the underreported [1:23:33] successes of for your diplomacy in this administration is what's happened to the peace agreement a landmark [1:23:41] agreement between armenia and azerbaijan i know mr secretary you just were in the region most recently [1:23:49] a major step forward for a region long beset by conflict nearly 40 years of a hot war and through [1:23:58] your leadership and president trump's leadership you've brought true peace to an area of the world [1:24:04] sandwiched in between russia and iran it was creative thinking that led the establishment of the trump [1:24:12] route for international peace and prosperity as a solution to some of the stickier issues in that [1:24:18] negotiation the program promises to be a boon not only for armenia and azerbaijan but also many [1:24:27] neighboring countries as brzezinski once said talk on the global chessboard his book that central asia [1:24:33] is the wine bottle in azerbaijan's the cork you uncork the wine bottle suddenly you've got oil and gas and [1:24:42] critical minerals flowing back towards the west instead of to russia to china and to iran mr secretary [1:24:50] can you tell us a little bit about how you plan to implement the trip framework agreements and deliver [1:24:56] major economic benefit to both the united states in a very historically troubled region thanks actually [1:25:04] as you said i was there last week was it tuesday maybe we land we signed the the trip agreement between [1:25:11] the us and and and armenia and this is you described it as a corridor which i look i i know it's the [1:25:17] anchor of a peace agreement with armenia and azerbaijan and that's critical but it's much more than just [1:25:22] the anchor of a peace agreement it really has the opportunity to revolutionize armenia's strategic [1:25:28] location and become a central hub for trade in the region it solves the issue of access that azerbaijan [1:25:34] cared about and it was an irritant in their relationship but it does much more than that it has the ability [1:25:38] to transform the armenian economy in a very powerful way here's the other thing that it's done you know [1:25:43] for a long period of time uh our relations with armenia were quite stagnant and and in many cases i [1:25:49] would argue almost non-existent it has also reinvigorated that relationship between our two countries [1:25:55] and allow us to explore opportunities in all sorts of other fields so we're involved in that very heavily [1:25:59] now we just literally just signed the agreement and it will allow us to drive uh and and and hopefully [1:26:05] incentivize u.s private sector investment in this corridor to the benefit of american companies and [1:26:10] american interests but also to the benefit of armenia azerbaijan and other regional countries [1:26:14] i i would also argue by the way and just to point out and i don't mean this again i think this is [1:26:19] pretty well understood in the open source reporting the russians are less than happy right about our [1:26:24] engagement there i think there's evidence that they would like the current president to lose his election [1:26:28] as a result of this uh growing uh relationship with the united states to be clear we're not there to [1:26:34] infringe on armenian sovereignty we're not asking them not to be friends with other countries we [1:26:38] just want to be able to have a relationship with them that's built not just on peace peace is [1:26:42] important but that's just the beginning it's the economic opportunities that it provides there are [1:26:47] american companies and american workers that will benefit from it but the armenian people will be [1:26:51] the ultimate beneficiaries yeah this corridor opening it's remarkable and we were there together [1:26:56] in fact last august at the white house when president aliyev vajibarjan prime minister pashian [1:27:00] armenia came to sign that agreement with president trump's leadership to think a shiite muslim country [1:27:07] azerbaijan and armenia one of the oldest christian countries in the world came together to sign a [1:27:13] peace agreement was truly a breakthrough and so i it's an underreported story in my opinion mr secretary [1:27:18] i think we need to get the story out of this is a critical geopolitical problem that has been [1:27:23] definitely remedied by the leadership of this yeah i mean the key senator danes is going to be [1:27:27] execution like you can sign an agreement you can have the things in place we now have to make sure [1:27:32] we are focused on driving it and ensuring that to the extent american companies can contribute to [1:27:37] the infrastructure to the railway to the highway to everything that needs to happen in order for [1:27:41] that corridor to open and then the spin-off effect of it as well uh we don't want to we don't need [1:27:45] to dominate it we're not asking for an american monopoly economic but we do want our companies to [1:27:49] get a fair shake in there and by the way partnering with armenian companies in many cases so it [1:27:54] becomes mutually beneficial before my time is that i want to get bring up one very important final [1:27:58] point as you well know i've been spending a lot of time over the past few years working with our [1:28:02] friends in central asia across the caspian there with the five central asian countries things are [1:28:06] progressing well thanks to your engagement and encouragement and president trump's and we're [1:28:11] seeing a lot of fruit from last year's c5 plus one summit that was right here in washington [1:28:15] that being said there is still a major hurdle to strengthen our ties one of the key irritants [1:28:21] to our friends in azerbaijan and in central asia is infamous jackson vanik trade restrictions these [1:28:28] are soviet era relic restrictions in fact senator murphy and i are the co-leads on the repeal [1:28:36] it's long past due that we get this changed mr secretary is removing these restrictions a priority for [1:28:43] you and your department and removing them have a significant impact on our relations with central asia [1:28:49] yeah it's a detriment we'd like to see it removed and uh i think you should talk to the chairman [1:28:54] and the ranking member about putting it on the agenda with you guys they're right there you can [1:28:57] tell them but it's finance oh it's fine you don't have jurisdiction over there it is [1:29:02] and mr secretary finance well that's good that's what i do too it's not my job but so yeah and our [1:29:07] encouragement from our friends over in the house will be helpful we'll work with you on that mr [1:29:10] secretary you should get it passed i mean look it would be very helpful yeah it would be thank you [1:29:13] absolutely um first of all let me say that i absolutely concur uh with the secretary and uh [1:29:21] and senator deans with you and i've talked to the president about this as you know uh and uh i have [1:29:27] actually talked to the chairman of the finance committee who i know relatively well uh and um we [1:29:33] actually have a plan for going forward and you and i are going to meet on that here very quickly i'm [1:29:36] glad i have friends in high places mr chairman thank you but no you're absolutely right on that and it [1:29:41] it uh there's there's it's just in the in the queue so with that uh let us go to senator coons thank [1:29:49] you mr chairman ranking member mr secretary national security advisor good to see you again i know from [1:29:55] our service here together that you agree that china is the greatest national security threat that we [1:30:01] face and one of the key reasons is their repeated threats to take control of taiwan by force if necessary [1:30:08] and taiwan is we both know is not just some far away island it produces 90 of the semiconductor chips [1:30:15] critical to everything from f35s to iphones and its geography makes it indispensable both to global [1:30:21] commerce and military power do you agree with that taiwan yeah it's very it's not just strategically [1:30:29] important in terms of where it's located it also is the message that it sends to the world if [1:30:33] something were to happen to it agree that's why for decades really with leadership from the senate [1:30:37] in a bipartisan way we've provided arms to deter the prc's potential military aggression in fact [1:30:43] you introduced the taiwan peace through strength act of 2023 in january congress pre-approved a 14 [1:30:51] billion arms package for taiwan it's been six months we haven't received a notification have you [1:30:57] advised president trump to proceed with this yeah it's under i don't know if you were here a moment [1:31:01] ago when i discussed we just did 11 billion in december which was i think the largest sale uh in [1:31:06] history certainly i think it was more than the accumulative amount under the biden administration [1:31:10] and i recall during six years of the obama administration there was zero gone to taiwan [1:31:14] so some way you would argue that we're trying to make up ground why hold off on it now well so the [1:31:19] other 14 is being reviewed it's under review it hasn't been uh i think it's been noticed but it [1:31:23] hasn't been reviewed i mean it hasn't been approved yet it's under review under the white house mr [1:31:28] secretary my concern is that president trump has said publicly that arms sales to taipei are a great [1:31:33] negotiating chip with china and my concern at a time when the prc has been far more aggressive than [1:31:40] they were in previous years centerline crossing circumnavigation of australia aiding iran iran [1:31:47] and russia in their war goals and aims frankly literally helping iranians target u.s service members [1:31:54] i respect the importance of our having an open negotiation and relationship with the prc [1:31:59] um but in the meetings you were in in beijing did the president offer to condition arms sales to [1:32:05] taiwan in order to placate xi jinping well look i'm not going to discuss what was the president's [1:32:10] words in a meeting or not suffice it to say that you know that specific question you just asked that's [1:32:14] not that's not the context in which the president has raised this in the past when the president says [1:32:19] it's a great negotiating what he's really saying is it's because china as you can imagine always [1:32:24] mentions this like this is a top priority for them they are constantly talking about taiwan arms sales [1:32:30] but that in no way is what is holding up our decision making or the white house's decision [1:32:35] making it is something the president will have to decide on the timing of when and how that is executed [1:32:40] on it's been approved by congress it's been noticed the money's available and as i said we are just [1:32:44] coming off the heels of a very large sale in december of last year so um there are a variety of reasons [1:32:50] why these things don't happen immediately well mr secretary that there is more reason than ever [1:32:56] for the administration with congressional support to continue providing robust military capacity to taiwan [1:33:04] given that the prc is more and more regionally aggressive you also introduced and passed legislation [1:33:10] in 23 prohibiting any president from unilaterally withdrawing from nato i assume this was because [1:33:16] you recognize that our alliances are a key advantage against russia against china against other [1:33:22] adversaries do you still consider article 5 an unconditional commitment yeah so let me address [1:33:29] that holistically if it's okay because i think we have time to do it first of all you're right i have [1:33:34] throughout my entire career in the senate and through much of my time now in this administration been [1:33:39] a supporter of nato i see its utility the key and i'm just being honest with you when we talk about this [1:33:45] one of the key arguments that i would always use on behalf of nato is the fact that it allows basing [1:33:50] rights that we could use in a contingency operation in a time of conflict and the time we just have [1:33:56] that we just have had so when you have countries in this alliance because understand at the end of [1:34:01] the day we are providing basically the defense backbone of an entire continent of rich countries these are [1:34:07] not poor countries these are rich countries um and the utility of nato for us is that it provides these [1:34:13] basing rights now we are living in a world in which some of these countries i point to spain as an [1:34:17] example openly brag about how they've denied us the use of these bases and so if the if the core [1:34:23] rationale for us being in nato if if what we get out of nato is the ability to use bases and then we have [1:34:30] members of that alliance that are basically denying the use of those bases uh in a contingency it calls [1:34:36] them to question the entire thing forgive me i have one more question i want to make sure we get to [1:34:39] um is it not true that some of the challenges in our nato relations have only come after president [1:34:47] trump um threatened to seize territory from a trusted and reliable and no i don't think that's [1:34:54] a partner yeah i don't think that's fair i think he publicly said both i know but but i don't use [1:34:58] tariffs to coerce denmark into giving up greenland yeah but just to tell you look if you go back and [1:35:03] study the history of it nato tensions and debates within u.s of whether we should be in nato in the [1:35:09] 1970s it was the reverse it was the administration trying to stay in nato and congress trying to get [1:35:13] us out yes i happened to see a speech i don't know they were playing it after he passed away on c-span [1:35:18] jesse jackson at the 1988 democratic convention calling for the united states to get out of nato [1:35:23] these debates over nato you were as was joe biden oh joe biden didn't support that position then and [1:35:28] i don't support that position but my point is that these debates about nato have been ongoing for a long [1:35:32] time there's about 1100 vetted vetted afghan allies being held at camp as salia in cup in qatar and [1:35:42] that includes 400 children and 150 family members of currently serving active duty u.s service members [1:35:50] they've been stranded there for a year and a half and there is talk of sending them either back to [1:35:54] afghanistan into the waiting arms of the taliban or into war-torn and now ebola infected countries like [1:36:00] the drc and these are people who they or their immediate family members served alongside u.s [1:36:06] soldiers at great risk can you commit to working with me and others in this body to support the [1:36:11] relocation of these vetted individuals to the united states especially those who are family members [1:36:17] of currently serving u.s soldiers yeah i can't first of all we're as you know we're under an [1:36:21] executive order now after the national guard attack here and so uh that happened last year so we [1:36:26] can't admit any afghans at this point into the country that said you just pointed to them being [1:36:31] sent back to afghanistan our goal we've worked on this and can and we'll work with you on it please [1:36:35] is we have talked to multiple countries now i don't know of any single country that's going to take a [1:36:38] thousand people but we've talked to multiple countries about taking several hundred of these [1:36:42] people um and allowing them to move to a safe location as you know we are operating under not just [1:36:48] those restrictions but broader restrictions about immigration into the united states after 20 25 million [1:36:53] people entered this country illegally over a four-year period leading up to this administration [1:36:57] the president just but i'll work with you to find the right places for them to go we want that to [1:37:00] happen the president just raised the refugee cap exclusively to allow africaners into our country [1:37:07] i would welcome a chance to work with you to find safe third countries for these afghans and and i [1:37:13] frankly think we ought to be revisiting our refugee policy because the refugees who've come into our [1:37:18] country in the past are the most vetted and often the highest contributing as you know my childhood [1:37:24] church hosted a south vietnamese family and seeing the five of them become great americans entrepreneurs [1:37:31] contributors it is refugees from oppression overseas whether from cuba or venezuela vietnam or afghanistan [1:37:38] who have long contributed to the united states thank you mr secretary sir paul i'd like to revisit for a [1:37:46] moment the uh boats that were blowing up in the caribbean and the pacific that uh referred to as drug [1:37:52] boats i think it's interesting that the three secret criteria we're using to blow up the boats doesn't [1:37:58] include whether they have drugs on board i would like to add that the statistics from the coast guard also [1:38:04] say that when we interdict um alleged drug votes in the historic way the way we've always done it about [1:38:11] one in four don't have drugs we make mistakes we see something suspicious about the vote [1:38:15] we stop them and they don't have drugs on board i would also like to add that drugs is not a [1:38:21] criteria for blowing up the boats the boats that are called drug boats but neither is arms so in order [1:38:27] to blow them up we don't have to say that they're armed or have drugs and i think a lot of people would [1:38:31] have questions which i still do i am glad to hear today though that the administration and the [1:38:39] negotiations are willing to trade sanctions relief for removal of enriched uranium i've said for a [1:38:47] long time and argued for a long time that sanctions in and of themselves rarely if ever are of any value [1:38:53] i've yet to see any chinese behavior that's changed because of sanctions i've yet to see any russian [1:38:59] behavior change because of sanctions i've really yet to see any iranian behavior change because of [1:39:04] sanctions however sanctions do have some leverage and ability to exact change if you uh remove them [1:39:12] so the removal of sanctions actually might actually have some hope so i support the administration in [1:39:17] this now there are many republican critics who have been vocal on the uh airways recently saying oh no we [1:39:23] can never negotiate with them these are terrible people well you don't really negotiate with really [1:39:28] friendly good people you're you know in a time of war you're going to have to negotiate with an [1:39:32] adversary so i do um uh commend and and supportive of the idea of this and the other thing is it's [1:39:39] very uh verifiable you don't have to wait for verification you could say the trade sanctions [1:39:45] end as soon as we get the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium that has to be dug i guess some of it from under [1:39:51] a mountain of rubble but at the same time be very verifiable but what i would argue and what i would advise [1:39:58] is that um you really you know why not offer everything offer all of the relief of virtually [1:40:05] all of the sanctions if you get it now you can wait if that's what you want is the enricher any amount [1:40:10] and a promise now the the the the rabbit hawks will argue well we're not going to negotiate with terrorists [1:40:18] we're not going to negotiate with bad people uh then they'll continue to have enriched uranium and they'll continue to enrich uranium [1:40:24] so i do think that the argument that there hasn't been a military solution to this is largely proven [1:40:31] by the fact that even though we've militarily uh obliterated their military all of that is true [1:40:37] it says uh fred iklay wrote in every every war must end that military victory doesn't always translate or [1:40:45] lead to political resolution or to things that you want done you know what we really want done is no [1:40:51] more enriched uranium and you don't enrich uranium you give up on these hopes um but i would say that [1:40:57] as we are looking at trading sanctions you say there's some you can do on your own there's some [1:41:01] that are congressional i would be bringing in the leaders in the congress who can give up on these [1:41:06] sanctions and hopefully try to get their voice saying yes if they will give up because if you give [1:41:11] up like oh a few piddling ones that the uh that won't change things that the white house says you're [1:41:17] building to do and you still have all these congressional sanctions if you're on the other [1:41:21] side of that equation you might say we're not giving up the one thing we think is leverage uh the [1:41:27] enriched uranium for maybe a little bit of sanctions relief so i would i would say really go all in on [1:41:33] it because it would be verifiable you don't have to wait and prove it you would have to prove in the [1:41:37] future whether enriching but i i i think that is a good step forward but it's also important for people [1:41:43] to have a discussion of what diplomacy is and that diplomacy doesn't always have a bad name and [1:41:48] frankly i'm glad to hear that the administration is negotiating and i wish you luck and i'd love to [1:41:53] hear your response in general well first of all the president's made clear the priorities iran can [1:41:57] never have a nuclear weapon and what do they need to have a nuclear weapon they need a couple things [1:42:01] they need the ability to enrich that has been substantially destroyed but could always be rebuilt over [1:42:06] time and the second is the ability and and highly enriched uranium it's 60 that could quickly be [1:42:12] enriched to 90 percent weapons grade the second point you make is about sanctions so so that's [1:42:17] the goal here and the sanctions first of all there's a combination of sanctions there's sanctions [1:42:22] that block direct sort of activities that generate revenue and that's problematic beyond [1:42:27] the nuclear program because they also use this revenue to fund sponsors to sponsor terrorism like [1:42:31] hezbollah and others around the region and then there's the frozen assets which are related to [1:42:36] sanctions but these are iranian assets that have been frozen that they don't have access to [1:42:40] so what i would argue and again i don't want to get ahead of myself because we're not engaged in [1:42:43] this conversation with them yet but if you get into a situation in which the reason why there are [1:42:48] sanctions are because the nuclear program and so they comply with what we're demanding on the nuclear [1:42:53] side of it you know zero enrichment get rid of the enriched uranium they're complying with these things [1:42:58] then i think that's the place where the frozen assets could be discussed the more they give the [1:43:02] more they would get i think ultimately we will still face other challenges related to iran separate from the [1:43:08] nuclear program like what they use their money on which is to sponsor hezbollah and to sponsor hamas [1:43:13] and to sponsor terrorism around the world but on the nuclear question which was the president's been [1:43:17] focused on now no nuclear weapon program the sanctions that are directly related to the nuclear program the [1:43:24] more they give theoretically the more they should be willing to get what they're not going to get it is [1:43:27] a down payment they're not going to get it as a signing bonus and and i would also point out that [1:43:33] negotiations on nuclear matters are highly complex highly technical and so it will take some time to [1:43:39] work through that as the sanctions by the way highly technical and in many cases multifaceted there are [1:43:44] u.n sanctions there are u.s sanctions there are u.s congressional sanctions so there's a lot to unravel [1:43:49] there is benefit from the idea of um trading sanctions relief for activity and if you don't ever trade [1:44:01] them if you just have them on the book then i think they're of little value in changing behavior thank you [1:44:06] you senator booker thank you very much uh mr secretary you and i talked a lot about africa and i raised [1:44:14] concerns about a lot of the cuts we're seeing globally an increase in tuberculosis an increase [1:44:21] in malaria cases we see a continued ongoing on the continent hiv crisis and the united states has pulled [1:44:28] back from a lot of its investments in those areas now with the crisis with ebola um we see that the [1:44:35] challenges that have been brought about as a result of our surveillance uh early detection and and the [1:44:40] like so i'm just very concerned about what the administration's strategy is because we're clearly [1:44:44] seeing here that what goes on in the continent of africa directly affects our public health as well [1:44:51] well first of all i don't agree with that assessment i mean first of all it's not about cutting back [1:44:54] because if the response here is not just how much money you spend it's it's what results you're going [1:44:58] to get now let's talk about ebola for a second ebola the outbreak in ebola was in a war-torn [1:45:04] isolated rural area in the drc that's where that began since that time our response has been very [1:45:09] quick very rapid well so you're saying you did not cut early detection periods i'm not talking i'm saying [1:45:14] that whatever you're pointing to is the cut is not the reason why there was an ebola i'm not connecting [1:45:18] the two i'm simply saying well you are connecting them you said that our cuts senator ruby i'm not trying [1:45:21] to get in an argument with you i would really like to actually have my questions answered so very quickly [1:45:26] we cut early detection uh when it comes to infectious diseases on the continent factually [1:45:33] this is not an opinion we made those cuts we cut early warning systems on the continent it had [1:45:40] nothing to do with the ebola outbreak so i i don't need to tell you uh secretary rubio that we're living [1:45:47] in a place where an infectious disease crisis anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere the united [1:45:51] states has made major reductions in these areas that have put us more at risk if you're talking about [1:45:56] this clearly ebola crisis there's other things and other cuts we've made and you see it factually [1:46:01] even our own uh even our own uh um state department personnel that i've talked to are saying we're less [1:46:08] prepared for global outbreak than we were before and my worry is specifically in a budget hearing is [1:46:14] this budget makes even deeper cuts into the kind of things that can prevent the next outbreak or as [1:46:19] we've seen with with uh unfortunately with covid uh have us more prepared yeah i don't agree with [1:46:25] that assessment i don't know who told you that at the state department so just let's move on my time [1:46:29] is limited i know that's an important question i don't want to eat up your time but i need to answer [1:46:33] that because i just don't agree with that mr secretary you can't even agree on the facts [1:46:37] that's not accurate i mean again you look at what we've entered into it's it's not accurate [1:46:41] that we cut early detection because those have all been repurposed and different arrangements that we now have [1:46:46] with these countries as an example well i would like for the record because we're not going to [1:46:50] cover it in my short time if you're telling me we are as prepared or more prepared before the trump [1:46:55] administration came in i'd like to see the fact i think when these reforms are finalized which we're [1:46:59] on the verge of doing we're actually going to be better prepared we are we are responding today [1:47:03] faster not just to humanitarian crisis but to outbreaks than we were before we are responding in [1:47:08] some cases within 72 hours are able to move funds to task which you weren't able to do in the old [1:47:13] system and we're also building the capacity of all mr secretary may i please reclaim my time to [1:47:18] shift gears the strait of humus i was listening to their conversations you had with some of my [1:47:22] colleagues we we've now seen the straight close for months and you explained that we're going to [1:47:29] see an opening of the strait and ultimately the exchange we will get for that is after that fact we [1:47:36] will release certain sanctions is that correct no that's not what i said what i said was that we [1:47:41] if they open the straits we will lift our blockade the straits in the blockade are what are interrelated [1:47:46] and so for the nuclear program in exchange for getting rid of the fiscal material out of country [1:47:53] i imagine is what your highly enriched uranium we would release sanctions is that correct well it's [1:47:58] not just that it's also their enrichment activity they would have to you know they would have to make [1:48:02] very severe and significant concessions on what they intend to enrich and and already with the [1:48:07] the march relaxing of sanctions allowing iranians to sell oil to the chinese estimates have been [1:48:15] between 10 and 50 billion dollars they got from that relaxing of sanctions how much money might we [1:48:22] see in a deal in our relaxings of sanctions in order to get rid of the highly enriched uranium [1:48:27] and stop their enrichment well let me just tell you on that portion the the sanctions that were released [1:48:31] on iran were were boats on the water and so that what that that oil is already out in the marketplace [1:48:36] that was sold at market rates but the sanctions covered and to the extent we've been able to [1:48:40] enforce them we have the revenues of those sales so yeah the oil the iranian oil was unsanctioned [1:48:45] so that it could be sold but the revenue would have to flow back to blocked accounts which our [1:48:49] sanctions were able to go after we've also seized i believe six vessels in the indo-pacific that involved [1:48:54] iranian sanctioned oil on top of it so that wasn't necessarily a trade they didn't get 50 billion [1:48:59] dollars directly as a result of they might have gotten some of it they certainly didn't get the majority of it [1:49:03] they are now losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day in revenue because of the blockade and the [1:49:08] blockade is exists because of what they're doing in the straits right and and i guess the the conclusion [1:49:13] i have in my times expired is that the strait of hormuz was open before this unjustified war [1:49:21] we're now scrambling to try to find a way to get it back opened again not only is it causing economic [1:49:27] havoc to our country and to residents all around this nation families trying to make ends meet [1:49:32] but you see on top of that the iranians finding ways to leverage that as we allowed them to do [1:49:38] with the chinese for tens of billions of dollars and so my point is before we even get to a nuclear [1:49:44] negotiation this regime is getting money to rebuild purchase more drones cause more havoc and this is [1:49:52] before we're even trying to get back to but i don't i apologize i don't understand how they're getting [1:49:56] this what revenue are you referring to well there's two sources of revenue we're seeing one is the revenue [1:50:00] from the chinese that's factually documented and number two the revenue that you're proposing that [1:50:05] they should receive by releasing all of their highly enriched uranium as well as in making a [1:50:11] commitment about their enrichment capacities yeah hold on and that was the exact deal that you guys [1:50:18] vilified that the president and you vilified president obama from having yeah now here we have a [1:50:25] worse situation where our adversary and our enemy who's causing havoc in the region who is funding [1:50:33] proxies and terrorists has discovered thanks to you all the power of shutting down the strait of [1:50:39] her moves no they didn't they knew that a long time ago and they've done it before clearly we all knew [1:50:43] that a long time ago that's why this and they and ill-conceived war should have never happened yeah but [1:50:48] have made our adversary in a stronger negotiating position we are the strongest nation on the planet earth [1:50:54] and we're in a stalemate with iran and now we're begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed [1:51:01] in the first place there's no one begging i don't clearly this is senator booker senator booker your [1:51:05] time's up i do want to address these points because they go to the heart of the matter no one's begging [1:51:10] for anything here the iranians might be begging because their economy is losing hundreds of millions [1:51:14] of dollars a day that they are losing understand iran had street protests going on before all of this [1:51:20] started all of those factors economic factors in iran are far worse today than they were six months [1:51:25] ago when those protests were happening they have hyperinflation their currency is completely devalued [1:51:30] they're struggling to make payroll for their government workers iran is in a very serious [1:51:34] situation and if it was up to the political class there and i understand everybody there is sort of [1:51:38] radical in some way but if it was up to the people that actually like go to elections and wear the [1:51:42] suits and you see on tv they probably make a deal tomorrow it's the the issue they're facing is that the [1:51:47] supreme leader in the irgc corps are a little bit more immune from those pressures until they can [1:51:52] be convinced otherwise and i and i think that's the direction that they're moving in because the [1:51:56] reality they're i don't know where you're getting this perception that iran is stronger iran has no [1:52:00] navy left they've lost a substantial percentage of their defense industrial base that iran has lost a [1:52:04] substantial percentage of their missile launchers and their economy is far worse today and i mean far [1:52:09] worse today than it was six to nine months ago and they are looking at hundreds of billions of [1:52:14] dollars of reconstruction costs just to get to where they were six months ago you keep telling [1:52:18] us how we're winning this war the president keeps saying well the war is over completely annihilated [1:52:22] the war is not over and yet the american people see how we're losing at the pump and with their [1:52:28] costs and yet this thing still hasn't been resolved every day he tweets out oh we've obliterated them [1:52:33] we've annihilated them they're going to surrender but yet we still find ourselves spending billions of [1:52:37] dollars a week yeah senator booker you've gone way over it it would be nice if we had hearings where [1:52:44] people thank you senator booker senator scott all right section rubio so um first off it you think [1:52:50] it's important to americans that the uh aronia regime doesn't have nuclear weapons ability to [1:52:54] destroy i think it's important to the world yeah the whole world i mean if they this question about [1:53:00] the straits is a great example imagine the straits gives them leverage imagine what nuclear weapons [1:53:05] would give them leverage to do at that point they wouldn't even have to announce that we're [1:53:08] controlling this they would just say we control the straits there's nothing you can do about it [1:53:12] because our nuclear weapon will allow us to do it you will have to pay us a toll for using an [1:53:16] international waterway from now on and you can't do anything to us militarily because we'll blow [1:53:20] you up with a nuclear weapon that is the leverage that they were trying to build if they ever got [1:53:24] a nuclear weapon not only would they have a nuclear weapon not only would they control the straits [1:53:28] they would be able to act with impunity because you wouldn't be able to touch them you wouldn't [1:53:32] be able to do anything about them all right i want to thank you for what you're doing let's talk [1:53:35] about latin america which is as you know important to a lot of people in our state [1:53:39] so thanks for what you've done with uh both venezuela and cuba uh uh the state let's do [1:53:45] venezuela first i think everybody every venezuelan i know is appreciative what's happened with maduro [1:53:49] um and and i know you have a three three-step process uh to get to um uh to democracy there [1:53:56] can you talk about where you are i mean i know you busted your butt to try to get [1:54:00] desi rodriguez to do the right thing we still unfortunately have prisoners not released we still [1:54:05] have oppression so can you just talk about the process you're going through yeah well first of all i [1:54:09] remind everybody what's today the second so it's literally been five months right like i know it [1:54:13] seems like it was 10 years ago but it's been five months and i think venezuela is in a better place [1:54:18] today and in a better trajectory today than it was five months ago now is it where it needs to be [1:54:23] is it where it needs to ultimately wind up the answer is of course no ultimately in order to truly [1:54:28] transition they have to have multi-party free and fair elections but the conditions for free and fair [1:54:32] elections are the following first of all you have to have a free and open media and while you've seen [1:54:36] independent journalists are now for the first time activated again that has to exist political [1:54:41] parties have to be given the space and time to organize um the electoral the the the national [1:54:46] electoral council has to be reformed so that it has members in it that will actually accurately count [1:54:51] the vote uh you have to have certain conditions in place i'm not telling you that's five years from [1:54:55] now but it's been five months so i want to be relative to that i expect here's what i can tell you [1:54:59] for the first time certainly you know since 20 whenever you know in the pre-chavis era maybe ever [1:55:05] and certainly since the pre-chavis since the post-chavis era the oil wealth of the country is not [1:55:11] being stolen the oil wealth of the country is going directly to pay government workers buy medical [1:55:16] equipment audited by kpmg that's a significant advance that's not a permanent situation but that's [1:55:22] a very valuable one today you have seen reforms you have seen for example the infamous prison [1:55:26] in elicoida it's been closed you you still have about 400 and something what we determined to [1:55:31] believe to be political prisoners but you've had many others that have been released including many [1:55:35] high-profile ones you've seen a reform a systemic reform and individuals involved in their government [1:55:41] replaced by new people you know some we don't know well others we know a little bit about but [1:55:45] certainly better than the people whose place they took before you've seen a level of cooperation on [1:55:49] a couple of topics that i actually can't even discuss in the setting like this but be more than happy to [1:55:54] to talk to you about in the any of you about in the appropriate setting i think that's been a [1:55:59] positive um by the way you've seen the retrieval the united states with the full cooperation of [1:56:05] venezuelans went in and retrieved highly enriched uranium they had highly enriched uranium in their [1:56:10] country because of an old reactor program not because of uh not because of nuclear weapons or [1:56:15] anything and they wanted it out of their country and we were able to go in and actually retrieve it [1:56:19] along with the uk mission that went in with us and get it we have a functioning embassy and we have [1:56:24] direct flights for the first time venezuelans are now able to go back not just visit relatives [1:56:29] but begin to engage in the economic life of the country all of that is to say it's been five [1:56:33] months there is a lot more to go this is not the direction we want venezuela to be but what i will [1:56:39] say is that the venezuela that's there now under the interim authorities does not pose the threat to [1:56:45] the united states that it posed five months ago when it was an open base of operation for iranian operatives [1:56:51] for cuban intelligence and for others who used it as a base of operation against the national [1:56:55] interest but we have a lot of work to do we are nowhere near where we want to get to there can [1:56:59] you give can you give the same same thing about cuba i mean it was a very different yeah i mean i [1:57:04] think the misnomer about cuba or the misunderstanding about cuba cuba is actually not controlled by the [1:57:09] government cuba is controlled by a military holding company named gaisa and gaisa virtually owns anything [1:57:16] and they're on the tourist sector they own mining they own the gas stations they own everything [1:57:20] they generate about 70 percent of cuba's gdp is under the control of this military company [1:57:27] and they're sitting on between 14 and 17 billion dollars in assets so you have people literally [1:57:32] starving people literally like power grid that hasn't been maintained in 10 years and yet you [1:57:37] have this holding military company sitting on these assets and by the way not a penny of the money in the [1:57:42] military holding company translates over to the public treasury so the fundamental challenge we have [1:57:47] here is that cuba needs to be in order for it not to continue to be a failed state which poses a threat [1:57:52] to the united states they need systemic and serious reform they need to have economic reforms and the [1:57:58] question is can they possibly reform given the people who are currently in charge both of guys and of [1:58:04] of their government and i think the answer is they can i really don't believe this system is capable of [1:58:09] reform unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold now we've engaged in conversations with [1:58:15] them we've offered them what i think needs to happen in order for their economy to recover and that's [1:58:19] the last point i would make because i think somebody raised this issue of oil blockade cuba was having [1:58:24] blackouts well before january 3rd of this year they were having blackouts for years and they were having [1:58:30] blackouts for two reasons number one no one will give you free oil except maduro that's what's changed [1:58:34] here what's changed here is they're no longer getting free oil from venezuela and number two the main reason [1:58:39] why they have oil energy blackouts is because they didn't invest a single dollar back into their plants [1:58:45] back into improving their plants and they could have bought this equipment from any company in [1:58:49] the world but they didn't invest in it instead they invested it to build tourist hotels that now sit [1:58:54] empty because there's no tourism into cuba so cuba's a little bit more complicated than venezuela but [1:58:59] it's a mess thanks for what you're doing thank you mr chairman secretary rubio i trust you're familiar with [1:59:08] then centcom commander and future secretary of defense jim mattis's famous quote about the importance of [1:59:14] um funding our foreign policy apparatus in 2013 in response to a question from the now chairman of [1:59:21] sask general mattis pointed out that if you don't find and i quote him if you don't fund the state [1:59:27] department fully then i need to buy more ammunition ultimately end quote unfortunately despite his service [1:59:34] in the first trump administration the second time around you seem to have taken the message as a blueprint [1:59:40] rather than as a warning the budget that you're presenting today cuts the state department by about [1:59:45] a third after you previously tried to enact steep cuts and eliminations last year many of which [1:59:51] were already rebuked by congress on a bipartisan basis time and again this administration uses our [1:59:56] military as a first tool of choice manufacturing new crises and new conflicts that worsen the situation [2:00:02] for folks abroad as well as for american people back here at home and now you're here to justify a [2:00:07] budget request that further undermines our diplomatic apparatus the tools and professionals that are [2:00:12] critical for not only preventing crises before they begin but those who will be responsible for [2:00:17] negotiating our way out of trump's war of choice in iran and whatever night other nightmares he dreams [2:00:21] up with so based on how this administration has conducted itself with the last year our adversaries [2:00:26] are learning that the united states is not a reliable negotiator they're learning that we will quickly [2:00:31] turn to using force before working to alleviate crisis points and prevent war i'm very concerned that in [2:00:36] turn that that in turn increases the risk of our adversaries jumping to use force first [2:00:41] increasing risk to american citizens and american interests around the world we saw that instinct [2:00:46] for the military option in the caribbean and in venezuela and now we're seeing threats of it in cuba [2:00:51] while we're still engaged in the middle east where president trump is blowing a shocking amount of money [2:00:55] and failing to uphold his solemn duty to put our service members at risk only for the most serious [2:01:00] and imminent national security threats to american people uh mr secretary you also wear the hat of a [2:01:05] national national national security advisor so with both that had an s secretary of state do you [2:01:11] agree that this administration has spent more on trump's war in iran than you are requesting today [2:01:16] for this entire state department budget yeah i can't speak to the department of war would have [2:01:20] to speak to you about the money and what they calculate are the costs i just i can't give you an [2:01:25] accurate answer on that because that's not the thing that i look at i i would think you would have [2:01:28] some oversight some some uh uh over some insight because you are on national security well i've [2:01:35] seen the testimony that uh secretary hexeth and others have conducted in front of the the their [2:01:40] their oversight committees but i just can't i don't want to give you an answer that's not accurate okay [2:01:44] well this week let me let me let me put out some numbers that i have this week the cost of [2:01:49] president trump's illegal war choice against iran are likely to balloon past 35 billion dollars by the [2:01:54] rate from the ods own may calculations and surpass your fy 2027 budget request of 35.1 billion for [2:02:01] the state department and related programs that's an astonishing figure worth repeating in just 14 [2:02:07] weeks 14 weeks president trump will have blown through as much if not more money in iran than [2:02:12] he thinks congress should spend on u.s diplomacy for the entirety of the next fiscal year this [2:02:18] administration's distorted priorities have unfortunately revealed some stark lessons for our allies and [2:02:23] partners as well the united states use of force first will make them less secure as they'll be [2:02:27] caught in the crossfire left scrambling to protect themselves and their people mr secretary do you [2:02:31] agree that under operation epic fury our allies and partners in the region have expressed concern [2:02:36] about their security and the threats are followed from this administration's uncoordinated actions no [2:02:41] i think our allies in the region have been very cooperative some obviously very aggressively [2:02:45] cooperative like the uae as an example kuwait's been fantastic obviously no country likes to have their [2:02:51] oil and their energy infrastructure hit but i think it's a reminder to them of the threat that iran [2:02:55] poses and the one lesson when this is all said and done is uh it's reminded them of you know despite [2:03:00] all the friendly talk that you've seen in the past how dangerous iran is to their own interests how the [2:03:05] billions of dollars iran has spent despite sanctions iran found the money to build drones and rockets [2:03:10] and luckily we've taken a lot of them out but they still have some and they still have the ability [2:03:13] my question is about our allies and region expressing concerns because you see public reporting in early may [2:03:19] revealed that saudi arabia denied u.s basing and overflight related to trump's ill-conceived plan [2:03:24] to escort ships through the straits of her moves and they're still not supportive of this risky [2:03:27] tanker escort plan and the strait is still worse off today than it was before trump initiated this war [2:03:33] and that doesn't even touch on the wider global lessons being learned by our allies and partners yeah [2:03:37] we don't face it from the shangri-la dialogue where i heard from folks across the indo-pacific and [2:03:42] especially in southeast asia who are being hit hard by the same rising energy costs that are devastating [2:03:46] american communities and frankly this administration insists on using military force as a first resort [2:03:51] instead of a last resort no matter the deadly cause of self-defeating impacts your budget request [2:03:56] here would sadly perpetuate that trend and undermine the roles and responsibilities that you should be [2:04:00] fulfilling a secretary of state thank you mr chairman i yield back okay okay i didn't get to answer any of [2:04:05] that response question well she didn't answer the question she didn't want me to answer can i answer [2:04:10] anyway you may okay well but she made a bunch of points i get to answer them right first of all i [2:04:14] don't understand this thing but let me tell you we were just here maybe you weren't here we were just [2:04:18] talking about it we did a peace deal with azerbaijan and armenia we just signed the trip agreement [2:04:23] to yesterday actually or last week we signed it last night i officialized it that that was diplomacy [2:04:28] that's great but the administration is still blown through when do i get to 14 do i get to talk [2:04:32] this entire budget that you're requesting senator duckworth uh i'm going to let senator rubio reply [2:04:38] to the statements that you made at his request yeah that's but we want we've got a hard stop at 12 [2:04:44] 30. okay but i know but you said a lot of stuff i get to answer some of it all right so the first is the [2:04:48] the second is india pakistan we ended that war we were involved in helping broker that thailand [2:04:53] cambodia that's diplomacy we've been very engaged in as in fact as i sit here now speaking to you [2:04:58] i've got the lebanese government and the israeli government meeting at the state department [2:05:02] starting at 8 30 this morning for the fourth time after engaging last week at the military level [2:05:07] so we're carrying out now you know i we're carrying out diplomacy all over the world constantly and [2:05:12] very successfully in many cases now let me make one more point that you raise about the budget request [2:05:17] guys we understand how this process works okay you guys understand i know because i've been here all [2:05:20] the time we we omb produces sort of timelines for every agency we put forward a budget we say this is [2:05:26] the money we've been allocated this is how we would spend it there is a congressional process which i'm sure [2:05:30] you're aware of and in my time here 16 years that i was here i don't ever recall us once ever taking [2:05:35] the president's budget and passing it into law i'm not walking away from the budget we can make it work [2:05:40] if that's the budget you give us but i have a sense i have a suspicion right senator schatz that we're not [2:05:46] that we're going to have to work with you got shots that we're going to have to well you know that we're [2:05:50] going to have to uh that we're going to have to work with you guys on a budget request that meets your [2:05:54] priorities and ours that's how it works you guys are the appropriators we have to work within the con we will [2:05:59] tell you what we care about we will tell you how we're going to spend the money but ultimately you [2:06:02] will provide a suspending bill and we will work through those parameters but we have given you [2:06:07] what we can live with we can make it work but if you wanted you know if you're obviously going to [2:06:11] have changes here in congress but this stuff about diplomacy and the money spent on the war [2:06:15] diplomacy has always cost less money we don't buy missiles we don't buy rockets we don't buy large [2:06:20] airplanes and aircraft carriers but we've been very effective and i can give you list after list of places [2:06:25] that we have had an impact in either de-escalating crisis before it started or ending active wars [2:06:31] and i'm very proud of the work that we've done in that regard some of which haven't even been [2:06:34] publicly discussed in some cases because they weren't high profile and my last point we remain heavily [2:06:39] engaged in areas that may not at the core of our national interests but nonetheless are related to [2:06:44] our national interests you look you think about sudan for a moment and the quad this has been a very [2:06:48] frustrating situation to put together but we helped convene a donor conference that got pledges for when that is [2:06:54] resolved we put a lot of time and energy in a situation that now unfortunately has turned into a proxy in the middle east [2:07:00] because the uae and the saudis on opposite sides of it in libya where our work in libya now has [2:07:05] it's still divided but they for the first time ever have a joint budget for the first time ever [2:07:10] are cooperating on energy deals that are going to be beneficial to the people of libya so i just [2:07:15] don't think it's fair to say we're not actively involved in diplomacy on last year's budget and spending [2:07:19] because we are and we have been and to great success thank you senator uh curtis thank you mr [2:07:25] chairman clock setter thank you for resetting the clock uh mr secretary thank you for being here um [2:07:32] and i'm always truly impressed with your ability to navigate around the globe uh so articulately and [2:07:37] explain uh the positions um like you previously i chair the western hemisphere subcommittee one of the [2:07:43] focuses that i've had is on taiwan and taiwan's relationship in the western hemisphere uh we [2:07:49] actually had our first subcommittee hearing on uh taiwan's allies in the western hemisphere [2:07:55] and as you well know honduras switched diplomatic recognition away from taiwan in 2023 in exchange [2:08:01] for a lot of promises from china no surprise those those promises have not been fulfilled and the [2:08:07] current president during his campaign talked about returning back to taiwan and restoring that [2:08:12] relationship with taiwan in your budget you have a hundred 245 million dollars for the countering [2:08:20] prc influence fund and i'd like to note senator van holland and i have a bill that would actually [2:08:26] carve off a portion of that specifically for taiwan and countering the prc influence there [2:08:32] so um i guess my question is what can the u.s do potentially with counter you with that fund [2:08:38] countering prc influence fund for taiwan particularly as it relates to honduras kick-starting that uh [2:08:45] relationship developing joint set of economic priorities for taiwan in the western hemisphere [2:08:51] anything else we can use that fund forward yeah well first of all the reason why these countries [2:08:54] switch recognition primarily was because you know the chinese would go in and they would say if you [2:08:59] switch recognition we are going to provide you this loan this and in some cases worse than loans you [2:09:04] maybe there was even cases of bribery and things of this nature but we're going to provide you [2:09:09] you know free this and free that we're going to build an auditorium for you we're going to build [2:09:12] a bridge we're going to build a port and they haven't kept many of those promises so i think [2:09:16] the first thing is to just point to the fact that in switch yeah in many cases these things are not [2:09:21] provided the other angle of it is if it's loans they create these debt traps which is an argument we [2:09:25] make all over the world particularly in the hemisphere but the broader goal of this fund is not just [2:09:30] simply taiwan related although that's the reason why the that's an action they took as a result of this [2:09:36] leverage that was established on them but more broader in many cases these countries are trying [2:09:41] to develop their telecommunications system they're trying to build roads they're trying to develop [2:09:45] whatever it may be and frankly the only companies that show up are the chinese companies and they [2:09:51] show up with lower cost a financing mechanism etc etc now there's a track record of not completing [2:09:58] these projects there's a track record of flooding the country with chinese workers that come and [2:10:01] do the work so i think part of this fund is designed to create alternatives to that to give [2:10:07] these these countries alternatives to the chinese or other foreign malign influence that might be [2:10:12] occurring in their country part of that is attracting u.s commercial ventures to do it but part of it is [2:10:18] is is providing the resources so these countries can go out and do this without being subject to or [2:10:24] vulnerable to this sort of leverage tactic that's used against them thank you let me switch to china for just [2:10:31] a minute uh your budget notes the merging of the foreign service institute where a lot of the state [2:10:36] language training takes place with the human resource bureau and i'm hoping i'm hoping that can [2:10:41] improve the language capacity but here in the senate i picked up the uyghur policy act which you led when [2:10:47] you were here uh part of the bill that i'm especially supportive of is the provision that's uh supporting [2:10:53] the uyghur language training for forest service officers is is not only important but required and that we [2:11:00] have foreign service officers in asia and china that can speak that language uh i think it's absolutely [2:11:06] vital that our diplomats be able to understand the people in their own language as to the abuses that are [2:11:11] going on there given your previous experience on this bill and the department's focus on the ccp's [2:11:17] repression do you still support this provision and can you just speak to how important this is [2:11:22] yeah well i think obviously the uyghur language is not a widespread language around the world but it's [2:11:27] incredibly valuable in an important part of the world and so i i think we want to see a language [2:11:32] proficiency that's generally been a challenge writ large um over a period of time and one of the [2:11:38] goals of the consolidation is to be able to drive language school more effectively and more quickly [2:11:43] to to afford service officers before they're deployed um obviously proficiency in certain [2:11:48] languages are very difficult they take long longer periods some languages are harder to learn than [2:11:52] others um especially of the base of the language is you know like just to give an example it's easy [2:11:58] to learn italian if you speak spanish it's much harder to learn mandarin you know and uh and or the [2:12:03] uyghur language for that matter so but language is a priority for us and and it's one that uh by the [2:12:09] way in our recruitment tools is one of the things we also look for is whether uh potential candidates [2:12:15] already bring an existing second or third language which is a huge benefit yes and just very quickly um [2:12:21] do you want to clarify use this opportunity the president had a tweet about speaking with hezbollah [2:12:25] yesterday do you want to clarify uh for people what happened and yeah anything that you'd like [2:12:31] well we we received uh communications via the the lebanese government and the speaker over there [2:12:37] on behalf of hezbollah as early as sunday about uh that they would restrain from attacking israeli [2:12:43] territory if israel did not take strikes new strikes in beirut and so it came from hezbollah but [2:12:50] through lebanese authorities i think that clarification is important thank you for being [2:12:55] here today i yield thank you senator rosen uh thank you chairman rish ranking member shaheen thank you [2:13:01] secretary rubio uh for being here um secretary rubio i applaud the administration for facilitating a [2:13:08] ceasefire last year between israel and gaza that will keep israel safe and from further hamas attacks [2:13:14] and end the suffering of palestinian civilians but i have serious questions about transparency about the [2:13:21] funding for the so-called board of peace in light of recent reporting that suggests donor funds have [2:13:26] been deposited into a private jp morgan account with no independent transparency mechanisms in place [2:13:34] as a member of the board of peace executive board and secretary of state you should be in a position [2:13:39] to provide us with some answers and you as a former senator know our role here trying to get answers [2:13:45] and my team's been asking for a contact with the board of peace for several months just to do our due [2:13:49] diligence but we've received no response can you tell me exactly who my team should be reaching out [2:13:55] to please well i can now because the board of peace has finally hired some staff it's going to be a [2:14:00] very lean operation they're working out of the institute of peace building so for some period of [2:14:04] time they really were not it was just a very lean operation do you have a name for my i do i just don't [2:14:08] have it on me but i will get that to you but they've i think they just hired staff like in the last two [2:14:13] weeks we will follow up with you thank you um i have a few other questions can you tell me how much [2:14:17] money is in the world bank administered board of peace fund do you have a don't have the answer [2:14:21] because there's not u.s dollars that have flow these are donor funds so can you tell me how much [2:14:25] how much money is in the jp morgan account yeah but again those are not u.s government accounts those [2:14:30] are that who has oversight well that's the that's the key here that the ultimately the oversight over [2:14:36] the funds of the board of peace will be will be done and especially when it comes to u.s dollars will be [2:14:41] done by you in congress we have not committed those funds there yet although we've made a pledge [2:14:45] until the they've stood up the board of peace administratively this will have oversight ability [2:14:49] well on the u.s dollars on the u.s dollars can the money in the jp morgan account be used to [2:14:54] compensate the president or his family or anyone directly no one's talking about the president [2:14:59] and you said you just hired some folks and it's going to be laying about how many full-time [2:15:02] personnel do you expect i don't i think they ultimately want to get up to 15 or 20 full-time i think [2:15:06] they've started at five if i'm not mistaken i could be wrong but those are the numbers i recall [2:15:10] so is the 50 million in u.s taxpayer money that your department wants to give to the board of [2:15:15] peace is that going to be used to cover this but i think that 50 million was reversed we ended up not [2:15:20] doing that as a result of the way it was constructed the board of peace is now built out as an [2:15:24] international not non-governmental organization we will follow up with you on that once you give us [2:15:29] a contact after this thank you so secretary rubio during your confirmation and budget hearings last [2:15:34] year you committed to me you would support women and girls programming at the state department but under [2:15:39] your leadership you've terminated dozens of awards supporting women and girls you shuttered the [2:15:44] office of global women's issues gee we you fired the entire staff you said repeatedly that regional [2:15:50] bureaus will now be responsible for programs to support women and girls but my staff has asked every [2:15:55] single regional bureau if they have a plan to do this and not a single bureau can provide me with an [2:16:01] answer and so secretary rubio i'm just so disappointed i want to believe that you know you didn't lie to us [2:16:09] a lie to me and so i want to give you an opportunity to explain how women's issues have been [2:16:13] integrated well i don't know do we have an outline i don't know who's telling you that at the regional [2:16:17] bureaus because that's not accurate every regional now some regional bureaus have a larger mandate on [2:16:21] women's issues than others as an example like in europe it's probably less intense can you tell me [2:16:25] in africa on your team we can reach out to them to find out because we're not getting they're telling us [2:16:29] they don't know well the regional bureaus tell you they don't know not only does every regional bureau have [2:16:34] someone in charge of women's issues or at least inside of that portfolio but most of our embassies especially in [2:16:38] some of these key places are advocating can i call you yeah of course conversation because somehow [2:16:43] there's a community because we didn't eliminate the program we simply felt that there's there's a [2:16:47] difference between the women's issues for example that you would face in africa versus what you may [2:16:51] be facing in some part of a new program that you've been that you've stood up in the last since the uh [2:16:56] gb office was closed do you know of any first of all many almost every single one of our programs that [2:17:01] we do now our humanitarian response to crisis our our food programs that we distributed they all of them [2:17:07] have a women's component to it primarily because in these societies women are the first ones affected [2:17:11] please so we can get some clarification yeah we'll follow up and i'll give you the right people [2:17:15] on but each of these bureaus has someone or more than one case the last one here is um there is a [2:17:21] international women of courage program you and the first lady have championed are you going to commit to [2:17:25] maintaining that the which one i'm sorry the women of courage program you and the first lady have [2:17:31] championed that yeah well we had an award ceremony last year so i don't know if one is scheduled for this year [2:17:35] yet thank you uh with the remainder of my time i'd like to remind the american people that as the [2:17:41] secretary of state your main duty as america's chief diplomat is to maintain our relations with foreign [2:17:47] nations this is why i was shocked to see that you were at a party with president trump in miami [2:17:52] instead of accompanying vice president vance to pakistan for negotiations what party was i at [2:17:57] i was at a party publicly reported and there's photos there but what party no no no no but you're [2:18:04] going to say that i'm going to answer it i'm going to answer that question because that's an absurd [2:18:07] statement i was not at a party my paragraph all right he can answer people are going to slander [2:18:12] me i'm going to answer it with cough and jared kushner both of whom were never confirmed by this [2:18:17] body to be america's diplomats accompanied the vice president in negotiations even iran's foreign [2:18:22] minister was not there yet you were not was there excuse me and you were not i just feel that's [2:18:28] embarrassing for us and it's embarrassing for you so mr secretary congress represents the american [2:18:33] people we have the power to confirm who represents america abroad we confirmed you to be our [2:18:39] secretary of state we confirmed you to be in the negotiations that are happening and it's just [2:18:44] unthinkable to me that you are not you are missing high stakes negotiations or that you're not involved [2:18:50] it's sad senator rosen your time thank you your time's up uh secretary ruby you're 100 [2:18:56] inaccurate and 100 wrong here's why number one the vice president of the united states was there [2:19:01] and he wasn't confirmed by us and he was elected by the american people okay he is the second in line [2:19:05] of the presidency united states he was president the president mr whitkoff is the president's envoy [2:19:10] for negotiation for peace deals mr kushner is a private citizen that serves as an advisor on [2:19:14] these functions they were the team that we sent to pakistan i was not at a party where i was is next [2:19:19] to the president because in the midst of those negotiations i was in communications with them and in [2:19:24] fact i think there is media reporting from that evening on how multiple occasions i went into a back [2:19:29] room i came back out and spoke to the president and was constantly updating him on that evening [2:19:34] i spoke to mr kushner and our negotiating team and mr whitkoff on at least six occasions including twice [2:19:40] on a secure line from from the phone they had access to over there so you don't know what you're [2:19:43] talking about he has a floor i know your staff wrote up this cute statement for your tick tock video [2:19:48] but it's not true and it's not real that's not what happened okay i'm the national security advisor [2:19:53] and secretary of state i was co-located with the president in the midst of a high-stakes negotiation [2:19:58] so that i could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world i was where [2:20:02] i needed to be at that moment because we had a very capable team on the ground in pakistan led by the [2:20:07] vice president led by the vice president of the united states thank you senator cornyn [2:20:13] secretary rubio um i've heard some of my colleagues here on this committee suggest that the u.s [2:20:21] started a war with the iranian regime 92 days ago i happen to believe that the iranian regime [2:20:28] started a war against the west and israel and has been at war with us since 1979 what's your view [2:20:38] well if you go back to 1979 and the taking hostages and build it out from there i don't know the numbers [2:20:44] if we could even add them up it's incalculable thousands of people around the world including [2:20:47] many americans have been killed because of direct iranian action director all the ieds those roadside [2:20:53] bombs that maimed and killed our soldiers were all the man all the mastermind work of the irgc [2:20:59] for decades the irgc sponsors terrorist attacks all over the planet in fact they were involved for [2:21:04] example in the bombing of a jewish center in argentina in 1993 or 1994 they're consistently they [2:21:11] it's now we have people convicted convicted in the united states of america and one was arrested [2:21:16] yesterday iranian agents plotting the assassination of american political leaders including the president of [2:21:21] the united states they've been waging non-stop not to mention their massive sponsorship of hamas of [2:21:26] hezbollah and all the activities those groups have undertaken so you're absolutely right that the that [2:21:31] the iranian system has been waging war on the on the west but why is anybody in the united states in [2:21:36] specific for over three decades but why is anyone surprised they openly chant openly chant death to [2:21:42] america death to israel they openly say israel is the little satan but we're the big satan so i think at [2:21:48] some point when people say this repeatedly you believe their rhetoric and their actions back [2:21:52] their rhetoric there's a very dangerous regime and the notion that they would ever possess nuclear [2:21:56] weapons that people that are willing to conduct those kinds of terrorist acts would ever possess [2:22:01] a nuclear weapon is unthinkable unbearable and unacceptable and it's not going to happen under [2:22:05] president trump so ever since 19 well since the iranian nuclear program started and they basically [2:22:13] blocked the iea and others from doing the inspections that would be required in order to [2:22:18] monitor their use of enriched uranium we've had presidents democrat and republican say that a [2:22:27] iranian nuclear weapon is unacceptable but it took president trump to actually do something about it [2:22:38] it shocks me to hear some of our colleagues suggest that there was not an imminent threat from an iranian [2:22:46] nuclear weapon you and i both sat in the same skiff on the senate intelligence committee we won't talk [2:22:52] about the details of course but we knew that they continued to enrich to the point where they [2:22:57] could produce a nuclear weapon within a specified time there's some debate about how long that breakout [2:23:02] would take but the idea that an iranian nuclear program did not present an imminent threat to the united [2:23:09] states to me is just ludicrous and uh i think it defies all evidence to the contrary but do you think if [2:23:16] they had acquired a nuclear weapon that that would change the ability of the united states and our [2:23:22] allies like israel to deal with this uh nuclear armed iran i think if iran ever acquired a nuclear weapon [2:23:29] they would they could very well use it because given the theological nature of their decision making [2:23:34] but but just as problematic as they would have immunity at that point your options on what you [2:23:39] could do about them would be quite limited and their ability to hold the world hostage they'd be like north [2:23:43] korea for example they'd be north korea but worse they'd be better funded uh they would have they [2:23:48] would at that point decide that they own the straits of hormuz forever and everyone has to pay them [2:23:53] a toll and nuclear weapons you can't do anything about it um they would be able to act with impunity [2:23:57] they would sponsor hezbollah they would sponsor how much they would hyper scale their efforts uh of [2:24:03] global terrorism and completely try to drive us out of the region and ultimately destroy the state of [2:24:08] israel that that's what their goal would be and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it because [2:24:11] they have a nuclear weapon and would threaten to blow people up if you tried to move against them [2:24:15] notwithstanding the importance of denying um iran a nuclear weapon i do uh i do applaud the president's [2:24:24] attempt to try to use some diplomacy here in order to deny them access to the enriched uranium and and [2:24:30] there are other uh weapons that they use against israel and the west but tell me why do you think [2:24:38] anything that the iranian regime agrees to that they will comply with what what evidence is there [2:24:43] that they will agree to anything that they ultimately will stick with well again and that's why any deal [2:24:50] with them has to you have to enter into it with clearly verifiable steps so as an example simply [2:24:54] putting something on a simply putting something on a piece of paper is not satisfactory you have to [2:24:59] actually commit to doing it then you have to actually do it and so that's our view of it our view of [2:25:03] it is that any concessions that are made and i don't even call them concessions per se but any [2:25:08] arrangements that are made with iran have to come after not just they agree to certain things but [2:25:12] they actually do certain things let's be clear about this because i don't think this is talked about [2:25:15] enough if what iran wants is nuclear energy for their country there are mechanisms to do it there are [2:25:21] countries all over the world that enrich that that are that have nuclear energy but they don't enrich they [2:25:27] certainly don't enrich the 60 percent they don't do it hidden in a mountain deep buried underground somewhere [2:25:33] if what they want is nuclear energy they can have it there are mechanisms for them the problem with [2:25:36] iran is not that they want nuclear energy the problem is iran is that everything they do is [2:25:40] consistent with the activities of a nation that seeks to develop a nuclear weapons capability thank you [2:25:46] senator schatz thank you chairman secretary thank you for being here tomorrow i'm going to have you in the [2:25:53] appropriations committee and we'll walk the list that um that we talked about a couple of weeks ago in a [2:25:59] conference call so i won't cover that i want you to sort of answer the china watchers who saw that [2:26:05] visit to china and saw that nvidia is now going to sell h200s i understand that's not our highest [2:26:13] technology but it's better than what china has and that's why people are worried and that i mean it's [2:26:20] pretty plain that the president violated one of the six assurances i understand that [2:26:25] the ambassador and you and others have sort of followed up to kind of smooth the edges but i mean [2:26:33] it's pretty clear he says we discussed arm sales in great detail it depends on china it's a very good [2:26:41] negotiating chip for us so what do you say to china watchers who say they got some pretty good [2:26:48] deliverables and we didn't get much i i don't see the the trip there were some deliverables you know [2:26:55] the purchase of additional boeing aircraft which of course is beneficial to the chinese as well but [2:26:59] helps our company some of the agricultural concessions but the trip was largely for the [2:27:03] most part about the fact that the two largest most powerful countries in the world have to have direct [2:27:08] interaction with one another and this was an opportunity to do it he will reciprocate by visiting [2:27:13] the united states later next year separate from that and i i don't know if you were here at the [2:27:17] outset in my opening statement or maybe it was in response to one of the questions i think two things [2:27:21] are clear number one is that we're entering into a period of strategic stability that i think serves [2:27:27] the interest of both countries because the last thing we want is a largely destabilizing event in [2:27:31] the indo-pacific but the second is that there are clear differences of priorities there are clear [2:27:36] irritants in that relationship that are long-standing and that are going to be long-term as in so so [2:27:42] critical minerals dependencies things of this nature so it's one of those relationships that's going to [2:27:48] require very deft diplomacy and mature decision making sure and and this is this is why i like [2:27:53] our engagement like that makes sense to to me but it seems to me that if the main objective is to kind [2:27:58] of touch gloves and initiate uh conversations then why give away any of the things that they're already [2:28:07] seeking in exchange for essentially nothing you mean you're basically saying it's better to talk than [2:28:12] not to it's better to engage than not to it's better to be in a period of stability than not i agree with [2:28:17] all that i just don't understand why we would want to sell sell them our second best chips and why we [2:28:23] would start to at least complicate the question of our assurances um regarding taiwan i'm going to [2:28:29] move over we're staying in the asia pacific region um the marshals the philippines and tuvalu [2:28:36] have declared a national emergency on their energy situation south korea says its energy crisis is a [2:28:42] war-like situation you've been around a long time on this committee and now as secretary [2:28:47] it is always the case that something in the middle east undermines our ability to project power [2:28:53] in the asia pacific region but it's not just a question of opportunity cost and attentional [2:28:59] challenges now we're talking about our allies in the asia pacific region really taking it on the chin [2:29:07] with energy costs because of the strait of hormuz what do we say to them just hang in there yeah no [2:29:12] a couple points it's one of the steps that we've taken and some of the things that we've done around the [2:29:16] world whether it's the release of strategic reserves whether it's not popular but you know [2:29:21] we've got questions about here earlier today but making available for a limited period of time both [2:29:27] iranian oil on the water though they don't enjoy the revenue of it and and some of the russian [2:29:31] oil on the water as well um the third point though that this points to is a much deeper one and that [2:29:36] is that while the straits of hormuz provides about 20 of the global oil supply it is probably 80 or 90 [2:29:43] percent of the supply in the indo-pacific given the geography and so forth so one of the things [2:29:47] that i think is going to come about as a result of all this in the long term is more diversification [2:29:52] and where they're going to get their energy from including from the united states potentially [2:29:55] certainly with japan and some other countries in the region will benefit you know that the the sort [2:29:59] of project it takes time it's it all takes time i understood that's like cold comfort if you're if [2:30:04] you're running a country and you're your gasoline and your fertilizer and all your input prices just [2:30:09] skyrocketed because of because of president trump's decision to go to war with a country clear across [2:30:17] the world but see i don't and i understand your point but i also think in all these questions [2:30:21] we're getting a lot of questions about us i don't think it's fair because ultimately the people who've [2:30:25] closed the straits of hormuz are iran and they're doing so in violation of every international law you [2:30:29] can imagine the chinese are against it everyone is we have i think a record number 140 co-sponsors at the [2:30:35] united nations on this resolution that hasn't come up for a vote yet to condemn what they're [2:30:40] doing and nobody's defending what iran is doing i think what we're saying is this was not just [2:30:45] predictable it was predicted this was what everybody said you don't have to be some [2:30:51] expert in foreign policy you don't need to get into a skiff you could literally put into this put [2:30:55] this into an llm and say what will happen if we take kinetic action against iran and the first thing [2:31:00] that would pop out is well they'll probably close the strait of hormuz so it's really shocking to me [2:31:05] the degree to which this administration expresses shock that the thing that everybody said was going [2:31:10] to happen ended up happening but but here's the point i would make on that in that the reverse of [2:31:14] that is so that the the alternative is to say well then we have to go ahead and let iran develop a [2:31:19] nuclear weapon or they'll close the straits of hormuz i mean at some point you have to take action on [2:31:23] this situation understanding there'll be a reaction to it but it cannot be iran will always have the [2:31:28] ability to threaten the straits you don't need much sophistication to if you threaten commercial vessels [2:31:32] and shooting them they're going to stop moving drop you know dropping mines by the way it's not [2:31:36] just iran that can do it the houthis could do it in the red sea and they're not nearly as as large as [2:31:41] iran is i think this is a more fundamental challenge and that is are we now forever limited doing it do [2:31:47] we just have to have let iran go ahead and develop a nuclear weapon because of their threat to close the [2:31:51] straits of hormuz we that's an untenable situation but i'll see him tomorrow so don't worry yeah okay that's [2:32:02] good uh we we i know you've we're supposed to have a hard stop at 12 30 but no we'll do it senator [2:32:08] cruz has been uh uh patient i hope you'll give us only because it's him one more bite of the apple [2:32:15] thank you mr chairman i will say mr secretary since you left the senate i've been obliged to [2:32:21] serve cuban coffee in my meetings because you left me as the only cuban american left behind so uh come [2:32:27] by if you want a cafecito uh let me start by saying that that president trump's decision to strike iran [2:32:35] was the most consequential decision of his second term as president and i want to commend you i want [2:32:41] to commend the president the entire administration on the extraordinary success we have seen in less [2:32:46] than 40 days uh the united states has utterly and completely destroyed the military and nuclear [2:32:53] infrastructure that that the iranian regime spent nearly 50 years building every day that passes [2:33:00] increases american leverage iran is weaker poorer and more isolated than it's been in in decades [2:33:07] the president has laid out four red lines for any resolution to this military conflict [2:33:14] number one that there be zero enrichment by iran number two that they hand over all of their enriched [2:33:20] uranium number three that they stop funding terrorism worldwide and number four that they open the [2:33:27] strait of hormuz i agree with all through all four of those red lines do you agree with those red lines [2:33:34] and how achievable do you believe they are in the coming weeks and months yeah you stated the the poor [2:33:42] positions of presidents take it accurately and the entire administration is supportive of because that's [2:33:47] what we're we take our directives from the president and and personally during my time in the senate [2:33:52] these would be consistent with my thinking i would only reverse it in the following order the straits [2:33:56] of hormuz not it would have to come first because what they're doing there is unlawful and illegal [2:34:01] to begin with that has to open immediately and that has to open immediately in exchange not for anything [2:34:06] else other than us lifting the blockade we have a blockade on iranian oil leaving and the reason why [2:34:11] we have a blockade on iranian oil leaving is because they close the straits if they open the straits [2:34:15] and by open the straits understand what we're saying it's saying you're not going to threaten to shoot at [2:34:19] commercial vessels of civilians and and create you know ecological disaster that's what they're doing [2:34:24] it's unlawful it's illegal it's outrageous every country in the world condemns it if they end that [2:34:30] we lift the blockade then we enter into the into the second phase which is the nuclear question on [2:34:35] enrichment they don't have to they don't need to enrich if what they want is a nuclear energy program [2:34:39] they can have one without enrichment and it was somebody a few questions ago i forgot who it was said [2:34:45] that what we're working on is similar jcpoa it is not jcpoa would have expired this year [2:34:49] and it allowed them to keep all the enrichment equipment that they needed and and and clearly [2:34:53] that equipment could get them to 60 and 90 percent because they've done 60 percent as a result of it [2:34:58] so it would have to deal with that question and it would have to deal with the highly enriched uranium [2:35:02] that they currently are in possession of there's no reason to have the only reason to have 60 percent [2:35:06] enriched uranium is to turn it into 90 percent enriched uranium and put it into a weapon so those [2:35:11] remain and on the sponsor of terrorism absolutely to the point where i would argue for example it's [2:35:15] one of the interesting things that's happening and i know senator shaheen has a great interest in lebanon [2:35:20] it's one of the most ironic situations in the world the lebanese government and the israeli [2:35:25] government could do a peace deal tomorrow israel has no territorial claims in lebanon and hezbollah [2:35:30] is in particular in fact hezbollah is called for the overthrow of the current lebanese government [2:35:34] the impediment in lebanon is the fact that hezbollah has embedded itself into that country [2:35:38] and is the reason for all the suffering that's happening there right now and all the suffering [2:35:42] that's historically happened entirely funded entirely controlled by iran there is no hezbollah [2:35:48] without iran there is no hezbollah without iran i mean there might be a political movement with ideology [2:35:53] but they don't have a bunch of rockets they don't have a bunch of weapons without iran they are a [2:35:57] complete total proxy of iran and that's the kind of activity that needs to be i want to come back to [2:36:02] hezbollah in a moment just just focusing for a second on on iran itself um for some time i have [2:36:10] urged the administration i've urged israel to arm the protesters in iran i i don't think it is fair [2:36:18] to expect the iranian people to stand up protesters to stand up with rocks against soldiers with machine [2:36:24] guns are we arming the protesters and and should we be yeah i'm not aware of any program to arm civilians [2:36:31] in iran to overthrow their government i mean there may be other countries doing it or other elements [2:36:35] but certainly not the u.s government all right let's let's go back to to hezbollah so so you spoke [2:36:41] with the lebanese president uh joseph ahoun uh over the weekend you know the state department sent out [2:36:48] an email to journalists shortly after your call in in which the state department spokesperson said [2:36:54] quote iran wants to prolong the conflict in lebanon so it can claim credit for saving the day um i have [2:37:02] to admit that didn't strike me as accurate i i don't think iran wants to to keep the conflict going in [2:37:09] in in lebanon i think they desperately want israel to stop killing hezbollah do you agree with that yeah [2:37:14] i think the the the point was trying to make is that we are trying to view the lebanon israeli talks as [2:37:22] separate and distinct from iran and what iran wants to do is mix it all together because hezbollah's not [2:37:27] legitimate there's a government in lebanon that's who we're dealing with and hezbollah's not their [2:37:32] equal in terms of who we're going to be dealing with or who needs to be in charge so the point [2:37:36] we're trying to make is that is what iran is trying to stymie they are trying to stymie any effort in [2:37:41] which israel and lebanon can work together and prolong it so that if an arrangement is reached at some [2:37:46] point in the future they can claim credit for having forced it through leverage [2:37:50] and and that's why you see for example hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire about a week ago and then [2:37:55] immediately violated the next within hours you would agree every hezbollah terrorist that the idf [2:38:01] kills makes america safer well hezbollah is a danger to the united states there's no doubt about it i think [2:38:06] the question is how do you do that and how do you achieve the objective of demilitarizing and defanging [2:38:11] hezbollah while at the same time strengthening the legitimate government of lebanon and particularly the [2:38:17] president and others that's been the challenge there for a very long time that remains the challenge [2:38:21] now of course the capabilities of the laugh are not where they need to be but there are also elements [2:38:28] within the laugh that are not who they need to be because they have they facilitate in some cases and [2:38:33] cooperate with hezbollah so it's a very tricky situation but i point you back to two things that [2:38:37] have happened in the last few months number one the lebanese government expelled the iranian ambassador [2:38:43] because of hezbollah the iranian ambassador says i'm not leaving and you can't make me okay that's [2:38:48] number one the second thing that's happened is just a week ago hezbollah openly called went and said [2:38:53] they openly called for the overthrow of the lebanese government so no one here should be under any [2:38:58] hezbollah is not just an enemy of israel and an enemy of america hezbollah is an enemy of lebanon [2:39:03] and of the lebanese people thank you thank you thank you senator cruz senator ruby you've been very generous [2:39:08] with your time we appreciate that uh i uh for the information members record remain open [2:39:14] until the close of business tomorrow june 3rd with that the committee is adjourned