Democrats voted unanimously to confirm Marco Rubio as secretary of state earlier this year — but on Tuesday, they spent hours telling him just how unhappy they are with his job performance.
“I don’t recognize Secretary Rubio,” Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, told him as he appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee. She said she isn’t even mad anymore — just disappointed. “I wonder if you’re proud of yourself in this moment.”
Since January, Rubio has helped dismantle America’s foreign aid apparatus, presided over sweeping cuts to the State Department’s operations and personnel and halted funding to human rights groups he previously counted as close allies. Tuesday’s hearing was the first time Rubio has testified in front of his old Senate colleagues since heading to Foggy Bottom, and it was a sharp departure from the clubby camaraderie that characterized his confirmation hearing.
“I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for secretary of state,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said.
“Your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job,” Rubio shot back. “I’m actually very proud of the work we’ve done with USAID.”
Van Hollen told Rubio that people had died because of his foreign aid freeze and also decried the State Department’s revocation of student visas.
“In America, the government doesn’t get to use its power to punish speech it doesn’t like,” he said, comparing it to the Red Scare. “Your campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy.”
Their interaction descended into a near-shouting match over the administration’s moves — “You’re just blowing smoke,” Van Hollen scoffed as Rubio defended himself — only ending when Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch intervened to cut them off.
Other Democrats sounded bewildered by Rubio’s moves.
“Four months ago, you sat in that chair and you said that China is, quote, ‘The most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,’” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. “And yet, this administration has eviscerated six decades of American foreign policy investment, undercutting our ability to compete with adversaries like China.”
Rubio attempted a light-hearted tone. He joked about his other new jobs since leaving the Senate — he’s also the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, acting archivist of the United States and the acting national security adviser — and told senators at the outset of the hearing that he was honored to be there “on behalf of the National Archives.”
But solidarity between former Senate colleagues was mostly absent Tuesday.
“I don’t feel safer,” Shaheen said of Rubio’s work so far. “I don’t feel more prosperous. … I don’t feel more secure.”
“We were promised a golden age for America,” she said. Instead, America has “unilaterally disarmed against some of our most dangerous adversaries.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, was among the most polite Democrats who questioned Rubio, but even he indicated he believes the foreign aid cuts weren’t legal.
“My hope is that we will work together to follow an appropriate and legal process to reform foreign aid and to align it with our values and priorities,” he told Rubio.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut likewise said he believes Rubio’s moves to shut down foreign assistance were illegal, and Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, cited multiple laws he argued the administration had violated in shuttering USAID. Schatz said he has heard from Rubio personally about reinstating foreign aid, but the money has remained frozen.
“Whenever I talk with you, I feel pretty encouraged,” Schatz said. “And then stuff doesn’t happen.”
Rubio told senators that the administration eventually will reinstate America’s foreign aid programs.
“We’re going to be doing foreign aid. We’re going to be doing humanitarian relief, disaster relief,” Rubio said. “We’re going to be doing all the things we’ve done before. Maybe not some of the same projects, but we’re going to be doing all of it.”
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia pressed Rubio on one of his old human rights priorities. The Trump administration has halted refugee admissions for everyone around the world — except for Afrikaners, a white ethnic group in South Africa. Kaine asked Rubio if Afrikaners are the most persecuted people in the world.
Recent Afrikaner arrivals “certainly felt they were persecuted,” Rubio said, and they met the requirements for entry.
Kaine asked it another way: Are they more persecuted than Uyghurs and other at-risk people around the world? Rubio, who once sponsored legislation to give Uyghurs priority status for refugee admission, didn’t answer directly.
“The problem we face there is a volume problem. If you look at all the persecuted people in the world, it’s millions of people,” Rubio responded. “They can’t all come here.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.