At a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) questioned witnesses about needed reforms for the State Department.
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00:00Yes, thanks to you, Mr. Malinowski, Congressman, and I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning.
00:08It's fascinating everything I hear from three of you.
00:11We all agree, I think, that we want to continue being the shining city on the hill,
00:14that we are the only game in town because the Russians and the Iranians and the Chinese
00:18are really not going to promote anything close to democracy or freedom.
00:23So I'm going to go start with you, Mr. Destreau, and I think that your statement was highly enlightening.
00:29So when you say that we've got to ask ourselves hard questions,
00:33that the title of the hearing is not necessarily what we need to be looking at,
00:39we agreed that we want some return on our investment, that we want to promote democracy.
00:46That's what we're here for, and it's a little bit disturbing to hear that we've spent so much
00:52and the return has been so little.
00:54So just give me an example of in the last, let's say, in the last four years or in the last ten years,
01:01what have we done wrong, what did we do wrong in the last four years with Biden?
01:08I'm sure that there were some monies going to good programs, but, you know, perception is reality,
01:14and when we hear that there's going to be $12 million for the Guatemalans,
01:19for the native Guatemalans to have a sex change operation.
01:23You know, that doesn't really sound really good.
01:26So what did we do wrong in the last four years, and what did we do wrong in the last ten years?
01:33Put it into perspective for us, please.
01:35Well, with respect, I think that's a bit of the wrong question.
01:42I think the question is what are we doing right?
01:42Okay, so then tell me which one is the right question.
01:44What are we doing right?
01:46What are we doing right?
01:48Yeah, what are we doing right?
01:50Okay.
01:50Okay, and, you know, Congressman Malinowski and I talked about this when I was in office,
01:57and this question of, as the DRL assistant secretary, you have 1.5 billion tools at your disposal
02:09in the ESF and Human Rights Fund.
02:12You also have $40 million worth of really committed professional people working with you on those projects.
02:21And so the question becomes, where's the best place to put them?
02:26Now, all of those places that you just talked about, the sex change operations, everything else,
02:32that's not the best way to put it.
02:34It doesn't really advance our foreign policy.
02:37Correct.
02:38So you agree that we need to change that vision?
02:41I do.
02:42Leave wokeness and go back to democracy.
02:44I think we need to foster freedom, right?
02:48Right.
02:48And that's why I use Belize as the example.
02:51Here is a great small country who they're trying to figure out, should we keep the king?
02:58Should we stay in the Caribbean Court of Justice?
03:00Should we revise our constitution?
03:03You know, and where's our embassy?
03:06Nowhere.
03:07Right.
03:07Where's Millennium Challenge pushing that same agenda you just talked about?
03:12So this reorganization of the State Department that you just mentioned under Marco Rubio now,
03:17so if you were his advisor, what were the three things that you would tell him
03:21in order to have our return on investment to be really high?
03:25Well, I think the first thing I would do is make sure,
03:29and this is one of the things that I tried to do as Assistant Secretary,
03:33is to make sure that the Assistant Secretary who has statutory authority
03:37to maintain constant oversight of that funding, both humanitarian and...
03:44Oversight.
03:45Yeah, oversight.
03:45Number two?
03:46And we don't.
03:48And I know it's fair to say, well, what do you mean you don't?
03:52And the, you know, I had to spend a million dollars to put together a database
03:56to pull it all together.
03:59So oversight of where the money is going.
04:01That's one.
04:01Number two?
04:02Oversight over where the money is going, who's spending it,
04:04and it doesn't matter whether it's in state or HHS
04:07because there's human rights and humanitarian funding all over the government.
04:11And so the first thing would be let's figure out where the money is going.
04:16All right.
04:16So you're telling me that we do not know as a government where the money is going?
04:20No, we don't.
04:23We're only spending taxpayers' money, all right?
04:25Right.
04:26But that's your power of the purse.
04:28If you don't know, then you don't have any effective oversight.
04:31You mean Congress, I'm sorry, or the State Department officials?
04:34I'm talking about this is a dual joint executive Congress thing.
04:38You have the power of the purse,
04:40and you have the right to see how the money is being spent,
04:43and you're not getting it.
04:45That's my point.
04:45And then that would be the most important advice you would give to the Secretary of State?
04:51Is make sure that there is at least one person, if not more,
04:56who has continuous oversight and can demand the oversight of that money.
05:03And I can tell you stories.
05:04I won't bother to burden the record now,
05:07but I basically faced absolute insubordination when I tried to get that.
05:13And Assistant Secretaries really don't have the authority to take personnel actions like that,
05:19but the fact of the matter is that I was told I didn't have any right to see the money.
05:27I don't want to overextend to my time.
05:29So, I now recognize Ranking Member Castor.