Secretary Marco Rubio Repeatedly Interrupted By Protesters While Giving His Opening Statement

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Secretary Marco Rubio was repeatedly interrupted by protesters on Tuesday while delivering his opening remarks.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. It's an honor to be here on behalf of the National Archives and in

00:04addition to... We don't have time for you to listen. Okay well we'll focus on state

00:07today. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. You know when I came

00:12here four months ago I told you that what I wanted was a State Department that

00:16was at the heart and soul of American foreign policy. That it was the single

00:20biggest driver both of action but also of ideas and we're well on our way to

00:24achieving that. And the way we've... I'll talk about some of the individual things

00:28we've accomplished during that time. But first let me explain sort of some of the

00:31processes by which we seek to arrive at it. The first is a reorganization of the

00:35way the State Department functions. And we have sort of previewed that with a

00:40committee and many of the individual members. Obviously we'll have to come...

00:42We've taken input and are taking input now through the notice process and then

00:46we'll come back to you with a formal congressional notification once. But we

00:50are taking a lot of the input both provided by individual members and your

00:53staff but also from inside the building. But if I could simplify the goal is this

00:57and that is...

01:04The goal... The goal is to drive power and action in our agency to the regional

01:12bureaus and to our embassies. On everything we do we want our foreign

01:16policy to be holistic. So for example we recognize that the set of factors both in

01:20diplomacy and foreign aid in Guatemala or in Trinidad or in Jamaica are going to look

01:25different than they may somewhere in Africa, somewhere in the Indo-Pacific region. And we

01:30want those decisions and the influence over those decisions to be made to be driven to the regional

01:35bureaus. And so what we've done is we've taken a lot of the functional bureaus and functional

01:39processes and moved them under the purview of the regional bureaus and the career individuals that

01:44serve there and ultimately down to the embassy. One of our first tests, Senator Shaheen, is going

01:49to be in Syria. We don't have an embassy in Syria. It's operating out of Turkey. But we need to help

01:54them. We want to help that government succeed because the alternative is full-scale civil war

01:58and chaos, which would, of course, destabilize the entire region. And we are going to allow our people

02:05on the ground, both our embassy personnel at the Damascus embassy located in Turkey, and for the

02:10short period of time, at least in the interim, our ambassador in Turkey, to work with local officials

02:15there to make determinations about what kind of aid they need. Is it humanitarian? Is it improving law

02:19enforcement or governance functions? We think it's going to be the first test of this new model, but

02:24I strongly believe that our decisions and the power to drive decisions and the decisions

02:29and the inputs that we're taking have to be driven in many cases from the bottom up, not

02:32from the top down, and focused on the fact that there is unique sets of factors in individual

02:38parts of the world that require different priorities and attention. And ultimately, foreign policy,

02:43mature foreign policy, requires a balancing of interests. That's just a fact. Okay? Our human

02:48rights agenda is going to look different in certain parts of the world than it will in others.

02:51That doesn't mean that we, as a people, have abandoned it. That means that in a world where

02:55you need to conduct real foreign policy in a mature and structured way, there are ways

03:00you're going to have to balance all these-

03:01Stop it now! Stop it now! There is a bloodbath! There is a bloodbath going on! Stop it now!

03:07Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

03:09Actually, Senator Rubio, we're making progress. There's protests in English now, so-

03:14Oh, remember that? Yeah.

03:16Yeah, remember last time.

03:17So, we have to understand, and that's why we think it's so important that our regional

03:21bureaus be at the core and at the heart of everything we do. And so we feel good about

03:26that part of it. By the same token, I think critical to this are some of the reforms we're

03:30trying to make to foreign aid. And I said, when I appeared before this committee, everything

03:33we do has to make us stronger, safer, or more prosperous. So we've undertaken a review of our foreign aid.

03:39And the reality is that there are many of these programs, they may have- some are good programs.

03:43Some make all the sense in the world, and we wanted to pursue those programs.

03:46Go ahead.

03:51Some of these programs make all the sense in the world, but frankly, on the priority scale,

03:56perhaps other programs are more important. Others, frankly, made no sense at all. And we can talk about

04:01some of those programs today. We funded things around the world that made absolutely no sense.

04:05I will say this. Even with the reforms we put in place, and what we're suggesting is changes

04:09to our foreign aid, we still will provide more foreign aid, more humanitarian support,

04:14than the next ten countries combined. Than the entire OECD, and far more than China. China doesn't

04:20do humanitarian aid. China does predatory lending. That's what Belt and Road Initiative is. That's

04:25what all of their aid- they have no zero record of doing humanitarian aid in the world. And frankly,

04:31they don't know how to do it. They have no interest in doing it. What they're very good at is going

04:34into some country, making you a loan, and then holding that debt over your head. And that's

04:39what they continue to do. And by the way, you have to hire a Chinese company to do it. So,

04:43I don't agree with this assessment that there's no evidence whatsoever that China has either the

04:47capacity or the will to replace the U.S. in humanitarian assistance, in food deliveries,

04:52or in developmental assistance for that matter. We provide development assistance. They provide debt

04:56traps. And that's a point over and over again around the world that we've made, and we've found

05:00receptive audiences to it. Now look, any time you undertake reforms of this magnitude that needed

05:05to be made, you're going to have hiccups and you're also going to have controversy. But these reforms

05:10had to happen. At USAID, 12 cents of every dollar was reaching the recipient. That means that in order

05:16for us to get, you know, aid to somebody, we had to spend all this other money supporting this

05:20foreign aid industrial complex. We're going to find more efficient ways to deliver aid to people

05:25directly, and it's going to be directed by our regional bureaus, and it's going to sponsor programs

05:29that make a difference, and it's going to be part of a holistic approach to our foreign policy.

05:34And I look forward to engaging with this committee and the appropriators as well,

05:37and ensuring that we get to the right place on that. My last point I would make, and this is

05:42something I am very proud of. I believe, and I'm not besmirching anyone else, but I believe that the

05:47approach we have taken at the State Department, and frankly at USAID, but at State Department,

05:52to move forward reforms that involved intake from all of our partners that required input from people

05:59within the building. Many of the reforms we've made were driven by people inside the building,

06:03many of whom have worked there for 20 or 30 years. And now we are engaged with Congress, both in the

06:09House and Senate, in a comment period where we're taking many of your comments and are making changes

06:13to our organizational proposals that we look forward to bringing back to you with an official congressional

06:19notification. And even after that, there'll be an opportunity to move forward. But the State

06:23Department had to change. I'm telling you, it was no longer at the center of American foreign policy. It had

06:28often been replaced by the National Security Council or by some other agency of government,

06:33when in fact we have these highly talented people, many of whom have served in multiple posts around

06:38the world and have a holistic view of how foreign policy needs to be conducted, that were being edged

06:44out. Because you know what? When I get a decision memo early on at the State Department and they would

06:48hand me these memos, there were 40 boxes on this piece of paper. That means 40 people had to check off,

06:53yes, okay, before it even got to me. That's ridiculous. That takes too long. That's why people said,

06:58don't use State Department. They take too long and it's too cumbersome. And any one of those little

07:03boxes didn't get checked, the memo didn't move up the chain. That can't continue. We can't move at

07:08that pace in this world. Events happen quickly and we have to be able to move at the pace of relevance.

07:14And so I hope to work with you in a productive way to make that possible. You're not going to like

07:17all the changes, but I want you to know what the intent of the changes are. It is not to dismantle

07:21American foreign policy and it is not to withdraw us from the world. Because I just hit 18 countries in 18

07:27weeks. That doesn't sound like much of a withdrawal. And I see some of these foreign ministers,

07:31including individuals from Ukraine, more than I've seen my own children. And I talk to them at

07:35least three times a week. We are engaged in the world, but we're going to be engaged in a world

07:39that makes sense and that's smart. And that isn't about saving money. It is about ensuring that we

07:43are delivering to our people what they deserve, a foreign policy that makes America stronger,

07:48safer, and more prosperous. Thank you.

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