Sec. Marco Rubio Interrupted By Protester During Remarks At Senate Appropriations Hearing

Forbes Breaking News

Sen. Marco Rubio was interrupted by a protester on Tuesday while delivering his remarks at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Transcript

00:00Well, thank you. And I'm not going to give the written remarks. I'm just going to sort of walk

00:05you through this a little bit. That's the way these things are supposed to work, I hope. And

00:08let me first start out by saying, what is the goal here? Because I think it's important,

00:13even though we're going to talk about spending and all of that, you're going to do your own

00:18appropriations process. We recognize that. But I wanted to explain to you the organization. You

00:23have a chart behind you, the new organizational chart. And this is really the launch pad because

00:27that's what we're funding. That's what the appropriations bill will be funding. If you

00:30had the old one, you would struggle to see what the big difference. I mean, they're different,

00:34but there's still a lot of boxes up there. And I want you to understand the primary thing

00:38we did that I wanted to do and that I alluded to during my confirmation hearing. I want the

00:44entire toolbox of American foreign policy to reside within the Department of State, in

00:50particular, within our regional bureaus that cover the different regions of the world and

00:54ultimately down to our embassy. Senator Graham mentioned a moment ago about Syria. It was

01:00going to be one of the first test cases of whether this works or not. And what I mean

01:03by that is we have an embassy. It's obviously an exile. It's outside. It's in Turkey. We're

01:08going to rely on them to tell us, OK, we're on the ground. We've gone in. We've met with

01:12the transitional authorities. Here are the things they need. These are the three, four or five

01:15things they need right now. And we need to be nimble enough to provide that. But it needs

01:19to be driven from the bottom up, not the top down. I want you all to understand what I

01:23inherited when I go into the State Department. I get a memo asking for a decision. Sometimes

01:27these memos have 30 to 35 boxes in them that have to be checked off. Each box has to be

01:33checked off by somebody on the desk before it even gets to me. That just doesn't work.

01:38It certainly doesn't work in the 21st century when events happen very quickly. And so we

01:42need to be nimble enough to make a decision. But we also have to make sure that these decisions

01:46are being made as close to the front lines as possible. What is the front lines of diplomacy?

01:50It is our embassies. It is the men and women who are deployed abroad, on the ground, who

01:54are hearing every single day. And so that's our number one goal. The number two goal is

01:58to have, as I said, all the tools of foreign policy in the same toolbox. Foreign aid is a

02:03tool of our foreign policy. It is not the only tool of our foreign policy. It has to be taken

02:08in conjunction with all of these other things that we do. And they have to be intertwined.

02:13Now perhaps your experience was different. But I went to multiple countries around the world

02:17where I would go to the embassy, and the embassy was upset at USAID. Because the embassy was

02:22pursuing one route, maybe closer to a leader who was less than ideal, but we had a geopolitical

02:27interest, why we wanted to get closer to these people. And then USAID was funding a program

02:33that made the government angry. And so it cut off our ability. Now maybe we still do that.

02:38But there has to be a balance here. There can't be if there are two separate entities arguing

02:41with each other, in some cases not even communicating. In other cases, this was my recent trip to the

02:46Caribbean, where they told me, America has always been very generous at giving us things

02:51you think we need, as opposed to the aid we think we need. And the aid they think they

02:56need in some of these countries is they need to build up police departments. They need to

02:59build up law enforcement so they can interdict drugs and secure the streets. And if they get

03:03that right, then they can send kids to school. Then they can attract foreign investment

03:08to their country. But they have to get that part right. The third dynamic that I say, and

03:12I leave humanitarian aside, because obviously natural disasters happen and these things will

03:17recur, but the best foreign aid is foreign aid that ends. You know why it ends?

03:23The best foreign aid is foreign aid that ends, because it's achieved its purpose. So take country

03:46X and they say, we want help with our law enforcement. The best foreign aid is foreign aid where at some

03:50point that country doesn't need it anymore, because now they're self-sufficient. South Africa's, I'm

03:54sorry, South Korea is a great example. South Korea was once poorer than North Korea. South Korea was

03:59once an aid dependent nation. Today it is an aid donor and the ninth or tenth largest economy

04:05in the world. That has to be the goal of our foreign aid. It has to be that it ultimately ends

04:09because it creates self-sufficiency. There are other tools of foreign aid, by the way, whether it's the

04:14investment funds we have or Millennium Challenge Grant. Those are outside my direct control or purview.

04:19They're under the committee's purview. And there will be efforts at reform there as well, and

04:24potentially even expansion in one of them, although that won't be my decision solely. So as we move

04:29forward in some of this, and as you'll see some of the features of the budget we've presented before you,

04:33one of the ideas we have is having a global health programs account. The other is having a consolidated

04:39humanitarian assistance account. And the combination of these two things will allow us

04:44to deliver aid as part of the package driven from the ground up. I said this at the

04:48previous hearing, one of the most important things I feel, one of the most useful things

04:51to me in my time at the department, has been the cables. The cables that I get from

04:56ambassadors. We have gotten so many ideas from those cables. Well those ideas have ultimately

05:00made their way to me? Maybe. I don't know. But maybe months from now or weeks from now.

05:05I want more of that in the department, and I want to empower embassies to be able to make

05:10decisions about which programs we should be funding, where the money should be going. I

05:13want when an ambassador goes into a meeting, for she or he to be able to say to them, here

05:17is a portfolio of things we can offer, which ones would make the most sense to you. So we're

05:21trying to accommodate that through the creation of these two funds. It's important to understand

05:25we're not walking away from foreign aid. We will still be the world's largest foreign aid

05:29donor by a lot. It won't even be close. But we want to target it more effectively.

05:34Another feature is this America First Opportunity Fund, which frankly will allow us to be more

05:41nimble in providing funds for specific programs that arise outside the normal cycle of funding.

05:47And Syria, once again, is a great example. We don't have any money in the fiscal year's budget

05:52for Syria, because frankly none of us thought we would be talking about helping the Syrian

05:56government six months ago or eight months ago. But now we have an opportunity to do it.

06:00And rather than have to go through reprogramming and all kinds of shuffling, to have the flexibility

06:05at some level to be able to respond quickly to something like that, that might be multifaceted

06:10in the approach, is an important thing to consider as well as aligning it to other priorities

06:15that we have as an administration. So I do look forward to working with you, because frankly I have to.

06:19You pass the appropriations bills. But also because I think it can be very constructive.

06:24Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:25Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:26Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:27Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:28Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:29Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:30Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:31Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:32Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:33Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:34Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:35Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:36Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:37Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:38Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:39Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:40Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:41Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:42Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:43Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:44Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:45Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:46Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:47Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:48Thank you, Senator Collins.

06:49Thank you, Senator Collins.

Category

Transcript

Recommended