00:00Secretary Rubio, thank you. We're probably violating the Geneva Convention doing all this on one day, but I know you've had a long day and I appreciate you coming to the committee.
00:11To the new members of the committee, welcome. I look forward to working with you and Senator Britton Mullen.
00:19I look forward to working with our new ranking member, Senator Schatz.
00:23Senator Coons and I work extremely well and I'll try to keep that going from my end and I know you will too.
00:30We'll have opening statements. I'll start out, then we'll have six minute rounds and I will start then Senator Schatz and we'll have Secretary Rubio.
00:42Then we'll recognize people as they come.
00:46The deadline for submitting SFOP requests is May 22nd to all the members of the committee, to our audience.
00:54You're welcome to be here. If you disrupt, you'll get kicked out.
01:00Okay, so let's start the committee meeting with a couple ideas.
01:11Reform at the State Department is welcomed.
01:14Secretary Rubio has reorganized the place in a way that I think is long overdue.
01:19And Marco, I want to congratulate you for sitting down and getting input from people before you.
01:28How can we make the State Department work better?
01:31And I think your organizational efforts are going to pay dividends and I support them completely.
01:38And people before you have been talking about it, but you've actually done it.
01:42So congratulations and I think it will be good for the country.
01:45In terms of the budget, this is 48% below the enacted level.
01:55And presidential budgets are given some consideration and this will get some consideration.
02:01Bottom line is, I believe that there is space to save money in this account and I look forward to finding a way to do that.
02:13I think Secretary Rubio is the right guy at the right time.
02:17We've had all kind of problems with USAID.
02:20We're trying to preserve functions that make sense and eliminate functions that are not in the best interest of the American taxpayer.
02:31My view about this account is pretty well known.
02:34I would consider myself a fairly hawkish person, for lack of a better term,
02:39simply because I think the best way to stay safe is to deal with problems before they get worse
02:44and put bad guys on notice.
02:47If you screw with America, you do so at your own peril and have allies who trust us.
02:52I think we're paying a heavy price from the way we got out of Afghanistan.
02:56But this secretary, I spent the weekend with him in Turkey as he met with the foreign minister of Syria,
03:04as he met with the foreign ministers of all NATO nations.
03:08And I was very impressed with Secretary Rubio of trying to make sure that America first was burden sharing.
03:14You need to do more. You need to up your game.
03:17But we committed to a world order here,
03:20and we're committed to making sure that the world is a good place to live in.
03:25Having said that, Syria.
03:30We have a chance here.
03:32Secretary Rubio allowed me to be in the meetings,
03:34and I met the foreign minister of Syria.
03:37This is a very tenuous government, for lack of a better word.
03:43The people in charge of Syria took over by force of arms.
03:47But I've been, quite frankly, impressed with their willingness to engage with us,
03:52Saudi Arabia, and their commitment to rejecting Iran and moving the country in a new direction.
03:58Secretary Rubio this morning said that it could be a matter of weeks or months
04:04to this whole place collapse in Syria, and I agree with him.
04:09Syria has designated a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law since 1979.
04:15I'm looking forward to Secretary Rubio's input about should we change that designation?
04:20Is it worth trying?
04:21My belief is that we have a moment here to provide some capability to this new government
04:28that should be conditions-based, and I don't want that moment to pass,
04:32and we have a situation in Syria that's just going to break the country up
04:37and continue regional conflicts.
04:40Iran negotiations.
04:42Secretary Rubio has said something I completely endorse.
04:46No enrichment, one, two, three agreements would be available to the Iranians,
04:51if they decided to dismantle the enrichment program.
04:55As Secretary Rubio indicated, I do not mind the Iranian regime having nuclear power.
05:02I mind them having the capability to make a bomb.
05:05So right now they have about 600 pounds of highly enriched uranium at 60%,
05:10and in about a month they could go to 90%.
05:13They have one reactor, nuclear reactor,
05:16and the fuel for that reactor is provided by the Russians, and I'm okay with that.
05:20Of this 600 pounds of highly enriched uranium,
05:24not one gram has been used to run their peaceful nuclear power plant.
05:28Clearly they're stockpiling uranium to be a threshold nuclear nation,
05:32and that is unacceptable to me and hopefully to all of us.
05:37So civilian nuclear power, yes.
05:41Enrichment, no.
05:42I think it's a good policy for the country to follow.
05:44Russia, Ukraine, Secretary Rubio explained the role the Senate and the House plays in our system
05:51to the foreign ministers of NATO,
05:54but quite frankly he's been very clear to the Russians that the Senate is a separate body with its own will,
06:01and I hope President Trump is right that Putin wants peace.
06:05Time will tell.
06:06Well, he certainly doesn't act like a guy wanting peace.
06:09We have now 80 co-sponsors of sanctions against Russia for their invasion of Ukraine.
06:17I would like to get this war over honorably and justly,
06:21and one of the problems we have with this war is China.
06:24In case you're listening in China, which I doubt you are,
06:27you're propping up Putin.
06:28If you would stop buying their cheap Russian oil,
06:32he'd have a reason to get to the peace table.
06:34India and China are propping up Putin's war machine,
06:38and the sanctions we have are secondary in nature.
06:42They put a 500% tariff on any country that buys Russian oil, gas, uranium
06:46to prop up the Putin war machine.
06:49This body will move sooner rather than later if Putin doesn't get to the table.
06:53And to China, you want to be a normal country, act normally.
07:01Quit buying cheap oil with blood mixed in it to keep a war going
07:08that you could end tomorrow if you chose to.
07:12Your plate is about as full as anybody I've ever seen.
07:16You're juggling so many things at once,
07:19and I just admire you and the way you've conducted yourself,
07:24and I think you're the right person at the right time.
