00:00Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Chair Graham. Senator Chatz, welcome to your new role. I look
00:05forward to working with both of you. Secretary Rubio, I am deeply concerned that you have overseen
00:12a systemic campaign to dismantle USAID, impound billions of dollars that this committee actually
00:19provided, and unilaterally remake the Department of State without the slightest bit of concern
00:25that you lack the authority to do that without Congress. It has created chaos, it's caused
00:31preventable deaths across the globe, and it has undermined American leadership. As ranking member
00:37Chatz noted, what you've done is outright illegal, a complete violation of bipartisan appropriation laws,
00:45the Impoundment Control Act, and the Anti-Deficiency Act. Within hours of taking office, President Trump
00:52halted all foreign aid in flagrant defiance of the law. Now, under your watch, Secretary Rubio,
00:59that freeze was implemented with chaos and cruelty, and then you illegally shuttered USAID,
01:06placing everyone on leave, halting lifesaving work, literally locking people out of the building and
01:13out of their devices, even in dangerous corners of our world. You paid people not to work, abandoned
01:20our partners across the globe, and chaotically recalled global staff putting more than 1,600 Americans
01:27who served our country abroad in limbo. And when you shut down the USAID payment system, you even refused
01:35to pay for services provided before the illegal freeze. You fought all the way to the Supreme Court,
01:41paying for against, against paying for services, U.S. businesses already rendered with funding that
01:48Congress already provided. And I know you know, Mr. Secretary, but you lost. And I assume you need
01:54the reminder because to this day, you have not made all the payments that are required by our nation's
02:00highest court. And as a result, American companies continue to lay off American workers. And by the way,
02:07you do continue to lose in court, including just yesterday over your move to illegally replace the
02:13U.S. Institute of Peace Leadership, and in recent cases over international broadcasting. Now, eventually,
02:19Mr. Secretary, you sent Congress notice of your intent to collapse the USAID into state. Only, you didn't
02:26consult with this committee. That's required by law. It came without justification, also required by law.
02:34And it came long after USAID was reduced to rubble. So, sadly, disregard for our laws and values, to me,
02:42has sort of become a pattern of your tenor. Revoking visas when someone writes an op-ed you don't like,
02:48or reaching a secret deal to use taxpayer dollars to jail U.S. residents in a notorious foreign prison,
02:55no due process, or pointlessly leaving food assistance to rot in storage. Actually, in Dubai,
03:02we now have 500 tons of high-energy biscuits that expire in July. They're bought, they're shipped,
03:11they're stored, all at taxpayer expense. But you've condemned them to waste, and that is one example of
03:17many. Now, another pattern that I'm deeply worried about is transparency. We have pressed you for
03:23information. Our staffs have sent you countless emails and briefing requests, so we can do our job here.
03:31There are hundreds of unanswered requests and no effort to address them. And Mr. Secretary, that's got to change.
03:37Even your plan to reorganize the State Department came with no information on the 270 offices you are
03:44moving to eliminate, the proposed layoffs, or how USAID would be merged into state. I won't ask you whether
03:51impounding billions of dollars is legal. It is not. I won't ask you whether it's efficient to pay people,
03:57not to work or fire them without determining staffing needs. But, and I won't ask you if cutting 91% of our
04:05counter-narcotic and law enforcement programs make us safer, abruptly abandoning agreements with allies
04:11makes us stronger, or ceding our global leadership to China makes us more prosperous. Of course not. We know that.
04:19We have worked together for years, in a bipartisan way, to advance U.S. interests and fund those programs. So, with respect to
04:27my colleagues, how long are we going to sit here and watch this silently? Are we going to roll over as
04:33Trump tramples our laws and undermines our U.S. leadership, burns down what we have spent decades
04:39building and let millions of people across our globe suffer and die? Or are we going to stand up,
04:47push back, assert our constitutional power of the purse? And to my colleagues on both sides, this is
04:53the moment to decide whether this committee continues to be a powerful bipartisan force. A force that I
05:00think we've all been proud of for a very long time. A force that is focused on safety and economic strength and
05:08national security, focused on leading the world in research and development and countering China and others with our soft power and our military power.
05:17Every single member of this committee knows
05:20what we are risking by letting this administration tear down so much. On USAID and other programs,
05:26we can always talk about how we can make things work better and other reforms. I don't think any of us
05:32are opposed to any of those
05:35considerations. We have been doing that in a bipartisan way.
05:37for a long time. But that's not actually what Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget proposes.
05:45Mr. Secretary, I know you would like to give a five minute speech back to me, but I only have a few
05:50seconds left and I do need some information from you. As I said, we have asked and have not gotten.
05:56Can you tell me, will you share the text and details with my staff of your agreement with El Salvador and
06:02any other similar arrangements, including the funding details that we need to have?
06:05Well, first of all, I'd like to respond to your seven minute speech, which is
06:11primarily, I disagree like 99% of it. It's just not true. We've done nothing that's illegal.
06:15We've been in over 600 briefings to Congress. We've asked questions. We've answered questions
06:19repeatedly. We get hundreds of questions a day. We respond them as quickly as possible. And your
06:23characterization of the moves that we made were false.
06:25Secretary, I would just tell you, we are here because we need the information so that we can
06:29write our budget and on a bipartisan move forward.
06:31Well, you'll have the information you need to write a budget.
06:33Okay. So will we get the details on the El Salvador arrangement? Yes or no?
06:37Which Salvador arrangement?
06:38Your agreement that you've made with them about...
06:41What agreement? The president of El Salvador agreed to take in 250 gangbangers and we sent them.
06:45There's funding details we have not gotten. We need to see what the costs are.
06:49Well, we haven't funded that. We've provided them law enforcement assistance.
06:52Okay.
06:53I know you just claimed that we cut all this law enforcement assistance. We provided El Salvador
06:56and other countries law enforcement assistance. They have the right to spend that money any way they
07:00wish. But they did us a big favor. They took 250, dangerous, trained. We didn't deport any U.S. residents.
07:05No, U.S. residents were reported. I'm not going to argue with you on that point.
07:08Well, it's not an argument, but don't say we deported U.S. residents because we didn't.
07:11No, no, no. I don't deport anybody. But we didn't deport U.S. residents.
07:14I'm asking you whether we can see the details of the arrangements, including the funding details.
07:19I'm giving you the details. That's inappropriate.
07:20The arrangements are we provide law enforcement funding to El Salvador, among other countries.
07:24How they choose to spend that money internally is up to them, but I can tell you...
07:28Can you give me the details on the 200 plus offices you're proposing to eliminate?
07:33Sure, we've provided that.
07:34We need that. Can I get your commitment to give us those?
07:37Sure, of course. It's part of our reorg.
07:39How about the details and justifications of your proposed rescissions from programs you claim
07:45are out of alignment with administration priorities? Are we going to get the details of that? Funding
07:49priorities? On rescissions and impoundment and things of this nature, that's obviously an OMB function,
07:53and I would talk to them about that in regard to what's going to go on with that money. I can tell you
07:58the contracts we canceled, and I can list to you the contracts we canceled and the rationale why,
08:02because I went through them myself. Can you get those to us like today?
08:04The contracts? Yes, and the funding arrangements that you've made. That's what I'm asking for.
08:09Funding arrangements with who? For any of the rescissions, for any of the funding,
08:13for any of the multiple congressional directives that you have given out so that we as an
08:20appropriations committee can make our funding decisions. Sure, you're going to have all that
08:23information on when you put together a budget. Thank you. I enjoyed that.
