QUESTION: Joining us on the line, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Secretary Rubio, thanks so much for joining the show. Really appreciate it.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
QUESTION: So let's talk about this major move that you just made at the State Department getting rid of a big chunk of the censorship bureaucracy that had been created and pushed a while back but then exacerbated over the course of the last few years, hidden. What's the story with what you are doing over at the State Department to get rid of the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I think you have to understand the history behind it. It's real brief. They started it by saying al-Qaida, ISIS, all these terrible groups are radicalizing people online, we should do something about it. Back when they came up with that 12 years ago, whatever it was, people were like, well, whatever, it makes sense.
And then it metastasized and it's like, oh, there's foreign interference in our elections, we need to start going after that. Well then, by 2020, it became a moment to go after voices inside of American politics and begin to label people. And they put a guy in charge who basically was going around saying Trump is - Trump speaks just like these foreign terrorists, his supporters speak just like these foreign terrorists - so now you have an individual running a State Department entity that was labeling American speech by Americans as foreign interference.
And then really, the kicker was not only were they doing all that formally from the State Department, but they were taking State Department money and they were giving it to these third-party groups who are supposed to be like independent, verified arbiters of what's true and what isn't, what's good and what's bad. And these groups were deliberately targeting - I believe you were one of the ones they targeted, I think the Federalist - began putting labels on people.
Now you may say okay, "Well, what's the importance of a label?" Well, that's not just the issue here. The issue is not only did they put labels on people; that was then used to go to social media companies, it was used to go to outlets and say you have to deplatform these people or you have to cut back on how much views they're getting, you have to go after them - in essence, silence them.
So in essence, it metastasized and the metamorphosis into a government-run entity that was targeting political speech in America, labeling it disinformation, and silencing it - all paid for by the American taxpayers directly and indirectly. And that ends.
So what happened when we took - right before we took over, they got rid of this Global Engagement Center, they renamed it, and moved it somewhere else. But renaming something doesn't change it; you still leave the thing around.
So we've undertaken 12 weeks of looking how do we reorganize this whole thing, how do we get rid of it, how do we - and that's what we're announcing today is we're taking the whole thing down. And it's about $50 million. I mean, it's not a small amount of money. And we're not going to be in the business of doing this anymore. In fact, we're going to be in the business of promoting free speech in America and around the world as a core American value, and that really is what we're going to be about right now.
And we're also going to go back and look at, as an accountability project, all of the instances in which this was used as a weapon against American political voices. And the reason why that's important is not just because of accountability; it's to make sure it never happens again. You document these things so that someone in the future, when they get some bright idea like this, realize why we shouldn't do it, because this is what it turns into.
QUESTION: And Secretary Rubio, it's a really good object lesson in what happens with some of these government agencies which started off decades ago with the right purposes and then gradually are infiltrated by people with a significant political partisan agenda, who then proceed to weaponize these institutions against Americans. We've seen this in USAID.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Correct.
QUESTION: Obviously we see this here with the GEC turned into another sort of body that was then hidden inside these agencies. I mean, when people like President Trump talk about the deep state, this is the kind of stuff that he's talking about.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. So USAID is another great example. Humanitarian aid - it was created for development and humanitarian aid. Where it really went off the rails is when humanitarian aid and development aid was turned into: How do we infuse domestic political priorities into what we fund around the world? So when it became a domestic political priority to take on transgender rights, now all of a sudden you've got programs by Americans couched as humanitarian or development aid in other countries around the world. In essence, they injected domestic political considerations into foreign aid, and the result is now it has to be rolled back. So it's another example.
We're going to continue to do humanitarian aid. What we're not going to do is use humanitarian aid to spread a domestic ideological movement globally. We're not going to do that.
QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, obviously this is a - it's a big move by the State Department. You've been making a lot of moves over at the State Department that are different than your predecessor's. That includes moves to get out of the United States people who are terrorist supporters, not just people who say bad things but people who are actual terrorist supporters, act in ways that are conducive to actual terror groups.
I wanted to give you a moment to sort of explain the approach that the State Department is taking in taking a look at, for example, student visa holders.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Right.
QUESTION: What are the standards that are being used to determine whether somebody should stay in the United States or should go? Because obviously opponents of the administration are arguing it's violations of free speech, people have the ability to say what they want. That's not an argument that the administration is actually arguing with. The administration is not trying to crack down on free speech. You're trying to actually stop something else.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. Well, let's start with a baseline, okay? No one is entitled to a student visa to the enter the United States. No one. It's not a constitutional right. It's not a law. Every day, consular officers on the ground in face-to-face interviews are denying people visas for all kinds of reasons - because we think you're going to overstay, because we think your family member is a member of a drug ring, whatever it may be. We deny visas every day all over the world. No one is entitled to a visa. Let's start with that, because I hear some of this reporting out there like if somehow we - you're allowed to have a visa unless we can come up with a reason why you shouldn't have one. That's not true. The burden of proof is the other way.
Now, let's say you go to a window somewhere in the world and say, "I want to go to the United States to study at a university," and as part of that interview it comes out you think Hamas is actually a good group. We probably would not let you in. I would hope we wouldn't let you in. Okay?
But let's say we don't ask you that question and you get into the U.S. on a student visa, and all of a sudden it becomes obvious you think Hamas is a good group. Well, then we should revoke your visa. In essence, if we would have denied - if we had learned things about you once you're here that would have caused us to deny you a visa when you were overseas, that's grounds for revocation. It is not in the national interest of the United States, it's not in our foreign policy interest, it's not in our national security interest, to invite people onto our university campuses who are not just going to go there to study physics or engineering but who are also going to go there to foment movements that support and excuse foreign terrorist organizations who are committed to the destruction of the United States and the killing and the raping and the kidnapping of innocent civilians, not just in Israel but anywhere they can get their hands on them. That's not in our national interest.
So we have a right to deny visas before you get here, and we have a right to revoke them if we believe that your presence in our country undermines our national interest, our national security, and our foreign policy. And that's what we intend to do.
Now listen, there are other student visas that are being canceled that have nothing to do with us, by the way. And that has to do with someone, for example, who is here on a student visa and has a DUI. And I don't know - that's not us. That's DHS. But I don't know if people realize if you commit a crime while you're in the U.S., that's an automatic grounds for revoking your visa. And no one was ever doing it. They weren't doing it. They weren't cross-referencing the system. Now they're starting to do that.
So that's the majority of these, but we have identified - I can't tell you the exact number because it's static and it's constantly moving, but when someone is presented to me and it's clear that this person is a supporter of a foreign terrorist organization, we're going to remove them from the country. You're not going to be here; it's just that simple. What a stupid thing, what a ridiculous thing, to invite people in your country so they can be part of these movements that are terrorizing fellow students, tearing up campuses, shutting down campuses. We have campuses in America that couldn't even operate for weeks. People couldn't go to class. Are we - are we crazy? What other country in the world would allow this? We shouldn't allow it.
QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, I think that the controversy that's arisen over, for example, the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, who is one of the students at Columbia University who has a green card but who was also engaged in protest activities that violated the law, who obviously was sympathizing openly with terror attacks by Hamas and all the rest of this, that the sort of controversy here, there's a common thread to the opposition to the Trump Administration on this stuff, which is, as you mentioned, this bizarre idea that people are somehow owed entry to the United States.
I think that ties in very strongly to the Democrats' new approach to what's going on with this Salvadoran migrant who's now been deported to El Salvador. The administration has taken a legal position that basically, now that he's in Salvadoran custody, that it's up to the Salvadorans whether to return this person to the United States or not for further due process concerns.
But that's really not the case that's being made by opponents of the administration. Many of the opponents of the administration are making a more significant case, which is the idea that basically, if you get into the United States, you are somehow owed a permanent status in the United States. And you're seeing this across the board, ranging from the Trump Administration's moves to get rid of temporary protected status for people who have entered en masse under the Biden administration, to the resistance to DHS or the State Department making moves with regard to the tens of millions, possibly, of illegal immigrants who have brought into the country by the Biden administration. There is this bizarre supposition that everyone on Earth is somehow owed passage to the United States and permanent membership in our society.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, and I think it explains to you why we have the immigration crisis that we had. And it was the belief - they would all say we believe we should have immigration laws, of course, but if you get into the United States you should be allowed to stay; if you make it here illegally, no matter how you got here, then you should be allowed to stay. I mean, I think that that mindset that's being revealed in these cases tells you how you get 12, 13, 14, 20 million people entering the country unlawfully and illegally over the last few years, because of this mindset that, yeah, we have immigration laws, but we don't really mean it; once you get in, you should be allowed to stay here indefinitely, and we have some sort of obligation to accommodate you here in the country. That's how you create this mindset that led to that crisis, and people know it.
It's all incentive based. People believed under Joe Biden - rightfully, they believed - if I could just get across the border, I'm going to get to stay. And in 90-something percent of the cases they were absolutely right, and that's why more people kept coming. There's a reason why no one's coming now. You know one of the problems I'm facing right now with countries in Central America and the Western Hemisphere? U-turns. A lot of people were headed here, they realized Trump was serious, they made a U-turn, and now these countries are complaining, oh, they're stuck in my country. Well, you facilitated their transit for years. And now they're stuck with them as a result of it.
But that's actually happening. Why? Because the incentives are no longer to come; the incentives are not to come. It's been successful. It's the most secure border we've had in my lifetime, I mean, if you just think about it. And it's not just because there are people there. It's because people aren't coming anymore because they know that the President is serious about enforcing our immigration laws.
QUESTION: Well, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, really appreciate your time. Thanks for what you're doing inside the State Department to get rid of shadow organizations designed to crack down on free speech, as well as to move people out of the United States who actually don't like America very much. Secretary of State Rubio, thanks so much for stopping by.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
