Marco Rubio
October 15, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The New York Times headlines: “U.S. Says It Revoked Visas of Some People Who Criticized Charlie Kirk.” Really? We revoked their visas for criticizing Charlie Kirk? Obviously not. If you read on, you find: The United States revoked the visas of at least six foreign citizens whom it accused of celebrating the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the State Department said in a series of social media posts
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August 18, 2025 — John Hinderaker
During the post-war era, there has often been covert or open war between a hawkish Department of Defense and a dovish State Department. Sometimes it was worse, as in the Biden administration, when we had a dovish Defense Department, too. But tension between State and Defense has largely been the norm, and State Department dovishness has sometimes verged on anti-Americanism, as we saw in the USAID scandal. One of the
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July 13, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Bill Glahn noted yesterday that the Trump administration has laid off a modest number of State Department employees, totaling less than two percent of State Department staff. Yet the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Left were extraordinary: The fact the State Dept. can’t go through a two percent staff reduction without making a scene and patting each other on the back about fighting “fascism” should be nauseating to
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July 12, 2025 — Bill Glahn
From The Hill newspaper, Secretary of State Marco Rubio began mass firings at the State Department on Monday, part of a reorganization plan to form a leaner foreign policy force that, he argues, will allow the United States to respond more nimbly by removing layers of bureaucracy. The department sent reduction in force (RIF) notices Friday morning to about 1,100 civil servants and 250 foreign service officers stationed in the
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July 4, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Marco Rubio is doing a brilliant job as Secretary of State. A prime example of his implementation of an America First foreign policy is the abolition of USAID and relocation of aid programs inside the State Department. On the State Department’s Substack, Rubio lays out the rationale for this change, putting to shame the Democrats’ absurd “millions will die” mantra: Every public servant has an obligation to American citizens to
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June 23, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in excellent form in Margaret Brennan’s interrogation of him on Face the Nation yesterday. Rush used to refer to it as Deface the Nation and Brennan is carrying on the tradition. Rubio was excellent throughout. His widely applicable observation to Brennan could be the quote of the day: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The transcript reads: QUESTION: Let me follow up on
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June 8, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The International Criminal Court has become a force for evil, and, happily, the United States is not a member and has conceded no jurisdiction to that body. The ICC’s most notorious outrage is its issuance of absurd “arrest warrants” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former Minister of Defense. These “arrest warrants” have made it impossible for Netanyahu to travel to various countries, where he could
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May 28, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Addressing the International Holocaust Remembrance Minister’s Conference in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by video. He wants it to be known that the United States stands with the Jewish people and that he makes no distinction between hatred of Israel and of the Jewish people and Israel. Here is the heart of his remarks (full video below): Earlier this year I stood beside Foreign Minister Sa’ar at the
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May 21, 2025 — John Hinderaker
To be fair, Senator Chris Van Hollen is more a pussycat than a lion. But when Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, Van Hollen used his allotted seven minutes to deliver a screed against the Secretary and the Trump administration, without asking a question. Rubio asked the chairman for an opportunity to respond, which he was given. Van Hollen didn’t like the fact
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May 20, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Democrats have defined themselves as the party of illegal immigrant gang members and men who want to compete in women’s sports. As crazy as that might seem, it is true. We saw it again today, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Elderly members of the Democrats’ increasingly elderly base showed up to protest on behalf of mass murderers and rapists: The Democrat Party
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May 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
For several days, armed clashes and missile strikes between India and Pakistan had those countries on the brink of full-scale war. It wouldn’t be the first time, but now both nations have nuclear weapons. Initially, the Trump administration stayed out of the conflict, with Vice President JD Vance saying it was “fundamentally none of our business.” Neutrality is the Trump administration’s default position, but as the risk of war increased,
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April 11, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is one of my favorite people in politics. On Tuesday of this week, he was the guest of Donald Trump, Jr. on Trump’s podcast. They had a great conversation that covered a number of foreign policy topics. Rubio’s comments on Venezuela and Mexico, among others, are noteworthy. The State Department’s web site posted a transcript of the podcast, which I encourage you to check out.
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March 12, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Astonishingly, Democrats are protesting against the Trump administration’s revoking the student visa of Mahmoud Khalil, the Syrian anti-Semite who led the effort to shut down Columbia University, destroy university property, threaten Jewish students and prevent them from going to class. We have seen the Democrats take on one bad cause after another–advocating for men in women’s locker rooms is one of their recent doozies–but this one is truly mystifying. Apparently
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February 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary Rubio met in Jerusalem yesterday. After their meeting they both made statements on the subjects discussed. The U.S. Embassy in Israel has posted the text of their statements here. I have posted full video below. Rubio speaks second and concludes his remarks with this: I close where I began by reiterating our strong support for our allies, very close allies and partners here in Israel,
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February 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
John posted video of Margaret Brennan’s exchange with Secretary of State Marco Rubio here yesterday. It may be instructive to pause over it for another moment. In the exchange, Brennan criticized Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference (video and text posted here). Brennan instructed Rubio: “Well, he [Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.” Rubio responded as a well-informed
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January 15, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Several of Donald Trump’s most important cabinet nominees have now undergone confirmation hearings. I have watched them live in bits and pieces as I have been able, and have seen many clips posted here and elsewhere. Some obvious common threads emerge. First, Trump’s nominees have uniformly done well. Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio and Chris Wright have all come across as competent and likable, in contrast to most of
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October 19, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I saw an interview with Robert Cahaly, who runs the Trafalgar polling operation, the other day. (It may have been off a Power Line link.) As I recall, he said that he isn’t polling in Florida because he doesn’t think there are any serious races there. I agree. For a time, Democrats believed, or pretended to believe, that retread party-switcher Charlie Crist could seriously challenge Ron DeSantis. In my opinion,
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