for slashing food aid programs.
Did you conduct any analysis whatsoever? Hey, hurting the farmers in your home state.
The World Food for Peace Program, for example, now we’ve said why are we in charge of feeding everybody? This is this is not about charity.
You looked me in the eye in this room and you said no children are dying on my watch.
You lying to Congress when you claim no children were dying on your watch.
False number.
That’s a false number.
And not only that, the numbers are there.
No, the numbers are not there.
The numbers are opinion.
You have a narrative to share.
Representative Almo, Secretary Rubio, welcome back.
I want to start where we left off last year.
You told me, quote, “We’re going to do more food aid than any country on the planet, x times 10.
” That was your promise, but the facts tell a different story.
America might still be the world’s largest food aid donor, but we certainly don’t provide 10 times more food aid than our peers.
In fact, under your watch, America’s food aid contributions have been cut by more than half to roughly $2 billion.
It should be very clear that America’s strength has never come solely from our might.
It comes from our alliances, our credibility, and our values.
You didn’t just eliminate programs, created vacuums, vacuums where violence and instability are rising, that extremist groups are filling, that competitors like China are exploiting, and vacuums that are making Americans less safe and less prosperous.
And you heard Americans here at home with your policy decisions.
shuttering US aid wiped out more than 23,000 American jobs while Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies got rich off of corrupt deals.
Peanut farmers in Texas and sugar farmers in your home state of Florida lost market access because of your cuts.
So, Secretary Rubio, before slashing food aid programs, did you conduct any analysis whatsoever on how many American jobs would be lost, how many farms would be hurt, and how much damage would be done to local economies and small businesses? Well, because we know all of those will still be part of the new programs we’ve created and are creating.
But the second point I’ll make, American foreign aid programs are not a jobs program.
Although they employ Americans and we want it to be helpful to Americans and that’s why So you’re okay hurting the farmers in your home state.
The World Food for Peace program, for example, now we’ve transferred it to US uh the agriculture department.
They’re in a better position.
Well, you’re talking about a hypothetical future where you fix past mistakes, but farmers have been struggling.
That’s where it belonged in the first place because it’s helpful.
The farmers have more direct input there than they would at the State Department.
As to your point about us cutting aid, not only are we the we’re the large, we’re we donate more than the next four countries combined.
We do more than anybody else, but we we went down and there are consequences.
Look, from where I sit, why are we in charge of feeding everybody? This is this is not about charity.
This is about our economy and values.
I didn’t say that you got to do it all, but you can’t cut when you know without analysis that bad things are going to happen.
We didn’t we replaced We have new programs that are actually working better.
Well, Mr.
M Mr.
Secretary, if I may, from where I sit, you, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, got together, you made these cuts blindly because you you did not say that you conducted any analysis.
You just said we cut because we have a hypothetical future that we are trying to to create, which is not a serious plan.
And that’s not regard for the economic damage to our farmers, to our small businesses here at home who uh are feeling that pain.
And moreover, you’ve had lives lost.
And I I want to get to that point.
I want to introduce you to Mary Sunday.
Uh she is behind me.
And after your food aid cuts decimated the World Food Program’s ability to feed the Kenyan refugee camp she lived in, Mary’s seven-month-old daughter, Santina, died of malnutrition.
This is the only photo Santina’s parents have of their daughter.
Before Santina died, you looked me in the eye in this room and you said, “No children are dying on my watch.
” She was a child.
She had a name, a family, a future ahead.
Now she’s gone.
She is one of over 500,000 children who died last year after your administration pulled the plug.
Yesterday, I heard your testimony.
You said you’re seeking outcomes with foreign aid programs, but the outcome that I see is dead kids.
So, Mr.
Secretary, I want to ask you again and with a real direct answer, please.
Were you lying to Congress when you claimed no children were dying on your watch, or did you simply never bother to calculate the human cost of your decision? That number you’re throwing around is a false number.
That’s a false number.
And not only that, you’re equivocating that the death of an individual’s responsibility to the United States.
There are 500,000 others.
So, Mr.
Secretary, the numbers are there.
No, the numbers are not there.
The numbers are you have a narrative to share.
Mr.
Chairman, I want to enter into the record uh these articles that show last year alone over 155,000 children died from malnutrition.
Over 126,000 children died from diarrheal diseases.
Over 165,000 children died from pneumonia as a result of these cuts.
So here’s the deal.
You promised more food aid instead there were cuts.
You promised America first and said American workers who you said aren’t a priority for you.
You said it’s not a jobs program.
They lost their jobs.
You promised strength.
Instead we have lost influence, credibility, and trust.
And you promised children weren’t going to die.
You said that to me right here.
You promised peace as well.
Instead, your illegal war of choice with Iran is driving up fuel prices and grocery costs while putting millions more at risk of hunger worldwide.
This is not about charity.
This is about value.
So whether it’s negligence or ideology, the result under your watch is the same.
Weaker alliances, higher costs, dead children, and a less secure America.
So my so my time is expiring.
So I’m going to take these seconds to say, what are you going to do to clean up the mess that you created? time is expired.
Representative Davidson is recognized.
Uh thank you, Chairman.
Mr.
Secretary, thank you so much for your faithful service to our country.
Uh your leadership as Secretary of State provides confidence at home and abroad.
And I would like to highlight that your personal testimony at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service and your remarks at this year’s Munich Security Conference resonate with me and with many of my constituents.
So, thank you.
Um I only have time for a few quick topics.
So, first, thank you for leading one of the most thoughtful national security strategies I’ve seen in the postcold war era.
I thought last year’s national security strategy was well done and the national security strategy opposes quote the cynical manipulation of our immigration system to build up voting blocks loyal to foreign interests within our country.
The state the state department has also made it clear that we object to the UN’s efforts to advocate and facilitate replacement migration across the United States and broader across western countries.
Immigration was a driving issue behind President Trump and Republican electoral victories and I commend your department for making this a priority.
Could you please highlight your approach beginning at our own borders and extended especially through the Western Hemisphere to addressing this as part of the national security strategy terms of migration? Yes, it’s look, mass migration is a national security threat to any country that experiences it.
It’s bad for the transit countries too, by the way, because it fuels and feeds these transnational groups that traffic not just in human beings, they traffic in drugs, they traffic in weapons and anything else you can imagine.
So, I think one of the biggest threats specific to the Western Hemisphere, but be true throughout the world, is these transnational, they call them criminal groups, they’re really transnational terrorist groups that among many of the things they do is trafficking human beings.
the so mass migration is not good for any country that has to absorb it and Europe is now facing the consequences of that but mass migration is also not good for the migrant because they’re abused along the way and it’s destructive and disruptive to all the countries in the region that have to experience it so today we do not have a mass migration event and every country along that route in Central America is grateful for it because that’s less money and on that they have to spend and less resources that are being taxed and and and less of a of a burden that they’re having to carry.
Thank you for that.
And frankly, thank you for demonstrating that we just needed leadership to apply the laws to secure our own borders uh with this administration.
I’m I’m a former infantry officer.
The oath our military swears is similar to the oath we swear in the House or the Senate or for cabinet members is to support and defend our Constitution.
You know, generally we say first define the mission, second authorize the mission, and then execute the mission.
Uh so I’d like to call your attention to the 2001 AUMF.
It was I think the 01 AUMF and the O2 AMF that I thought brought justice to Kasamsulammani as you highlighted previously in dialogue today.
Uh you know the IEDs and efforts of the coups force u killed many Americans in Iraq.
