Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R-FL) eviscerated CBS host Margaret Brennan in a fiery trade over the Trump administration’s choice to revoke visas of pro-Hamas scholar agitators.
Rubio didn’t simply defend the transfer—he took the Left’s double requirements on free speech and crushed them below the burden of their very own hypocrisy.
The back-and-forth occurred on CBS’s Face the Nation, the place Brennan, as anticipated, tried to protect the Hamas sympathizer and Columbia College scholar whose visa was revoked for selling Hamas propaganda.
Rubio, nonetheless, was having none of it.
Rubio laid out the info clearly—overseas nationals haven’t any constitutional proper to remain in America in the event that they lied about their intentions. The senator emphasised that participation in radical activism, rioting, and campus takeovers is greater than only a “controversial opinion”—it’s a violation of visa situations.
Margaret Brennan: I wish to ask you a couple of choice you made to revoke a scholar visa for somebody at Columbia College this previous week. The Wall Avenue Journal Editorial Board writes:
“The administration must be cautious. It’s focusing on actual promoters of terrorism, not breaking the nice promise of a inexperienced card by deporting anybody with controversial political beliefs.”
Are you able to substantiate any type of materials help for terrorism, particularly to Hamas, from this Columbia scholar? Or was it merely that he was housing a controversial political perspective?
Marco Rubio: Nicely, not simply the scholar. We’re going to do extra. Actually, each day now we’re approving visa revocations, and if that visa led to a inexperienced card, the inexperienced card course of as nicely.
Right here’s why—it’s quite simple. While you apply to enter america and also you get a visa, you’re a visitor. You’re coming as a scholar, you’re coming as a vacationer, or what have you ever. In it, it’s important to make sure assertions. If you happen to inform us once you apply for a visa, “I’m coming to the U.S. to take part in pro-Hamas occasions,” that runs counter to the overseas coverage curiosity of america of America.
It’s that easy. So that you lied. If you happen to had informed us that you simply had been going to do this, we by no means would have given you the visa. Now you’re right here. Now you do it. You lied to us. You’re out. It’s that easy. It’s that easy.
When Brennan pressed Rubio on whether or not there was any direct proof that the Columbia scholar had a hyperlink to terrorism, Rubio delivered the knockout punch.
Margaret Brennan: However is there any proof of a hyperlink to terrorism, or is it simply his perspective?
Marco Rubio: Yeah, they take over… I imply, it is best to watch the information. These guys take over whole buildings. They vandalize faculties. They shut down faculties.
Margaret Brennan: We’ve coated it extensively. I’m asking in regards to the particular justification for the revocation of his visa. Was there any proof that the supplies for a terrorism..
Marco Rubio: Was there any proof that the spokesperson was negotiating on behalf of those who took over a campus and vandalized buildings?
Negotiating over what? That’s against the law in and of itself—that they’re concerned in being the negotiator, the spokesperson, this, that, the opposite. We don’t want these individuals in our nation. We by no means ought to have allowed them in within the first place.
If he had informed us, “I’m going over there to grow to be the spokesperson and one of many leaders of a motion that’s going to show certainly one of your allegedly elite faculties the wrong way up, the place individuals can’t even go to highschool and buildings are being vandalized,” we by no means would have let him in.
Now that he’s doing it and he’s right here, he’s going to go away. And so are others. And we’re going to maintain doing it.
Rubio then turned the tables on the Left’s fake dedication to free speech, exposing their blatant hypocrisy.
Marco Rubio: By the way in which, I discover it ironic that a variety of these individuals on the market defending the First Modification—alleged free speech rights of those Hamas sympathizers—had no downside pressuring social media to censor American political speech. I believe it’s ironic and hypocritical.
However the backside line is that this: If you’re on this nation to advertise Hamas, to advertise terrorist organizations, to take part in vandalism, or to interact in acts of insurrection and riots on campus, we by no means would have allow you to in if we had identified that.
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