The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, returned to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, appearing before his former colleagues for the first time since his confirmation to defend the president’s foreign policy and the budget priorities of the Administration for the following year.
Instead of a warm return home, Rubio was quickly in defense, with several Senate Democrats by pressing the reorganization secretary and the expenses of the State Department, as well as the Policy of the Middle East and the arrests of El Salvador.
Senator Chris Van Hollen speaks when Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 20, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., He spent much of his assigned time criticizing Rubio in a series of issues, including his comfort with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the Trump administration did not “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego García, a migrant who was assigned to El Salvador to El Salvador, to the United States. Abrego García lived in Maryland at the time he was deported.
“In the case of El Salvador, absolutely, absolutely, we deported gang members, gang members, including Margarita.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies to the Hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to examine the request for budget proposed by the President for fiscal year 2026 for the State Department in Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 20, 2025.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
“Mr. President, he cannot comment without foundation like that,” Van Hollen protested. “The Rubio Secretary should take that testimony before the Federal Court of the United States because he has not done so under oath!”
Van Hollen has said that none of the men drank from the glasses that said that the officials put on the table during the meeting that seemed to have liquid inside with salts or sugar edges.
Senator Chris Van Hollen speaks when Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 20, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
“No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to carry out foreign policy,” Rubio replied. “No judge can tell me how I have to reach a foreign couple or what I need to tell them, and if I get to that foreign partner and talk to them, I do not have the obligation to share that with the judicial branch. Diplomacy does not work that way.”
“Now you’re blowing smoke,” said Van Hollen.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, observes while testifying at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the request for budget of the State Department of President Donald Trump for the State Department, in Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 20, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The president of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, a Idaho Republican, had to intervene in the controversial conversation sometimes when Van Hollen compared Rubio’s policy about deportations and arrests of El Salvador of the migrants with the “shameful era” of the values of the witches of McCarthy-were and the red scare, saying that the administration of the administration of the administration of the administration of the administration of the administration of the administration of repression of McCarthy-era of the democratic of our democratic.
“Do not have sense of decency?” Van Hollen said at the end of his interrogation line. “And I would ask you the same, Rubio Secretary. You have demonstrated, with your words and your actions what your answer is. I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret to have voted for you as Secretary of State.”
