During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) joked about being the only Republican lawmaker present.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And I do appreciate a lot of your sentiments and a lot of the comments.
00:03I agree with you.
00:04The president is responsible for foreign policy, and there is no debate on that whatsoever.
00:10President Biden is responsible for the increase in Iranian aggression,
00:13for the defunding of many of the programs that were working,
00:17for Russia's continual focus whenever he wouldn't actually authorize lethal aid.
00:21It was President Trump who actually authorized lethal aid for the Ukrainians.
00:24It was President Biden who actually delisted the Houthi rebels as disrupted 12% of global trade.
00:28Are we extending time for debate?
00:30I'm happy to.
00:31Okay.
00:32Because at the end of the day, October 7th in Israel would not have occurred under President Trump
00:36because there wouldn't have been $10 billion in unfrozen fungible assets,
00:39or up, what is it now, 1.7 billion barrels per day.
00:44Under President Trump, it was a half million barrels per day.
00:47When you talk about the illicit oil and ghost ships that are going.
00:50And look, I'm happy to have foreign policy discussions.
00:53We can go as far back into the Ottoman Empire expansion from Suleiman
00:57all the way up to 2011 when we talk about the Arab Spring and uprisings.
01:02I spent 10 plus years.
01:03That's going to be a long hearing.
01:03It'd be a little bit long hearing.
01:06But I've spent over 10 years in the Middle East, deployed in multiple locations.
01:10Foreign policy I do care about.
01:11What I also care about is the strength of the State Department,
01:14the same way I care about the strength of the armed services, which I know you do as well.
01:17And when I talk about, and Mr. Hankinson said it correctly,
01:19I don't care what my heart surgeon looks like.
01:23I care about whether or not he or she is the best at what she does.
01:28So when you say that if we only base it on merit, that's a mistake.
01:34I disagree.
01:35I think having the best and the brightest, regardless of what they look like,
01:40is the only thing that should matter.
01:41So I appreciate that.
01:44There was a time when merit was defined as did you have an Ivy League education?
01:49To get that Ivy League education, you had to come from the prep schools of the East Coast.
01:54Having the experiences, if I had more time to talk to the witnesses,
01:58I would ask the ambassador why it's important that we have people
02:01who can relate to the experiences and perspectives of the nations
02:04we are sending them to represent our nation.
02:07And by the way, happy to give a second round of questioning,
02:08should you want to ask that.
02:09I'll wait. I'm here.
02:11At this time, I'd like to acknowledge my good friend,
02:14our ranking member, Representative Moskowitz.
02:17Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
02:18And in fairness to the chairman, he is by himself here.
02:21So he is pulling...
02:23Yeah, but the good thing is that there was nine of you,
02:25it might be a fair fight.
02:25Okay.
02:26He's pulling the duty of his whole committee.
02:30So...