She wrote an op ed, she wrote an op ed, and I'm talking to you about her particular case claims. And you reclaim the facts. Reclaiming my time. You revoked her student visa because she wrote an op ed. - Would you revoke going to do more? - I have today, Secretary of State Marco [00:00:17] Rubio testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. And as you just heard from that clip, progressive Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal grilled him on the arrests of students who are here in the United States with student visas. These are individuals who end up getting their visas revoked because of the fact [00:00:36] that they were either part of some of the, pro Israel boycott protests on college campuses, or because they simply wrote an op ed in their student newspaper that called for the boycott of Israel as [00:00:51] long as this brutal war on Gaza continues. And so the person that she was asking about specifically there, of course, was Turkish national Rumeysa Öztürk, who we had shown you all a video of getting arrested in broad daylight [00:01:07] by masked federal agents because she wrote an op ed calling for Tufts University to divest from Israeli companies as a result of this war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza. [00:01:23] And so the clip we showed you was midway through an extended battle between Jayapal and Rubio. I want to show you how it went down in the very beginning. So take a look. The State Department approved the revocation of a student visa for [00:01:38] Rumaisa Öztürk, a Turkish citizen who was a graduate student at Tufts University, apparently simply for writing an op ed. Where in the Constitution does it say that the Secretary of State can override the First Amendment protections of free speech? [00:01:57] Is there a footnote that I missed? There's no constitutional right to a student visa. So. But is there a constitutional right? Is it does it say somewhere that Marco Rubio gets to determine whether which speech is appropriate and revoke student visas based on what you think constitutes free speech. [00:02:13] The statute there's a statute that says the secretary of state gets to determine whether someone is a threat. - We deny visas every day. - That the Ina. So what you can hear Pramila Jayapal getting at in her line of questioning is, hey, listen, this is an issue of a student who is here on a student visa. [00:02:34] She is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to share her opinion on these issues. And that is true. There is precedent on this. The Supreme Court in the past has ruled on this. For people who are in this country, whether they're citizens or non-citizens, [00:02:50] they are protected by the same rights, including the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Now, Marco Rubio continues regurgitating the same talking point over and over again. Well, Secretary of State holds the right to blah, blah, blah. Okay. But what I want to focus on here is the fact that she was specifically targeted. [00:03:10] Was specifically targeted because she co-wrote what I feel is a pretty milquetoast op ed for the Tufts University student paper. And all she did by coauthoring it is cosign on the idea that the university [00:03:27] should divest from Israeli companies because of the genocide that currently is taking place in the Gaza Strip. And for that reason, because of the fact that that type of op ed offends a foreign government, the government of Israel, we have the United States government [00:03:45] rounding up students who are here on visa for sharing their opinion. It's insane. So there was more. Okay. Jayapal asked Rubio why it was necessary for masked officers to do this, and here's what he had to say. Why did the administration need to use masked, armed, unidentified agents [00:04:05] to whisk somebody off the street and deny her counsel for almost 24 hours after? You'll have to ask the agencies that did that work. I'm not responsible that I'm responsible for revoking the visas of these people that come. Secretary Rubio. I'm talking about this particular case where you revoked the student visa [00:04:21] of a Turkish citizen, a Turkish citizen who was a graduate student, who wrote an op ed that you didn't like, and suddenly you allowed for masked men to whisk her off the street. And you have multiple jobs. Apparently, you're the national Security Advisor as well. So don't tell me it's not your job who snatches her off the street? [00:04:38] We don't do the snatching, but I can tell you, we do the visa revocation, and. We're going to keep the national security consequences of people. Masked men on the streets, snatching people off the streets. If these are legitimate law enforcement agents carrying out proper arrests, why are they hiding their identities? [00:04:55] Because in radical crazies will try to hurt them. Yeah, look, Jayapal didn't buy that argument. I don't buy that argument at all. Now, Marco Rubio, arguing that he has the right to do this as it pertains [00:05:10] to individuals who are in the country and pose a threat to national security. You need to show how Öztürk is threatening American national security when she coauthors a milquetoast op ed for Tufts University. [00:05:27] Like, how exactly is that a threat to our national security? It's not. Obviously it's not. Look, we all know what's going on here. Everyone who's actually honest and looks at the details of this story knows what's going on here. You have pro-Israel groups, nonprofits here in the U.S. [00:05:46] We don't know where they're getting their funding from. Let's let's just keep it real. They're putting together lists of people that Israel is offended by because they're sharing their criticisms of Israel. They go to the Trump administration. These are the people we want you to deport. [00:06:01] These are the people we want you to arrest. And embarrassingly, the Trump administration is carrying it out, carrying out the dirty deeds of a foreign government. And that's my problem with this. Okay. That's my problem with this. Because take the political messaging out of it entirely. [00:06:18] Obviously, I'm very critical of Israel for obvious reasons. We talk about it on this show every day. But let's just take the politics out of it, out of it entirely, and focus on, I guess, the act of the United States government arresting, [00:06:36] deporting individuals who are here based on the desires and demands of a foreign government. That's what I have the big issue with. Let's say you have, I don't know, a Turkish national who's here on a student visa, and they engage in some sort of protest against the acknowledgment [00:06:57] of the Armenian genocide. Aside. Now, I would find that deeply disgusting and offensive I would. But the idea that I would sit on this show, or sit in this chair on this show and cheerlead Armenia succeeding in convincing the American government [00:07:14] to deport that student is laughable to me. I would never do that. I would never defend that. Because guess what? In this country, we're Americans, and we should be represented by an American government that seeks to serve us, an American government that seeks to do what's right for Americans and people [00:07:32] within the borders of this country. But right now, we seem to have a government that is far too influenced by a foreign government, so much so that they'll target innocent people who haven't done anything wrong. [00:07:48] It's totally disgusting. And I want to jump ahead here because, you know, Marco Rubio is Cuban, Cuban American. I have a little bit of experience with Cuban Americans. My Americans. My husband's Cuban and Cuban Americans especially have very strong feelings about [00:08:04] the current Communist government in Cuba. Marco Rubio happens to be one of the critics, and I want you to take a good, hard look at what he purports to be one of his biggest values when he's talking about Cuba, when he's talking about freedom of speech in a context that's convenient for him. [00:08:22] Take a look. The average person on the street cannot go on the internet in Cuba. It's not just a capacity issue, it is prohibited. In fact, I'm going to send out a tweet right now. If I sent this tweet in Cuba, I would be put in jail. Okay. And I'm going to send it right now as an example of what people in Cuba cannot do. [00:08:39] You're gathered today for a cause that's much larger than yourselves. You are speaking freely for those in Cuba who lack that right, who cannot express themselves for fear of persecution or harassment. Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies. The Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of Democracies [00:08:58] in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions. I mean, Rubio, if, suddenly you've decided everything you've said in the past, including that last statement that you heard from 2015, literally, [00:09:15] he made that statement this year. If you're now changing your mind on all of that, then why don't you go serve as a government official in the very country that your family fled? You know, you seem to like that type of anti-speech authoritarianism. [00:09:32] So why don't you, go to a country where that type of disgusting behavior is warranted, celebrated, protected. Because I'm not really interested in having foreign governments dictate what our government does to the people within the borders of this country. [00:09:49] I mean, at least in Cuba, and I don't support this, but at least in Cuba, the Cuban government violates the free expression of their own people because their own people might want to criticize them. Here in America, we can criticize our government. However, however much we want. You criticize the government of Israel. [00:10:09] Well, if you're here on a student visa, you better be careful because our government works for them. They barely work for us. It's just so embarrassing. And you could see it in his face. Soulless. A man of no principles, no morals, no values. [00:10:27] Just greed, obsession with power, ambition and careerism. That's not a public servant. That's an absolute clown. That's who Marco Rubio is. He doesn't grow his intellect. [00:10:43] He doesn't grow his interest in serving the people. The only thing that's growing on that guy are his ears. Literally. It's pathetic. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.