At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about Biden Administration's foreign policy record.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you.
00:01Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:02Senator Cruz.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:06Senator.
00:07Mr. Secretary, you have presided over the worst foreign policy disaster of modern times.
00:15When Joe Biden became president, he inherited peace and prosperity in the world.
00:21We now have two simultaneous wars waging, the worst war in Europe since World War II
00:26and the worst war in the Middle East in 50 years.
00:30Both I believe were caused by this administration's consistent weakness.
00:35And indeed, your foreign policy is precisely backwards from what a rational American foreign
00:43policy should be.
00:45To our friends and allies, this administration has consistently undermined, weakened, and
00:52attacked them.
00:54And to our enemies, this administration has shown constant appeasement and indeed has
00:59flowed billions of dollars to the enemies of America who want to kill us.
01:07Senator Barrasso asked you about Ibram Raisi.
01:11Your State Department put out a statement sending condolences for his death.
01:17Mr. Secretary, is the world better today now that Raisi is dead?
01:25Given the horrible acts that he engaged in both as a judge and as president, to the extent
01:31he can no longer engage in them, yes, the Iranian people are probably better off.
01:35You didn't say that in your statement, did you?
01:37I believe that we did.
01:39And certainly our spokesperson...
01:40Today the United Nations is flying their flag at half-staff to mourn the death.
01:47Would you agree that it is utterly disgraceful for the United Nations to be mourning the
01:51death of the Butcher of Tehran?
01:53We're certainly not mourning his death.
01:55As I said, we expressed...
01:56Would you agree it's disgraceful for the UN to be?
01:58I'll look at what they've done.
02:00We certainly would not do that.
02:03What they've done is flown the flag at half-staff.
02:05Is that disgraceful?
02:07We wouldn't do that and we would certainly find that...
02:09And I would note that's the absence of American leadership.
02:11All right, let's shift.
02:13The Washington Post on May 11th wrote an article.
02:16I'm going to read the opening paragraph.
02:17The Biden administration working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion
02:21of Rafah is offering Israel valuable assistance in an effort to persuade it to hold back,
02:26including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of
02:30Hamas leaders and find the group's hidden tunnels, according to four people familiar
02:34with the U.S. offers.
02:37Is that paragraph accurate?
02:39Exactly the opposite.
02:40First of all, no one has done more to defend Israel than Joe Biden.
02:44Is that paragraph accurate?
02:45No, let me finish, if I may please.
02:47He was there right after...
02:48I'm not interested in a campaign speech.
02:50I have limited time.
02:52Is the paragraph in the Washington Post accurate?
02:54As you read it, no.
02:56To the contrary, we're providing everything we possibly can to Israel to help them find
03:00and deal with...
03:01So the four sources that briefed the Post, and by the way, briefed multiple other media
03:03outlets, they were lying?
03:05Absolutely.
03:07All right, so that, does the administration, did the administration offer to provide the
03:12locations of senior Hamas leaders to Israel if they didn't invade Rafah?
03:17That's again, totally, totally misleading and wrong.
03:21Here's what we've said, and here's what we're doing.
03:23We have said that there is a better way to deal with the challenge...
03:27I'm not interested in the speech.
03:28If you don't want to hear my answer...
03:29Did you offer the location of senior Hamas officials if they didn't invade Rafah?
03:33That's a yes or no.
03:34If we, no.
03:35If we had the locations, of course we'd provide them, irrespective.
03:39So this statement, you're saying the Post got it totally wrong, it is utterly false,
03:44and anyone who said to the contrary was lying and perjuring themselves if they were under
03:48oath.
03:49That statement is incorrect.
03:50We have done, and will continue to do everything we can to, if we can do it, develop the information
03:54and share the information.
03:56I wish we had it.
03:57Does the administration have intelligence on the locations of Hamas officials that you
04:01have not shared with Israel?
04:02No.
04:03Does the administration have the locations of Hamas terror tunnels that you have not
04:07shared with Israel?
04:08No.
04:09Okay, so then your position is that this story is an utter and complete lie.
04:14As you've read it to me, Senator, it's not, it is not accurate.
04:18And we're not interested in playing word games.
04:21I've asked you very directly.
04:23I have not...
04:24So you're saying there's not a single Hamas leader that you know about, that you or the
04:28administration has offered will tell you where they are if you don't invade Rafah.
04:31That is correct.
04:32What have you offered them not to invade Rafah?
04:34We've offered them nothing not to invade Rafah except a plan to deal more effectively with
04:39Rafah.
04:40Okay, so your testimony under oath is you've offered them nothing not to invade Rafah.
04:44I find that very hard to believe, but I just want to understand what your testimony is.
04:48I'll be very clear.
04:50We have told them, we've been engaged in a long conversation with them about the most
04:55effective way to deal with the problem we agree must be dealt with.
04:57They are quite aware you disagree with their plan to kill the Hamas terrorists because
05:02you and the president have vocally said, to be clear, your state department on the morning
05:07of October 7th sent out a tweet telling Israel not to engage in military retaliation.
05:12I called you out at three in the morning and you deleted that tweet.
05:16The next day, you personally on October 8th sent a tweet saying you had spoken with a
05:20Turkish foreign minister and Israel should not retaliate.
05:23From the very beginning, the Biden administration has consistently at every stage told Israel,
05:28and by the way, when I called your tweet out, you deleted it again.
05:31At every stage, you have been telling Israel do not kill the terrorists and that has been
05:37from day one.
05:38Senator, I was in Israel five days after October 7th.
05:40I've been there seven times since.
05:42No one, starting with President Biden, has done more to make sure they have what they
05:46need to defend themselves from Hamas, to deal with the threat that Hamas poses.
05:50With all due respect, that is ludicrous.
05:53That is ludicrous.
05:54Why have you cut off weapons to Israel then?
05:57We have not cut off weapons to Israel.
05:58In fact, as you know well, starting many years ago, President Biden was at the heart of the
06:04MOU that led to Israel having a 10-year guaranteed supply of assistance.
06:10When you became Secretary of State, how much oil was Iran selling a day?
06:16I'll have to come back to you on any numbers.
06:18I don't have the numbers.
06:19You don't know.
06:20What surprised me you don't know is about 300,000.
06:23How much oil is Iran selling today?
06:25We've applied sanctions against more than 200 entities that are engaged in petrochemicals.
06:29How much oil?
06:30You can tell me.
06:31I'm sure you know.
06:32Don't filibuster.
06:33I'm not filibustering.
06:34How much oil are they selling today?
06:35Do you know?
06:36You tell me.
06:37You tell me.
06:38Apparently, you don't know.
06:39So you don't know how much they were selling.
06:40It was 300,000.
06:41Today, they're selling about 2 million barrels a day.
06:44Let me ask you.
06:45And given the sanctions, given the export controls, given the other controls we put
06:48on, the cost of doing that, the evasion that they have to engage in, which we're trying
06:52to cut off.
06:53They've made about $80 billion.
06:54Let me ask you another question.
06:55I'm running out of time.
06:56So I'm not interested in speeches.
06:58Let me ask you this.
07:01How many Ghost Fleet ships did Iran have in November 2020?
07:06We have sanctioned more than 200 of those.
07:08It's a question.
07:09I'm not.
07:10How many did they have?
07:11The total number, I can't tell you what it had in 2021.
07:13I'll come back to you with that.
07:14But we have.
07:15The number was about 70.
07:16Yeah.
07:18We blocked about 50 of them.
07:19OK.
07:20Let's see how effective you are.
07:21How many do they have today?
07:22As I said, we blocked about 50.
07:23How many do they have today?
07:24You tell me.
07:25I'm sure you.
07:26They have about over 400.
07:28Look, this administration desperately wants a new Iran deal.
07:32You have been showering cash on Iran from day one.
07:36And understand, the $6 billion you were asked about is the tip of the iceberg.
07:40By refusing to enforce oil sanctions, we have seen Iran's oil sales go from 300,000 barrels
07:47a day when you got into office to over 2 million barrels a day today.
07:51That's $80 billion.
07:5390% of Hamas's funding comes from Iran in a very real sense.
07:58This administration, you and President Biden, funded the October 7th attacks by flowing
08:04$100 billion to a homicidal, genocidal regime that funded those attacks.
08:10That statement is profoundly wrong.
08:12Why?
08:13I'm not even going to humor it.
08:15I think it's a disgraceful statement.
08:17Why?
08:18We have gone at Iran repeatedly with more than 600 sanctions applied against different
08:22persons.
08:23Then why are they selling 2 million barrels a day as compared to 300,000?
08:26They are working hard to do what they can to get around the sanctions.
08:29So just the prior administration had tools you didn't have, they were more effective,
08:33or maybe they just weren't desperate to cut a deal with Iran.
08:36And we continue every single day to go at them.
08:39You are refusing to address the facts.
08:40I'm not.
08:42Then why are they selling 2 million barrels a day?
08:44Because they're determined to try to do that.
08:46They weren't determined to cut them off?
08:47They weren't determined when Trump was president?
08:49They were determined.
08:50And of course, unfortunately, we also had their nuclear program in a box.
08:54No fissile material being produced.
08:56Okay, you're not answering the question.
08:57You're filibustering another topic.
08:58I'm not filibustering.
08:59You get the last word.
09:00You get the last word.
09:04You funded our enemies and you undermine our friends.
09:08And the world is much, much more dangerous as a result, and Americans are in greater
09:12jeopardy because of it.
09:15In fact, we brought more countries together.
09:18We have stronger allies, stronger partnerships, stronger engagement from countries around
09:22the world to deal with a very dangerous world than we had.
09:24We were alone.
09:25We aren't anymore.
09:26And America is leading those efforts.
09:28Remember the Abraham Accords?
09:30I do.
09:31Let me just break you two apart for a second, if I might.