On Tuesday, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) led a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to examine the foreign policy of the Biden Administration.
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00I may declare the subcommittee in recess at any point.
00:00:03The purpose of this hearing is to identify divisive diversity, equity,
00:00:07and inclusion policies implemented under the Biden administration
00:00:11that the State Department must reform to meet America First foreign policy objectives.
00:00:16I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
00:00:19Good afternoon and welcome to the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight
00:00:25and Intelligence in the 119th Congress.
00:00:29As we start the new Congress, I am looking forward to working with the colleagues
00:00:33to deliver real results for the American people
00:00:37by advancing President Trump's America First policies and agenda.
00:00:40Over the next few months, through our State Department reauthorization deliberations,
00:00:44this subcommittee will work to identify areas of the Secretary's Office or the S Bureau
00:00:51that must be reformed and reprogrammed to reorient the United States as a leader
00:00:55on the world stage while ensuring that taxpayer dollars are effectively used
00:01:00to bolster U.S. national security efforts.
00:01:03For far too long, the State Department prioritized radical liberal political ideologies
00:01:07and woke policies over advancing diplomatic objectives that serve American interests
00:01:12and protect the American people from our adversaries.
00:01:16While the Biden administration was trying to figure out what pronouns to use,
00:01:20our adversaries grew stronger and more emboldened.
00:01:23China aggressively enforced unlawful territorial claims in the South China Sea
00:01:28and has undermined the United States and our allies at every turn.
00:01:33Russia invaded Ukraine, North Korea ramped up its military provocations,
00:01:37Iran advanced its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,
00:01:40empowering its proxies to now cause chaos throughout the entire region of the Middle East.
00:01:47Israel was attacked and global shipping routes in the Red Sea was blocked.
00:01:52Over the last four years, among others,
00:01:54the American people watched these foreign policy failures unfold and voted
00:01:58for real change and action on November 5th.
00:02:00The American people gave President Trump and the Republican-led Congress a mandate
00:02:04to reverse the damage and restore common sense to our federal government.
00:02:09Today, this subcommittee will take its first step to deliver on this mandate
00:02:13by examining the State Department's Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
00:02:17The Office of Diversity and Inclusion detrimentally influenced operations
00:02:20across the State Department by making DEI a core precept for promotion considerations
00:02:26within the ranks of the Foreign Service, granting passport applications the ability
00:02:30to select X as a gender, and using taxpayer dollars to fund numerous WOC projects,
00:02:36including commemorating Black Consciousness Month with an event in which employees learned
00:02:41about the inclusive Afro-Brazilian culture through music and LGBTQI plus culture
00:02:47through Vogue Dance in Brazil.
00:02:50That was a mouthful.
00:02:51These policies corrupted the core mission of the State Department, and we must restore unity
00:02:56and fundamental American principles to the department, eliminate wasteful spending,
00:03:00and ensure that President Trump's executive orders are fully implemented,
00:03:04not subverted by rebranding DEI-driven programs.
00:03:08It is our duty to ensure that Americans become safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
00:03:15I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee today,
00:03:18and I look forward to productive discussions on how we can enhance America's security
00:03:23through common-sense policies and responsible leaderships.
00:03:32The chair will now recognize my good friend and ranking member, the gentleman from Florida,
00:03:37Representative Moskowitz, for any statements he may have.
00:03:41Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:03:43Good afternoon, and thank you to the witnesses for testifying at today's hearing,
00:03:47the first Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee hearing for the 119th Congress.
00:03:52First hearing as ranking member, and it is also nice to be here with my friend
00:03:55and colleague, Chairman Mills from Florida.
00:03:58Florida had a good day yesterday with the Gators win.
00:04:03I would like to spend a few minutes focusing on the title of this hearing,
00:04:09Deficient, Enfeebled, and Ineffective.
00:04:12If I didn't know any better, I thought we would be talking about Trump's tariffs
00:04:15that were just put in place.
00:04:17In fact, if you listen to Elon Musk talking about the architect of the Trump tariff,
00:04:23the mastermind, Peter Navarro, Elon calls him a moron.
00:04:27He calls him dumber than a sack of bricks, and then Elon apologizes to the sack of bricks
00:04:31because he thought he offended the sack of bricks by comparing them to Peter Navarro.
00:04:36You know, I was looking forward to a meaningful discussion
00:04:39of our current foreign policy discussion, but the trend continues in this Congress.
00:04:44We don't want to do any oversight of the current administration or examination or discussion,
00:04:49even though that is kind of the point of this subcommittee, but instead,
00:04:53we're focused on looking backwards, Biden-era policies.
00:04:57So, we're going to talk about DEI.
00:04:58Newsflash to my colleagues across the aisle, you won, we lost.
00:05:04This was one of the issues on the ballot.
00:05:05There's an EO has been signed, DEI has ended, but yet, we're still going to look backwards.
00:05:11Oddly enough, there were some of the programs and objectives that you rolled back
00:05:17that you also had in place during the first Trump administration
00:05:20that promoted diversity and inclusion.
00:05:24You know, there's this movie Spaceballs.
00:05:27I'm a big fan of this movie Spaceballs.
00:05:29There's a scene when Colonel Sanders and Dark Helmet are talking,
00:05:32and Colonel Sanders says to Dark Helmet, he says, you're looking at now, sir.
00:05:37Everything that is happening now is happening now.
00:05:40And Dark Helmet says, what happened to then?
00:05:43We passed it.
00:05:44When? Just now.
00:05:46We're at now now.
00:05:47This is the present, okay, and not a single one of my colleagues want to talk about now.
00:05:54They want to talk about then.
00:05:56They want to talk about the past, okay.
00:05:59What I want to know is when will then be now?
00:06:02Soon, perhaps?
00:06:05Our witness today, Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, has experience on the ground
00:06:09in some of the most sensitive regions of national interest and extensive involvement
00:06:15in our national security apparatus.
00:06:16I want to welcome her and the other witnesses here today.
00:06:19The ambassador, after her term to Malta, served as the Chief Diversity
00:06:23and Inclusion Officer at the State Department, and I'm sure she'll be able
00:06:27to provide more detailed insight into the programs
00:06:30that the Trump administration has begun dismantling.
00:06:33You know, one of the things I want to talk about and end with here in my opener, Mr. Chairman,
00:06:38is that it is a bipartisan objective, Democrats and Republicans,
00:06:43to talk about what's happening with China.
00:06:45We had a China Select Committee.
00:06:47That was very bipartisan, but my colleagues seem to be undermining that effort
00:06:53because of what the freezing that has gone on with foreign aid.
00:06:58Anyone who, any member who has traveled around the world and met with world leaders,
00:07:03met with ambassadors, knows every time the United States removes a dollar from foreign aid,
00:07:10every time we withdraw and create a vacuum, China is coming in and has developed
00:07:16and making more friends, the United States having more leverage, having more influence.
00:07:21We want to fight belt and road, well, we can't withdraw, we can't isolate.
00:07:26And what's been going on within the State Department, what's been going
00:07:31on within the administration is absolutely against what we're trying to accomplish on China.
00:07:37These tariffs that the President is putting in place on China, well, the other piece to that is
00:07:43to isolate China from the rest of the world at the same time, but we're not.
00:07:47We're fueling other countries to turn to China, to run to China as we withdraw our foreign aid.
00:07:54America first can't be America alone, and that's where we're headed
00:08:01with the current policies of the administration.
00:08:03With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
00:08:07Thank you, Ranking Member.
00:08:10Like yourself, I was also a bit confused whenever we talked about deficient
00:08:14and feebled and effective, I thought we were talking
00:08:16about Biden's entire administration over the last four years.
00:08:19But I'll also remind our Ranking Member that in order to understand the mistakes that was made
00:08:25in the past, we have to resurface and rehash these issues so that we can prevent them
00:08:30from occurring in the future, not just continue to make the same mistakes over and over
00:08:33because we didn't learn from them.
00:08:36Other members of the committee are reminded
00:08:38that opening statements may be submitted for the record.
00:08:41We're pleased to have our distinguished panel of witnesses before us today
00:08:45on this very important topic.
00:08:47Mr. Simon Hankinson, I apologize if I mess up anyone's name,
00:08:51is a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
00:08:55Mr. Hankinson has served as a Foreign Service Officer in the State Department
00:08:58for over 20 years, and thank you for your service.
00:09:01Mr. James Rogers serves as a Senior Counsel for the America First Legal.
00:09:07Prior to joining America First Legal, Mr. Rogers was Senior Litigation Counsel
00:09:10at the Solicitor General's Office of the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
00:09:14Mr. Rogers also serves as a Foreign Service Officer in the State Department for six years.
00:09:19Thank you so much for being here.
00:09:21Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley served as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer
00:09:28for the Department of State under the Biden Administration.
00:09:32This chair, this committee recognizes the importance of the issues before us
00:09:37and is grateful to have you here to speak with us today.
00:09:40Your full statements will be made part of the record, and I'll ask each of you
00:09:43to keep your spoken remarks to five minutes in order
00:09:46to allow members time for the questions.
00:09:48I now recognize Mr. Hankinson for his opening statement.
00:09:54Thank you, Chairman Mills, Ranking Member Moskowitz, members of the committee.
00:09:58The views I express in this testimony are my own.
00:10:01My only prayer for the future of diversity and inclusion is that we invest in
00:10:04and nurture talent no matter what they look like.
00:10:07That was actually Snow White actress Rachel Zegler, and it's one thing I agree with her on.
00:10:11Diversity is great when it comes from fair competition and individual choice.
00:10:15Equity should mean equal opportunity and equal treatment.
00:10:18Inclusion is good when it's possible, but in life, variables beyond the control
00:10:23of organizations result in disparate outcomes.
00:10:26Critical race theory says disparate outcomes are caused by unseen forces
00:10:29like structural bias or systemic racism.
00:10:32And for proponents of this theory, equity means ensuring equal outcomes,
00:10:36so they rig the system to achieve it under labels like DEI.
00:10:40But professions and skilled trades need standards.
00:10:43When I go to the doctor, I want one who got A's in biology.
00:10:46I want them to have aced the MCAT and gone to a rigorous medical school.
00:10:50When I get on a plane, I want pilots who were selected because they're good at math,
00:10:53spatial reasoning, and keeping calm in a crisis.
00:10:56When I call 911, I want them to send a police officer who knows the law
00:10:59and can catch a criminal or a fireman who can lift an average person.
00:11:03There are two ways to get diversity in selective professions.
00:11:12You can educate everyone to a high standard and let them compete, or you can discriminate
00:11:15to get the sex and race percentages you want.
00:11:18And in trying to make the U.S. Foreign Service look like America,
00:11:20the State Department chose discrimination.
00:11:22If you want the analysis, the data, the charts, I've written several long reports
00:11:26which are available online, but there's no systemic evidence of bias
00:11:30at the State Department against favored minorities.
00:11:32The sad truth is that the American education system is failing to deliver a pipeline
00:11:36of potential recruits that is as racially diverse as our country.
00:11:39Only 30% of eighth grade students in the U.S. are proficient readers.
00:11:44In 2023, not a single child tested proficient in math
00:11:47across 67 schools in the state of Illinois.
00:11:51In 2020, the Smithsonian Museum wanted us to believe that hard work is the key to success
00:11:55and work before you play were aspects of white culture.
00:12:00That would have surprised my friend Titusi in Fiji, a successful builder,
00:12:03and it would have been news to my friend Kojo in Togo who gets
00:12:06up at dawn every day to run his coffee farm.
00:12:09I've lived 10 years in Africa, 4 in Asia, and 20 in Europe.
00:12:12The values that make people succeed are the same the world over.
00:12:15The reason our schools fail is because we let them.
00:12:18Economist Roland Fryer's research on charter schools showed that success is not
00:12:21about teacher pay or iPads or class sizes.
00:12:24It's teacher feedback, data to guide instruction, tutoring, increased instructional time
00:12:29and high expectations, so with strong families, homework, discipline, no phones in the class,
00:12:33and high expectations, we could fix our schools.
00:12:36That would increase the talent pool.
00:12:37That would allow diversity to occur naturally in competitive fields.
00:12:40But instead, the State Department, like so many other institutions,
00:12:43has decided to achieve its diversity goals by lowering standards.
00:12:47And meanwhile, in our foreign policy, rather than following its own joint strategic plan
00:12:51and concentrating on the values at the heart of the American way of life,
00:12:54the department has pursued a leftist agenda.
00:12:57The Biden State Department's equity action plan contained the word equity 113 times,
00:13:02but equality appeared only seven times.
00:13:04Under former Secretary Blinken, the State Department offered grants to promote transgenderism
00:13:09in India, drag performances in Ecuador, LGBTQIA plus awareness in Botswana,
00:13:15a gender and sexuality library in Lebanon, and DEI training for police in Latin America.
00:13:20Blinken's U.S. aid promoted gender affirming medical care,
00:13:23although other developed countries have banned it from minors.
00:13:26They conflated conversion therapy with any effort to help young people accept reality.
00:13:30And at the United Nations, U.S. diplomats fought to replace sex with sexual orientation
00:13:36and gender identity, and women with women in all their diversity, which is code
00:13:40for allowing men to self-identify into women's spaces and compete against women in sports.
00:13:46Woke ideology is dug in.
00:13:48Consultants are making millions writing and advising about it.
00:13:50Institutions will resist or rebrand.
00:13:53At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, they kept their DEI chief, but renamed her
00:13:56from Chief Inclusion Officer to Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.
00:14:02At California Institute of Technology, they promoted their Assistant Vice President
00:14:06for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Assessment to Associate Vice President
00:14:10for Campus Climate Engagement and Success.
00:14:13New titles, same old jobs.
00:14:15Discrimination is discrimination, whether you call it affirmative action or DEIA or belonging
00:14:20or engagement or success or excellence.
00:14:23Hiring people because of how they look and not what they do is wrong, and it's also illegal.
00:14:28The State Department's guiding principles at home must be equal opportunity, fair treatment,
00:14:32high expectations, and accountability.
00:14:35And in foreign policy, the focus must be on enduring American values.
00:14:39Thank you for inviting me today, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
00:14:42Thank you so much, Mr. Hankinson.
00:14:44At this point in time, we'd like to recognize Mr. Rogers for his opening statement.
00:14:49Chairman Mills, Ranking Member Moskowitz, and members of the subcommittee,
00:14:54thank you for the invitation to testify.
00:14:56I'll be summarizing my written testimony.
00:14:58First, to acknowledge the positive, my testimony is about the Department
00:15:00of State's failures under prior secretaries.
00:15:02Things have already markedly improved under Secretary Rubio,
00:15:05and I'm confident the problems I outline can and will be addressed under his leadership.
00:15:08I served as a State Department Foreign Service Officer for six years.
00:15:11My experience during President Trump's first term showed
00:15:13that the department has an entrenched culture focused on opposing him
00:15:16and punishing anyone who exposes this.
00:15:18Shortly before my consular tour in Brazil in 2017,
00:15:21President Trump rescinded Obama-era requirements focused on fast visa interview speeds.
00:15:25Instead, he ordered the department to focus on thoroughly vetting visa applicants.
00:15:29However, the Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs for Brazil, Doug Conniff,
00:15:32ignored these orders and imposed an even more aggressive standard
00:15:35than what President Trump had required, had rescinded.
00:15:38My direct supervisors, Consular Chief David Franz and Deputy Chief Kelly Copps,
00:15:41who also directly disobeyed department directives about slowing
00:15:44down the interview process to give officers enough time to vet applicants.
00:15:47I blew the whistle about this.
00:15:49The department investigated and confirmed I was right.
00:15:51Soon after, apparently in retaliation, Franz filled my employee evaluation
00:15:55with false negative statements that led the department
00:15:58to deny me job tenure and schedule me for separation.
00:16:01While preparing a grievance against this, I discovered the same problems were happening worldwide
00:16:05and that more thorough visa interviewing would likely decrease visa overstay rates by 50 to 75%.
00:16:11This means that out of the 1.8 million visa overstays during President Trump's first term,
00:16:15malfeasance likely caused 900,000 to 1.4 million of them.
00:16:19To put that in perspective, 10 U.S. states have populations of less than 1.4 million.
00:16:23Thus, consular managers, subverting President Trump's policies,
00:16:26managed to add an entire state population's worth of illegal aliens in just four years.
00:16:31The department's office, the Inspector General, ignored my complaint about this.
00:16:34The Office of Special Counsel also rejected my complaint,
00:16:36incorrectly claiming that it was second-hand information.
00:16:39Yet at the same time, the intelligence community's IG was investigating second-hand allegations
00:16:44from Alexander Vindman that formed the sole basis for the impeachment of President Trump.
00:16:47I also submitted a complaint to the OSC for whistleblower retaliation,
00:16:51but seven months later, when my grievance was nearing resolution,
00:16:54the attorney assigned to investigate my case had never even started investigating.
00:16:57Eventually, I won my grievance, but the department made the process as painful and drawn
00:17:00out as possible and hobbled my career in ways I would never recover from.
00:17:03It became clear I had no future there, so I left.
00:17:06This experience shows that first, department employees believe they can disobey the president's
00:17:10lawful orders, and they often get away with it.
00:17:12Second, the mechanisms designed to stop wrongdoing and protect whistleblowers do not work.
00:17:16In my current role as Senior Counsel at America First Legal, we've discovered more problems.
00:17:20The department started assigning diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility scores
00:17:24to employees in 2022 and using them to make tenure and promotion decisions.
00:17:28Anecdotal evidence suggests these scores were used not just as an Orwellian way
00:17:31of enforcing ideological conformity, but also as a pretext
00:17:34for discriminating against white males.
00:17:36One department employee was reprimanded by his supervisor and penalized in his DEIA score
00:17:41because he declined to volunteer his free time to help
00:17:43at an LGBT pride festival outside of work hours.
00:17:46But the DEIA hysteria did not stop there.
00:17:48When he applied for onward assignments, he was almost always required
00:17:50to describe his efforts to promote DEIA.
00:17:53Only the two posts that did not seek this information accepted his application
00:17:56for an onward assignment.
00:17:57Thankfully, the new administration has eliminated these DEIA scores.
00:18:02However, the bureaucracy continues to discriminate against employees in other ways.
00:18:05For example, a diplomatic security special agent has been the target
00:18:08of a nearly five-year-long witch hunt because he posted traditional Christian symbols
00:18:13and prayers to his personal social media.
00:18:15Department officials reacted to these innocuous posts with baseless allegations
00:18:18that he was a white nationalist and a right-wing Christian associated with violent extremism.
00:18:22This agent has been selected for promotion three times over the last five years,
00:18:25but the department refuses to promote him because of the pending investigation.
00:18:29This sort of pretextual attack driven by ideological extremists
00:18:32within the department must stop.
00:18:33Those involved in this weaponization of government must be held accountable.
00:18:37These specific cases are emblematic of a more widespread problem in the department's culture
00:18:40that festered during the Biden years.
00:18:42Through Freedom of Information Act requests, AFL has uncovered diplomatic cables
00:18:47that detail the extreme ideological bias in Blinken-era department programs that sought
00:18:50to indoctrinate citizens of other countries into supporting divisive left-wing causes.
00:18:56These Biden-era DEIA programs spread unwanted divisive leftist ideology
00:19:00to foreigners, driving resentment against our country,
00:19:03making it harder to achieve legitimate foreign policy goals
00:19:05that actually would improve Americans' lives.
00:19:08President Trump's order removing DEIA from the government is already having a positive effect.
00:19:12However, the department should also retroactively reevaluate everyone denied promotions
00:19:16from 2022 to 2025 without using DEIA scores and then give promotions
00:19:20with back pay to those found worthy.
00:19:22More generally, because there appears to be a persistent pattern of bias in tenure
00:19:25and promotion decisions, employee evaluation should exclude anything
00:19:28that might allow a reader to infer an employee's race, sex,
00:19:31religion, or other protected characteristics.
00:19:33Additionally, to better protect whistleblowers, there must be reforms
00:19:36to the department's grievance system and how IGs and the OSC handle complaints,
00:19:40which I've detailed in my written testimony.
00:19:41Thank you, and I welcome any questions from the subcommittee.
00:19:45Thank you, Mr. Rogers.
00:19:46I now recognize Ambassador Emma Crombie with Stanley for her opening statement.
00:19:53Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:19:55Mr. Ranking Member, members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for the opportunity
00:20:00to join you here today to address some of the misconceptions around diversity, equity,
00:20:04inclusion, and accessibility as characterized in the title of this hearing.
00:20:10I come from a family of proud public servants.
00:20:13I have three siblings, an older brother who served in the Army, a younger one
00:20:17who is a submariner veteran, and a sister who is a retired Navy captain.
00:20:23But I'm the only one who faced a terrorist attack while serving her country in the Middle East.
00:20:28During 30-plus years of assignments in the State Department, I stepped up to challenges
00:20:33in Cairo, Jakarta, Baghdad, and the Gaza Strip.
00:20:36Because of the stellar record and more, I was selected as the first woman
00:20:40to lead a diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia.
00:20:44America got to show her best leaders come from all backgrounds.
00:20:49So when called on to go to the one of the most conservative nations in the world
00:20:53as a working mom with a young family, I was honored to go.
00:20:57And when terrorist threats required my family's evacuation
00:21:01and separated us for 18 months, I stayed.
00:21:07My presence conveyed a powerful testimony about the rights, capabilities,
00:21:12and patriotism of women without uttering a word.
00:21:15Even so, the most challenging assignment that I took on in my 30-plus year career was
00:21:21to support my colleagues, all of them, as Chief Diversity
00:21:24and Inclusion Officer for the Department, CDIO.
00:21:29Why do the hard and too often misunderstood work
00:21:31to ensure America's representatives represent the breadth and complexity of our nation?
00:21:38Well, as Secretary Rubio said at my first hearing as CDIO,
00:21:42not only is our nation's diversity our strength,
00:21:45but if our workforce doesn't reflect our population, then it merits inquiry.
00:21:50So three reasons.
00:21:52We aim to create a system that ensures the very best rise to the top.
00:21:56There's no difference in this administration's stated goal of a merit-based society
00:22:01and the goals of the DEIA effort that I oversaw at the State Department.
00:22:07And we worked to address behavior that too often led to EEO complaints.
00:22:12Two, we wanted to save taxpayer money.
00:22:15It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to train and ship
00:22:19around the world highly talented and highly trained representatives.
00:22:24When talent leaves early and takes those skills with them, America loses.
00:22:28The department has lost valuable talent, perhaps like the gentleman next to me,
00:22:33because they lost faith in the system.
00:22:36And three, we have to walk the talk.
00:22:39In order to remain a great power, America's word must be trusted.
00:22:45We've told the world we believe in a level playing field
00:22:48and our history of service and achievement from Nobel Prize winner Ralph Bunch,
00:22:53the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Breakers,
00:22:56and Dr. Summer Attar show the world what we are capable of.
00:23:00And don't forget, the DEIA unit got its start under President Trump,
00:23:05and I thank him for that.
00:23:07But President Biden understood that we needed a larger effort
00:23:10to tackle well-embedded cronyism.
00:23:13Common sense tells us to deal successfully with the world's issues.
00:23:17It's not enough to tap a few viewpoints, a few backgrounds, a few experiences.
00:23:22We need diplomats who can connect and engage with the range of humanity.
00:23:27Foreign service officers advocate for America's priorities at community centers.
00:23:32Government buildings, yes, but factories,
00:23:34remote border crossings, and farms in town squares.
00:23:38And let me be clear, every change we made, every effort we undertook,
00:23:43every data point we gathered was cleared by our lawyers.
00:23:49The Department of State has some of the finest
00:23:51and most conservative lawyers in the government.
00:23:54And I can confidently say that we followed the law and the intent of Congress.
00:24:00There were no so-called DEIA hires, and anyone who says otherwise is misinformed.
00:24:08Our focus was to dismantle cronyism, bring transparency, and build trust.
00:24:14So let me talk about a few of the programs that we started.
00:24:18Our method of assigning most diplomats is to have a bid list
00:24:21where everybody can see what assignments are open, but in a key position,
00:24:26the deputy assistant secretary position was more secretive.
00:24:30Those positions weren't advertised or competed.
00:24:33You had to be known to the assistant secretary or someone in the assistant secretary circle.
00:24:38You had to have the right connections, be in the in crowd.
00:24:42And because of this opacity, only certain people even knew
00:24:45that the position was open and available.
00:24:48This cronyism was far from meritocracy.
00:24:51And the Office of Diversity and Inclusion led the efforts to ensure that these positions,
00:24:56like others, were advertised and openly competed.
00:24:59Is this something that the American people would want to see turned back, this transparency?
00:25:05And I can tell you the first recipient of that DAS position under this new system was a white male.
00:25:11He wasn't the only one, but he was the first one, because inclusion means everyone.
00:25:17Another priority was to bring transparency and fairness to the assignments at a lower level.
00:25:22We brought strong business practices to improve our selection processes.
00:25:27We brought in standardized questions and panel interviews,
00:25:30something that business has been using for years, but the Department of State had not.
00:25:35And one of my favorite changes was modeled on the U.S. military culture,
00:25:41something I heard from my siblings all the time, we've got your back.
00:25:46My office worked with key stakeholders in the building and our embassies abroad
00:25:50and host governments to put a stop to widespread harassment and discriminatory treatment
00:25:56to some of our diplomats from various agencies at embassies overseas.
00:26:01Many reported being stopped, questioned, detained, even harassed by government officials
00:26:06in a way that would be illegal in the United States.
00:26:10Sometimes the diplomats-
00:26:11Madam Ambassador, your time is up.
00:26:14All right, you see I'm excited about these programs.
00:26:16I am as well.
00:26:18Well, thank you, Madam Ambassador.
00:26:20I now recognize myself for five minutes.
00:26:24You know, I want to go over a couple of things that you just made mention of.
00:26:26You talked about inclusivity means everyone.
00:26:30Can you tell me how doing an actual event which is only tailored towards a certain gender
00:26:36or a certain sexual preference or a certain racial biases in some way inclusive of all,
00:26:42as opposed to just saying that everyone is welcome?
00:26:46Mr. Chairman, when you say doing a certain event, are you talking about-
00:26:49Let's just say, for example, an LGBTI, LGBTQI event.
00:26:54Do you think that's inclusive of every individual that they would feel
00:26:57that that's something that they want to partake in?
00:27:01So, I believe that it is a learning experience for people who don't belong to that group.
00:27:08That's why-
00:27:09But again, I'm asking, it's not about learning.
00:27:11We do that a lot.
00:27:12So, I work in the Foreign Service as well, and I know for a fact that we learn about cultures.
00:27:17We learn about regions.
00:27:18We learn about the idea of not just cultural exchanges,
00:27:20but also what are some of the actual norms that you can actually learn about
00:27:24that allows you to be a better diplomat so that you can engage with them.
00:27:27Because sometimes people are a little more vague and ambiguous in how they say things,
00:27:31but it's a cultural issue, not that they're trying to evade the question.
00:27:33So, I understand that portion of it, but what we're talking about is inclusivity means everyone.
00:27:40Yes.
00:27:41So, when you section off particular groups, do you think that that is inclusive?
00:27:48When you're trying to tailor money to only go towards those particular groups for particular events?
00:27:53The point is to bring in underrepresented groups.
00:27:57That is why, and we have the statistics.
00:28:00GAO's done reports for many years that show we have underrepresented groups in the Department of State.
00:28:07Therefore, while we hire for merit only, we do have to recruit in a more focused fashion for different groups.
00:28:16Don't you believe, though, that meritocracy should be the only merit in which you're actually judged upon
00:28:23or that you're graded upon?
00:28:24It shouldn't matter.
00:28:25Any other factor other than who is the very best at being able to do a job.
00:28:30And I don't think that having served in the United States military for a number of years,
00:28:35I don't think once did I look to my left and right and say,
00:28:38gosh, I sure hope that he knows his pronouns.
00:28:41Gosh, I sure hope that he has this background and culture.
00:28:45Gosh, no, I said, I hope that he's the absolute best warfighter that we have who's standing to my left and right.
00:28:53And it's the only thing that I cared about as I fought with a gentleman who is from Cambodia, who lived in L.A.,
00:28:59a man from Brooklyn, a man from Lombard, Illinois, all of which, the color of their skin didn't matter.
00:29:08We all wore green.
00:29:10And that actually matters more so than any other diversity, equity, inclusion, which has been nothing but a divisive tool.
00:29:17But I will ask this.
00:29:20Can you please outline how much money did the department allocate to fund the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion every fiscal year?
00:29:29Every fiscal year.
00:29:30At the beginning, my first year, our budget was about two point two million dollars.
00:29:37By the time I left, it had grown to about seven million dollars.
00:29:42And these figures are you probably have access to them already, of course.
00:29:47There were other programs throughout the building that might have fallen under the rubric of what the Department of State always use, which is recruit for diversity.
00:30:00But we hire for merit.
00:30:03There were no DEIA hires.
00:30:05Explain to me, how did this funding advanced American interests overseas, how did this funding support the actual toppling of the Iranian regime who was brutally murdering and torturing people like Massa Amini?
00:30:19How did this diversity, equity, inclusion prevent the Houthis from increasing attacks that disrupted 12 percent of global trade?
00:30:27The unfreezing of assets that led to a continuation of proxy funding.
00:30:32How did DEI and the office within the State Department help our overseas security and national security interests?
00:30:38Sure, if I may, please.
00:30:40As I mentioned in my remarks and as we all know from the 1960s, our reputation matters.
00:30:48That's how we build allies.
00:30:50That's how we build support and trust matters.
00:30:52Right. I beg your pardon.
00:30:53Trust. Our allies must trust that we're going to be there, but that we are going just like Biden showed trust when he withdrew us from Afghanistan,
00:31:00abandoning so many of our SIV and others who fought alongside us for 20 plus years for political reasonings.
00:31:10I believe that was a great harm, and I understand that that harm is continuing even now with the SIVs, that they are not able to come to the United States now, which is not good.
00:31:24But if I may answer the question that you asked, our reputation of being a country where merit counts, where if you work hard, you can achieve.
00:31:39And that means all of us going and showing the world that all of us are able to benefit from our hard work is important.
00:31:49It does help our foreign policy.
00:31:51Well, I agree that hard work matters, especially as a person who grew up in a broken home where my dad spent 32 years in prison.
00:31:57My mom spent seven and a half years in prison.
00:31:59It was riddled with drug addiction and other substance abuses.
00:32:02Hard work is what matters.
00:32:04Hard work is what got me here and why our socioeconomic background shouldn't define us as individuals.
00:32:09And we shouldn't like divisively try and identify people by anything other than the best and the hardest working.
00:32:16With that, I'd like to now recognize my ranking member, Mr.
00:32:19Moskowitz, for five minutes.
00:32:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:32:24I'm actually going to go to Madeline Dean for questions, if that's OK.
00:32:28Recognizing the gentlelady, Madeline Dean.
00:32:31Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:32:32Thank you, ranking member.
00:32:33Thank you to all of you for coming to testify today before this Subcommittee on Oversight Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:32:43I'm touched by your comments there, your personal comments.
00:32:48I don't know if you know this, but a passion of mine is dealing with learning more about addiction.
00:32:54I have a son in recovery from opioid addiction, 12 and a half years.
00:32:59But we know too many people who don't have that kind of outcome.
00:33:03So I'd like to work with you on that.
00:33:07I'm going to start with some words.
00:33:08Pete Buttigieg once explained DEI as a set of opposites.
00:33:14The opposite of diversity is uniformity, he said.
00:33:17The opposite of equity is inequity.
00:33:20The opposite of inclusion is exclusion.
00:33:23The values and principles of our country are not uniformity, inequity and exclusion.
00:33:31That's not the America I know, nor is it the America I will ever fight for.
00:33:37Mr. Chair, is the committee aware of who is president of the United States today?
00:33:43Donald J. Trump.
00:33:45It's not Joseph R. Biden.
00:33:47This backward look on a topic of DEI is such a misuse of our time.
00:33:54It's a misuse of your time.
00:33:56The role of this Foreign Affairs Committee in oversight is important.
00:34:00Yet Republicans have decided that relitigating the Biden administration is a better use of our time.
00:34:08I disagree.
00:34:09Because oversight is important, there are plenty of actions by the current administration that warrant oversight.
00:34:16Here are just three examples.
00:34:19The illegal shuttering of USAID and the subsequent spread of disease, death, and starvation of children deserves our oversight and our attention.
00:34:31Two, the National Security Adviser's irresponsible and likely criminal use of Signal, and apparently many, many times, as well as Gmail,
00:34:43recklessly compromising our own national security and a military operation, as well as intelligence officers and military personnel.
00:34:54Boy, that deserves Congressional Foreign Affairs.
00:34:58Boy, that deserves Congressional Foreign Affairs oversight.
00:35:04Number three, the incompetent and incoherent use of massive tariffs, even on our allies, especially on our allies, deserves Congressional oversight.
00:35:17It is the largest tax hike on Americans in peacetime since World War II.
00:35:26We should be taking a look at the loss of $11 trillion in 11 weeks by this president who inherited an economy that was the envy of our allies.
00:35:35And while this president weaponizes tariffs against our allies, they continue to show respect to our country that the president does not show respect for theirs.
00:35:49Lithuanian leaders, think of this, you saw this, it was so moving.
00:35:54Lithuanian leaders and citizens gathered to give our four fallen American soldiers a dignified and honorable farewell as they sent them here to the United States.
00:36:04But where was the commander in chief?
00:36:06He canceled his attendance at the dignified transfer of the bodies of four American soldiers who tragically died in Lithuania.
00:36:16Well, after all, he had a couple of golf games to go to, a million dollar a plate fundraiser for a pack that supports him.
00:36:25And I guess a few tchotchkes, Trump tchotchkes to sell along the way.
00:36:30Don't attend the return of our fallen heroes.
00:36:34Who exactly was he raising the money for?
00:36:36I'm not really sure.
00:36:38Certainly not the American people who are suffering massive losses in their retirement, in their attempt to save money for their kids' education, in their attempt to pay for everyday goods.
00:36:50But here we are talking about DEI under the Biden administration.
00:36:54Are you kidding me?
00:36:55This is a farce.
00:36:57I apologize that you are here for this farce.
00:36:59You should not be.
00:37:01As qualified as you are, this is not what you should be talking about with us.
00:37:06I regret the waste of your time, the circus that this is.
00:37:11As you might imagine, I am utterly outraged.
00:37:15Today's hearing is unserious and unworthy of this committee.
00:37:19It reflects poorly on those in this room who decided to convene it.
00:37:24And I want to be sure that is on the record.
00:37:27Mr. Chairman, I yield back with a simple question.
00:37:30Who is the president of the United States?
00:37:32Well, I think it's very obvious that the American people unanimously decided to elect President Donald J. Trump.
00:37:37But I will remind the gentlelady from Pennsylvania that all last Congress in the 118th, all I heard about was the Trump derangement syndrome of Trump, Trump, Trump.
00:37:48But yet you want to talk about the four bodies.
00:37:50Let's talk about when Joe Biden was checking his watch while they were offloading what was his responsibility and his failure on August 26, 2021, when we lost 13.
00:38:03Ninety six members have been returned.
00:38:05Donald Trump was there for four.
00:38:07Ms. Dean, your time is over.
00:38:09To enter some documents in the record.
00:38:11Without objection.
00:38:12Let me just tell you what they are.
00:38:14I'll enter into the record.
00:38:16F.Y. 22 and D.A.A., which had bipartisan support, including Secretary Rubio, who was an original co-sponsor that explicitly endorsed promotion of D.E.I.
00:38:27Number two. Oh, the secretary said a quote.
00:38:31The secretary shall implement performance and advancement requirements that reward and recognize the efforts of individual in senior positions and supervisors in the department in fostering an inclusive environment and cultivating talent.
00:38:43Consistent with the merit system principles, such as such participation in mentoring programs or support sponsorship and initiatives, recruitment events and other similar opportunities.
00:38:55I'll also note for the record the bipartisan statement from Representatives McCall and Meeks in twenty twenty one,
00:39:02applauding the NDA's focus on strengthening management operations of the Defense Department of State by recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce.
00:39:13I'd also like to enter into the record two articles from The Atlantic that I'm sure everyone here is familiar with regarding the National Security Advisors use of signal.
00:39:24They are by Jeffrey Goldberg.
00:39:26Number one is Trump administration accidentally texted me war plans for the record.
00:39:32Number two, here are the attack plans that Trump advisers shared on signal.
00:39:37And the final Nick Kristoff, New York Times, talking about exactly the cost of shuttering USAID, the millions around this world who will lose their lives.
00:39:49With that, I yield back.
00:39:51I appreciate it, Miss Steen, but I will just go ahead and say while you were mentioning Senator Rubio,
00:39:57now Secretary Rubio, while you're mentioning Chairman McCall, no longer chairman of the Foreign Affairs and ranking member Meeks,
00:40:02I'll ask a question that you asked me to make it easier.
00:40:04Who is the president of the United States right now?
00:40:07Donald Trump.
00:40:07At the directive of President Trump, D.I. is something that we will be eliminating, but we will enter your documents, a director.
00:40:13And I genuinely look forward to working with you on things like substance abuse and addiction issues.
00:40:19That's something that is not studied enough, as well as for mental health, which is a key thing.
00:40:25And I will point out and recognize a Marine, Carl Castillo, who just took his life last week.
00:40:33We definitely need to do more.
00:40:35And it's not just continuing to issue out more pharmaceutical drugs for our service members.
00:40:40I look forward to working with you on that.
00:40:42Likewise.
00:40:42Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:40:43With that, I'd like to recognize at this time the gentleman from Illinois, Representative Schneider, for five minutes.
00:40:51Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:40:53And I want to associate myself with the words of my colleague from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean.
00:41:01The world's on fire.
00:41:03Russia is consolidating gains in Ukraine.
00:41:06China is testing red lines in the Pacific.
00:41:08Iran proxies are active across the Middle East.
00:41:11And now, just yesterday, the Trump administration announced it has opened direct talks with Iran.
00:41:17That's a major development, one with implications for
00:41:19the regional stability, for nuclear proliferation, and for U.S. deterrence.
00:41:25This subcommittee, focused on oversight and intelligence, is precisely the place we should
00:41:32be asking about these issues and asking tough questions.
00:41:36What are the administration's objectives?
00:41:38What is the intelligence shaping this approach?
00:41:41What are the risks?
00:41:42What are our allies being told, and how are they supporting us or challenging us?
00:41:48But we're not doing that today.
00:41:51In his opening remarks, the chair appeared to claim that it was DEI policies that was
00:41:57responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Hamas's invasion of Israel, China's actions
00:42:03in the Indo-Pacific.
00:42:06I don't think he believes that, but that's what this hearing seems to imply.
00:42:11I'll use my military language.
00:42:15I won't.
00:42:16I'm going to say we shouldn't be doing this.
00:42:20I was going to.
00:42:21Yep.
00:42:22So we're holding a hearing instead to relegate the past administration's diversity initiatives
00:42:28at the State Department while Tehran and Moscow coordinate, and Beijing expands its influence.
00:42:36What are we doing?
00:42:37We're attacking internal HR policies, attacking them with some absurd, I have to say, absurd
00:42:43arguments, gentlemen.
00:42:45This is not serious foreign policy oversight.
00:42:48It's a political sideshow, and it's a profound abdication of the responsibility we hold in
00:42:53this committee as members of Congress.
00:42:55To be clear, I don't defend every initiative of the previous administration.
00:42:59I didn't then.
00:43:00I don't now.
00:43:01I raise concerns publicly and privately.
00:43:04But at least their efforts to broaden recruitment and strengthen retention at the State Department
00:43:09were aimed at building institutional capacity, strengthening America's capacity to perform
00:43:16diplomacy and development around the world, making our country more safe and more secure.
00:43:22That's more than I can say for what we are doing today.
00:43:25This hearing has nothing to do with confronting our adversaries.
00:43:27It has nothing to do with securing American leadership in a dangerous world.
00:43:31It has everything to do with scoring short-term political points and earning the favor of
00:43:37the gentleman at 1600 Pennsylvania.
00:43:40At a time when our credibility, our alliances, and our deterrence posture are on the line,
00:43:45we should be focused on the hard work of oversight, asking hard, challenging questions, reviewing
00:43:51classified assessments, holding this administration accountable for the real decisions like was
00:43:56made or at least announced yesterday.
00:43:59Instead, this committee is looking inward, picking fights with civil servants, and dangerously
00:44:04wasting the moment.
00:44:06This isn't leadership.
00:44:08This is abdication.
00:44:09I want to pick up on something else that my colleague said.
00:44:12She quoted former Secretary Buttigieg, diversity is uniformity.
00:44:17And I'm going to argue that uniformity is a threat to what we are or who we are trying
00:44:21to be as a nation and our diplomacy.
00:44:25And I'll ask any of the two gentlemen – I'll read a quote and see if you share a concern
00:44:31I have about this.
00:44:32The quote is, quote, the Department of State specialists on Near East were almost without
00:44:36exception unfriendly to the idea of a Jewish state.
00:44:39Some thought the Arabs, on account of their number and because of the fact that they controlled
00:44:43such immense oil resources, should be appeased.
00:44:46Some among them were also inclined to be anti-Semitic.
00:44:50I want to make plain that the President of the United States and not the State Department
00:44:55is responsible for making foreign policy.
00:44:57Do you agree with that, Mr. Harkinson?
00:45:01Absolutely, the President of the United States is in charge of foreign policy.
00:45:05Mr. Rogers?
00:45:06Yes, I agree that the President is in charge of foreign policy.
00:45:12Ambassador, do you know who said that, by any chance?
00:45:15It's a trick question.
00:45:17I think I do know who said it, but I'll say no.
00:45:20It was President Truman.
00:45:24President Truman was talking about the Arabists and the State Department because at that time
00:45:28we had uniformity in our State Department.
00:45:33Uniformity in thinking, uniformity of experience, oftentimes uniformity in education.
00:45:38The reason we promote diversity in our diplomatic corps, from the most senior ambassadors to
00:45:45the most junior foreign officers, is because we need their experience, we need their perspective.
00:45:52And if we go down a path where it's not just merit.
00:45:56Merit counts, it's imperative.
00:45:59But if we only say merit is the only thing, then we end up with a State Department that
00:46:04looked like it did in the 1940s.
00:46:07That's not what we want.
00:46:08We want a State Department that is prepared for the challenges of the 2025s and the century
00:46:14ahead, with a rising China, a threatening Iran, and a threatening Russia.
00:46:20We need these diversity programs to bring in people with a variety of perspectives,
00:46:25a variety of experiences, and a variety of ideas.
00:46:28And so I resent the idea that we should all be thinking alike, or looking alike, or following
00:46:33the same path.
00:46:34We need to challenge each other.
00:46:35Time is over.
00:46:36I yield back.
00:46:37And I do appreciate a lot of your sentiments and a lot of the comments.
00:46:40I agree with you.
00:46:41The President is responsible for foreign policy.
00:46:44And there is no debate on that whatsoever.
00:46:47President Biden's responsible for the increase in Iranian aggression, for the defunding of
00:46:52many of the programs that were working, for Russia's continual focus whenever he wouldn't
00:46:56actually authorize lethal aid.
00:46:57It was President Trump who actually authorized lethal aid for the Ukrainians.
00:47:01It was President Biden who actually delisted the Houthi rebels that's disrupted 12 percent
00:47:04of global trade.
00:47:05Are we extending time for debate?
00:47:07I'm happy to.
00:47:09Because at the end of the day, October 7th in Israel would not have occurred under President
00:47:12Trump because there wouldn't have been $10 billion in unfrozen, fungible assets.
00:47:16Or up, what is it now, 1.7 billion barrels per day?
00:47:21Under President Trump, it was a half million barrels per day when you talk about the illicit
00:47:25oil and ghost ships that are going.
00:47:27And look, I'm happy to have foreign policy discussions.
00:47:30We can go as far back into the Ottoman Empire expansion from Suleiman all the way up to
00:47:352011 when we talk about the Arab Spring and uprisings.
00:47:38I spent 10 plus years.
00:47:40It'd be a little bit long hearing.
00:47:43But I spent over 10 years in the Middle East deployed in multiple locations.
00:47:47Foreign policy I do care about.
00:47:48But what I also care about is the strength of the State Department, the same way I care
00:47:51about the strength of the armed services, which I know you do as well.
00:47:54And when I talk about, and Mr. Hankinson said it correctly, I don't care what my heart surgeon
00:47:59looks like.
00:48:00I care about whether or not he or she is the best at what she does.
00:48:04So when you say that if we only base it on merit, that's a mistake.
00:48:11I disagree.
00:48:12I think having the best and the brightest, regardless of what they look like, is the
00:48:17only thing that should matter.
00:48:19So I appreciate that.
00:48:21There was a time when merit was defined as did you have an Ivy League education.
00:48:25To get that Ivy League education, you had to come from the prep schools of the East
00:48:30Coast.
00:48:32Having the experiences, if I had more time to talk to witnesses, I would ask the ambassador
00:48:36why it's important that we have people who can relate to the experiences and perspectives
00:48:40of the nations we are sending them to represent our nation.
00:48:43And by the way, happy to give a second round of questioning, should you want to ask that.
00:48:47I'm here.
00:48:48At this time, I'd like to acknowledge my good friend, our ranking member, Representative
00:48:53Moskowitz.
00:48:54Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and in fairness to the chairman, he is by himself here.
00:48:58So he is pulling.
00:49:00The good thing is that there was nine of you, it might be a fair fight.
00:49:03He's pulling the duty of his whole committee.
00:49:06So you know, and first let me say, Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your service to the country
00:49:12and your continued commitment to folks in the State Department and going to other countries
00:49:18during times of need.
00:49:19I mean, you have been there.
00:49:22What we're saying, many things we're saying is like, look, we didn't agree with the Biden
00:49:26administration on many things.
00:49:28There were many things that we didn't agree.
00:49:30And we had these hearings already.
00:49:31These DEI hearings were occurring for two years when you guys had the 118th.
00:49:37But at least when we disagreed with the Biden administration, we were like able to say it.
00:49:41You can barely find a Republican who's willing to come out and disagree with the current
00:49:45administration, at least in the House.
00:49:47I mean, a couple senators have come out and talked about the tariffs.
00:49:50I barely can find a Republican to come out and talk about the tariffs.
00:49:54I mean, can you imagine if President Biden did anything that caused the stock market
00:49:59to go down 7,000 points?
00:50:01I mean, they would show like 500 pictures of different basements trying to find out
00:50:05where President Biden is.
00:50:08You know, there is a lot to talk about of what's going on right now, a lot to talk about.
00:50:13Right.
00:50:14And and Republicans should feel OK to to defend those things.
00:50:19If they believe in them, then they should be able to defend it.
00:50:21But there's not a single committee, subcommittee or main committee talking about anything that
00:50:28is going on now.
00:50:29It's all backwards.
00:50:31It's all looking backwards.
00:50:33I mean, you know, the president came in and said, we're going to solve the Ukraine war
00:50:36on day one.
00:50:37That hasn't happened.
00:50:38Right.
00:50:39That we're still going on.
00:50:40In fact, Putin is the one who just turned down a ceasefire.
00:50:43Right.
00:50:44We should be talking.
00:50:45We should be talking about that.
00:50:46We had battle plans, attack plans, whichever adjective verb you want to use leaked on signal.
00:50:53We talk about trust with our allies.
00:50:56I mean, that undermines trust with our allies.
00:50:59We have tariffs.
00:51:01We're tariffing friend and foe alike the whole world.
00:51:06That undermines trust and credibility.
00:51:08And that doesn't mean that there isn't bipartisan support to try to fix supply chain.
00:51:13As someone who was the emergency manager during covid, our supply chain is broken.
00:51:17Democrats and Republicans in the Trump administration and the Biden administration spent eight trillion
00:51:21dollars after covid didn't fix anything in the supply chain.
00:51:25And so, yeah, we do need to figure out how to onshore some of our manufacturing back.
00:51:29But the execution of this is crazy.
00:51:33I mean, that's why you're seeing people within the Trump administration fighting with each
00:51:36other in this Peter Navarro, Elon Musk stuff.
00:51:38You're seeing some of Trump's ardent supporters, billionaires coming out and attacking the
00:51:44administration.
00:51:45Everyone understands we've got to onshore jobs, but to tariff the whole world at the
00:51:49same time to crash the stock market when that was clearly going to be a repercussion.
00:51:55These are things we should be talking about.
00:51:59You know, there was a lot and you know how you know how I like boards, I bring I bring
00:52:03boards sometimes, you know, when President Zelensky came to the White House, right, about
00:52:09with, you know, during for to talk about trying to bring the conflict to an end, we heard
00:52:14a lot about what he was wearing.
00:52:16Oh, my God, the precious Oval Office.
00:52:19He didn't wear a suit.
00:52:20I mean, here's here's a picture of Kid Rock in the Oval Office.
00:52:24He looks like he's about to jump over 10 buses, okay, when he's done on the White House
00:52:29lawn.
00:52:30Okay, so like, give me a little bit of a break.
00:52:33Okay, we can put that down.
00:52:34Now.
00:52:35I think I think I think that picture, that picture solves itself.
00:52:39But you know, what else are we talking about?
00:52:41Right?
00:52:42Oh, Canada, they're gonna be the 51st state.
00:52:44I'd love to hear a hearing on that, right to figure out how many people want to make
00:52:49that happen.
00:52:50By the way, if Canada were become the 51st state, it'd be the last time we had a Republican
00:52:54president to be the last time the Republicans ever controlled the US House of Representatives,
00:52:58because between California and Canada, you'd have a lot more Democrats.
00:53:03We heard that we're all going to vacation in Gaza.
00:53:06I mean, you guys excited to go vacation in the Riviera of the of the Middle East.
00:53:13You know, we we we've been treating Canada and Greenland for the first three months tougher
00:53:20than we were treating Iran.
00:53:21I'm glad now that we're focused on Iran.
00:53:23I'm glad that we're moving strategic resources there.
00:53:26It is an opportunity to talk about Iran.
00:53:29But we've been tougher on Europe for the first 90 days than we were on Tehran.
00:53:35And so these are there are lots of things that we can be talking about, Mr. Chairman.
00:53:41Things that we haven't yet talked about things that Republicans should feel comfortable in
00:53:44defending if they believe in them.
00:53:46But we're going back to hearings we've already had, not just in this committee, but a number
00:53:51of committees.
00:53:52And so that's why we're bringing it up, Mr. Chairman.
00:53:56My time is elapsed and I yield back.
00:53:59Thank you, ranking member.
00:54:00We will now go to a second round of questions.
00:54:03I will just state for the record that in order for us to move forward as a nation, we must
00:54:09understand the mistakes of the past.
00:54:12And while this is just our first hearing, I think it is apropos for us to go through
00:54:17the past so that our next hearings can focus on how do we actually resolve key issues.
00:54:23But we did talk about oversight.
00:54:26The role of oversight is also how taxpayer monies, us as good stewards, are being utilized.
00:54:32And I think that we have seen where the offices of DEI utilizing the $2 million and $7 million
00:54:37and $10 million and continuing to go up in numbers could have been better spent on things
00:54:42that we all care about, stopping the Iranian regime from nuclear power and allowing it
00:54:47to be a democratically elected free Iran.
00:54:50Stopping Russia's aggression, making sure that it's territorial sovereignty, and stopping
00:54:55China's continuation of its advancement towards a one-nation unification towards Taiwan.
00:55:01So I'm with you 100%, and we all share that sentiment.
00:55:05At this time, I'll recognize myself for five minutes.
00:55:08Mr. Hankinson, can you please outline the impact that DEI policies have had on recruitment
00:55:13and retention across the State Department?
00:55:18On recruitment, we've essentially, we can debate what the term DEI hire means, but we
00:55:25have changed the way in which people come in.
00:55:27Instead of you have to pass the written, then you take the oral, and then 10% of the people
00:55:31pass the oral.
00:55:32Now, you don't have to pass the written.
00:55:34They'll dig into that bucket with this holistic, or whatever you want to call it, character
00:55:38review, just like the universities do, so that they can get the right percentage.
00:55:42Then they put them into the oral after they've gone through this thing called a qualification
00:55:46evaluations panel, which again, looks for personal essay, personal narrative, things
00:55:51that they can find to boost the right percentages, and then they pass 50% in the oral.
00:55:55So it's changed.
00:55:56I would say it's rigged the system to provide results that they want as opposed to just
00:56:01judge people according to their abilities and merits.
00:56:05So we've ended up with, and I take the point about diversity of viewpoint, I think it's
00:56:08very important.
00:56:09Unfortunately, we've reduced the diversity of viewpoint, and we very much have a more
00:56:14left-wing State Department than we did back in the days of Truman, and even 20 years ago.
00:56:19As far as morale, look, one side always wins when you rig a system.
00:56:23So I imagine they feel better.
00:56:25But the other side loses, and that's why as Americans, it's always been so important that
00:56:29we judge each other, not according to those immutable characteristics, but by the things
00:56:33that are more important.
00:56:34And I would say that has suffered in the past five years.
00:56:38Thank you so much.
00:56:39And this whole rebranding of DEI, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Hankinson, in what ways could DEI initiatives
00:56:48continue under a different name or office within the State Department?
00:56:54They can just, we've seen this happen in multiple government agencies and private corporations.
00:56:59They just change the job title of the person administering the program.
00:57:02They can rename the existing programs, but keep the same content of the programs and
00:57:07the rules that are applied.
00:57:08They can, like I said, change position titles.
00:57:11And then they can put DEI concept into other programs that you wouldn't know that they
00:57:15had done it, because based on the name, you wouldn't be able to see it.
00:57:18This is a real persistent problem, is that sort of attempt to burrow it in and hide it
00:57:22in other places.
00:57:23And what kind of protections, Mr. Hankinson, do you think that we should implement to ensure
00:57:27that DEI initiatives cannot just simply be rebranded under a different name?
00:57:34It'll be difficult, because they're pretty embedded, and a lot of people believe in them
00:57:37and do very well out of them.
00:57:39But I think one thing is oversight about where the money goes.
00:57:43The number I heard was more like $40 million over the past two fiscal years spent on DEI
00:57:48and related programs, because you have to count things like paying a trainer $10,000
00:57:52to come and talk to people about microaggressions.
00:57:54So I think that stuff has to go, the things that are divisive.
00:57:57And then one suggestion that I have is to change the recruitment and the promotion process
00:58:02so that you eliminate all of the obvious factors that you can tell about somebody, like their
00:58:06sex and their race and so on, so that you can judge them on how they did their job,
00:58:10how well they speak the language, how many times they've been to the region, and so on.
00:58:14And just for the record, do you feel that since implementing the DEI officer, DEIA,
00:58:20that the State Department has become more effective in their diplomacy efforts and in
00:58:25securing U.S. national interests abroad?
00:58:29I believe in metrics and I believe in proof and, you know, the science.
00:58:33I don't see any metric by which you can judge that we have gotten safer, more prosperous,
00:58:38or more effective as diplomats as a result of spending this money.
00:58:42And I've seen some research that shows the exact opposite, that in fact morale and distrust
00:58:46and in general a sense of well-being among employees has gone slightly down.
00:58:51Mr. James, or Mr. Raj, I'd love to hear your response as well.
00:58:55You know, there's this saying, politics stops at the water's edge, that was popularized
00:58:58after World War II.
00:59:00And there's a reason for that.
00:59:01It's because when the departments, not just the internal DEI programs, it's this promotion
00:59:05like we talked about in my testimony, the department's been promoting these DEI ideas
00:59:09all over the world.
00:59:10And that doesn't make us safer because it's taking very divisive, contentious political
00:59:14issues we don't even agree on internally and trying to indoctrinate the rest of the world.
00:59:18The Foreign Service shouldn't be a missionary force to promote a certain ideology.
00:59:22And that encourages resentment among foreigners who don't accept the same cultural values.
00:59:25There's this whole idea from President Wilson of self-determination, and that just completely
00:59:29disrespects that principle that other countries should get to determine their own path forward
00:59:33rather than us dictating it to them.
00:59:35And Madam Ambassador, I'd be happy to hear your comments as well on whether or not you
00:59:39think that our U.S. national security interests were advanced in areas in the Middle East
00:59:46to help with stabilization as a result of DEIA.
00:59:51Yes, I think they were beginning to be strengthened because we were walking the talk.
00:59:57And there's a reason that businesses, as well as others, change the titles but continue
01:00:04to do the work.
01:00:05That's because they know the value of the work.
01:00:09That's why there are companies like Costco, like Coca-Cola, like Elf that continue with
01:00:16these programs because they know that it's good for their customers and it's good for
01:00:21their workers.
01:00:22It's good management.
01:00:23If one of the programs I've listed for you is one that you would like to see go away,
01:00:31adding transparency and accountability.
01:00:33These are the things that we were working on to make a more inclusive and accountable
01:00:38and trusted organization.
01:00:41And I would be surprised to hear my colleagues suggest that there shouldn't be transparency
01:00:46in assignments or promotions.
01:00:49My time, unfortunately, has expired, but I believe that rebranding and rechanging the
01:00:52name is just trying to be tricky.
01:00:55With that, I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Schneider, for five minutes.
01:00:59Thank you and thank you for giving us the chance to ask questions again.
01:01:05Mr. Rogers, you talk about the United States promoting ideals or values.
01:01:11Should the United States be promoting democracy around the world?
01:01:14Yes, it should promote democracy, but democracy doesn't include promoting DEIA.
01:01:21I'm just asking, should we be promoting anti-corruption around the world?
01:01:26Absolutely.
01:01:27Okay.
01:01:28Mr. Hankinson, we've talked about as the State Department's changed, what percent of the
01:01:35senior ranks in the State Department are white?
01:01:38I couldn't tell you exactly.
01:01:39If you were to guess, is it more or less than 50%?
01:01:43The senior ranks is probably far higher than 50% because they were recruited in the 90s
01:01:49when the recruitment was not the same as it is today.
01:01:5282.4%.
01:01:53So, you know, what's changed?
01:01:57America's demography has changed.
01:01:58In 1990, it was probably 80% European and 12% African American and the rest, you know,
01:02:06Hispanic and Asian.
01:02:07And now the numbers of Hispanics are far higher, Asians are far higher, and so you will see
01:02:12a change in the recruitment.
01:02:13Also, women, I believe, are now slightly over 50% of new recruits.
01:02:17Okay.
01:02:18Ambassador Abercrombie-Winstanley, you've served in the State Department for a long
01:02:24time.
01:02:25You've been a diplomat around the world.
01:02:26I'm going to give you the rest of my time.
01:02:29Can you talk about why it is so important, two things, that the people who travel across
01:02:34the world to represent our nation reflect who we are as a nation and why, as people
01:02:39see that, they appreciate that the people who are in those countries have an appreciation
01:02:44for the nuance and distinctiveness of each of those countries?
01:02:48Absolutely.
01:02:49Thank you, sir.
01:02:50I know from my own personal experience, the surprise when I have walked into rooms representing
01:02:58the United States of America, the reaction of me being part of a delegation, oh, you
01:03:05Americans, you talk about this, but you're actually doing it.
01:03:10You're a U.S. diplomat.
01:03:12And it brings us credibility as a nation, a nation that has said for centuries that
01:03:19everybody can come here and reach their full potential.
01:03:23That is what DEIA is about, trying to level the playing field so that people get as far
01:03:29as their abilities will take them.
01:03:32That is the message that we've been giving the world, and we have to show that diversity
01:03:37to be taken seriously.
01:03:39And people are watching us now as well because we did make the case successfully about leveling
01:03:45that playing field.
01:03:46Again, the Department of State recruits where all of our different populations are in the
01:03:52nation, and we do live separately.
01:03:53People say Sunday morning's the most segregated time of the week in America.
01:03:59So we are in different places.
01:04:01So we have to recruit in different places, but we hire for merit.
01:04:06You have to pass that written exam until we made the changes, and keeping in mind that
01:04:13the written exam is very similar to an SAT test.
01:04:17Those sorts of questions are not what determine whether you're going to be a good diplomat.
01:04:22That's in the oral assessment, the assessment when we're asking people hypotheticals about
01:04:28situations that have happened with diplomats.
01:04:31That is where the rubber hits the road.
01:04:33And I've been an assessor, so I'm very familiar with all three sections of this exam and the
01:04:39difference.
01:04:40And my colleagues will know this because they've been through both.
01:04:42They know what that written test is, and they know what the oral test is.
01:04:46So these are the things that help us get all of America through the door and out to the
01:04:51world.
01:04:52Languages, firsthand experiences with different cultures, my ability to blend in the streets
01:05:00of Cairo were what got my Arabic so good, and my ability to do negotiations in the vernacular,
01:05:08to do interpretations.
01:05:10When Governor Sununu came to Egypt, I was the one that was his interpreter for meetings.
01:05:15Those are the sorts of things that come because we have all Americans represented.
01:05:21And the world is watching us.
01:05:22We cannot give up on this.
01:05:24And people will continue to do it.
01:05:26They'll call it something else, but it's good leadership, it's good management to take care
01:05:31of all of your people, not just the ones that remind you of you, or that you have something
01:05:36in common.
01:05:37They went to the same school as you.
01:05:38Take care of everybody.
01:05:40That's inclusion.
01:05:41And I'll add one thing with the writing test.
01:05:43I was an engineer undergraduate.
01:05:45Writing was not my strength.
01:05:47I know that if I was going to get into a career and succeed, I had to learn to write.
01:05:51But if I could get in the door, I would have the chance to gain those skills and use my
01:05:55other skills that come naturally to succeed.
01:05:59That's why we have to balance how we evaluate people, not with a standardized test, but
01:06:04with evaluations of what do they bring in the full package.
01:06:07I yield back.
01:06:08Thank you so much, Mr. Snyder.
01:06:11I'll just point out the fact that there's a difference in equity and equality.
01:06:16And the difference is, is one believes in equal opportunity, the other one believes
01:06:20in equal outcome.
01:06:21And that does not merit.
01:06:24And I will say one more time that it is important for us to understand the history and our past
01:06:29mistakes in order to try and advance and move forward to guarantee we have a stronger diplomatic
01:06:34core, to make sure that our armed forces have everything they need, because none of
01:06:39our adversaries are scared by the ideas that we can he, him, she, her, they, them, or out-pronoun
01:06:46them as we walk on to the battlefields, whether that be militarily, diplomatically, or economically.
01:06:53And I can tell you that the Ayatollah in Iran is not sitting there worrying about our diversity,
01:06:58equity, and inclusion.
01:07:00They're worried about the fact that this is the strongest nation on earth.
01:07:05I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimonies and the members for the questions.
01:07:10The members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses, and
01:07:14we will ask you to respond to these in writing.
01:07:17Pursuant to committee rules, all members may have five days to submit these questions and
01:07:21extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length and limitations.
01:07:24Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.