Rubio hammers Van Hollen over his MS-13 margarita date, emphasizes judicial limits

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified Tuesday before his former colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the State Department's fiscal year 2026 budget request. Democratic senators seized upon the opportunity to attack Rubio and the Trump administration, characterizing the government's foreign policy as regressive, oppressive, and isolationist.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), in particular, complained about the house-cleaning executed at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the cancellation of radical foreigners' student visas, the deportation of criminal noncitizens, and the admission of white refugees from South Africa.

Rubio coolly dismantled Democrats' critiques and drove home the message that mature foreign policy "requires a balancing of interests"; that the U.S. is not withdrawing from the world but engaging in a way that "makes America stronger, safer, and more prosperous"; and that he does not answer to meddlesome federal judges when it comes to foreign policy engagements abroad.

Van Hollen, fresh off trying to bring a Salvadoran MS-13 affiliate accused of domestic abuse and human trafficking back into the U.S., told Rubio, "Like the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s, your campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy."

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Newly arrived South Africans wait to hear welcome statements from U.S. government officials near Washington Dulles International Airport. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

"I have to tell you directly and personally," continued Van Hollen, "that I regret voting for you for secretary of state."

Rubio immediately made Van Hollen regret his closing statement, replying, "First of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job."

The secretary of state then explained why the Democrat was off the mark about the changes at USAID — Van Hollen suggested cuts at the agency have already led to deaths in Sudan — and other actions taken by the administration in recent months.

"I'm very proud of the work we've done over at the USAID," said Rubio. "For example, I don't regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don't know how that makes us stronger or more prosperous as a nation."

'The evidence is going to be clear in the days to come.'

"I could go on and on," continued Rubio, running down a list of other wasteful USAID grants and programs eliminated under his leadership.

Rubio then addressed a matter near and dear to Van Hollen's heart: the deportation of suspected terrorist gang members to El Salvador.

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Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

"We deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with," said Rubio. "And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger, and ... the evidence is going to be clear in the days to come."

'The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.'

Rubio was referring to MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national the Trump administration deported on March 15.

Van Hollen is chief among the Democrats who have tried to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite his initial illegal entry into the homeland, his failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations, the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him, his links to a terrorist gang, his identification by two immigration courts as a danger to the community, and his alleged history of human trafficking.

Last month, Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and shared an intimate moment over drinks.

Van Hollen, enraged by the margarita comment, tried to interject, but Committee Chairman James Risch (R-Idaho) cleared Rubio to continue setting the Democrat straight, this time about the separation of powers.

"The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them. And if I do reach to that foreign partner and talk to them, I am under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch," said Rubio. "Just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia, they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador."

'If you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa.'

Rubio's issue with the judiciary is not hypothetical. An Obama judge ordered the Trump administration on April 4 to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

"If I started sharing with courts or the media my conversations with foreign leaders and all of their details, no foreign leader would talk to me again, and we would break trust with them," added Rubio. "Diplomacy doesn't work that way."

The secretary of state also addressed Van Hollen's concerns about terminating radical foreigners' student visas, stressing that visas are a privilege, not a right, and that "if you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to revoke it."

Blaze News reached out to the State Department for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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