Secretary of State Marco Rubio got in a heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Rubio was testifying for the first time since the United States launched the Iran war and Booker raised questions about the Ebola crisis and the military operation. Booker told Rubio he was concerned the U.S. had rolled back its investment in eradicating diseases in Africa, and expressed doubt that the Iran war was over, despite the Trump administration’s claims that it was.
“With the crisis of Ebola, we see the challenges have been brought about as a result of our surveillance, early detection, and the like. I’m concerned about what the administration’s strategy is,” Booker said. “We are clearly seeing that what goes on on the continent of Africa directly affects our public health as well.”
But Rubio did not see eye to eye with Booker.
“I don’t agree with the assessment,” Rubio said. “It’s not about cutting back. The response is that how much money you spent it’s the results you will get. Ebola, the outbreak was in a war-torn, isolated, rural area in the DRC. Since then, our response has been very rapid.”
Booker pushed back.
“You did not cut early detection?” Booker asked.
“That’s not the reason there was Ebola,” Rubio said.
Booker cut him off as the conversation intensified.
“I’m not trying to get in an argument. I would like to have my questions answered,” Booker said. “We cut early detection when it comes to infectious diseases on the continent, factually. This is not an opinion. We cut early warning systems on the continent.”
Rubio continued to argue with Booker and interjected the senator, saying “It had nothing to do with the Ebola outbreak.”
“I don’t need to tell you, we are living in a place where an infectious disease crisis anywhere is a threat everywhere,” Booker said, adding that he worried further budget cuts would complicate future outbreaks. “The United States made major reductions in these areas putting us more at risk. If you’re talking about the Ebola crisis, other cuts we have made, you see it factually. Even our own State Department personnel I’ve talked to are saying we are less prepared for a global outbreak than we were before.”
Rubio denied Booker’s comments.
“I don’t agree with that assessment,” Rubio said. “I don’t know who told you that at the State Department.”
“You can’t even agree on the facts. It is not accurate that we cut early detection?” Booker asked, pressing Rubio to respond.
“Those have been repurposed,” Rubio said. “The different arrangements with the countries are an example.”
But Booker wasn’t convinced.
“If you’re telling me that we are as or more prepared before the Trump administration came in, I would like to see the facts,” Booker said.
“I think when the reforms are finalized we will be better prepared. We are responding faster not just humanitarian crises but faster than before,” Rubio said.
Booker then moved on to discuss the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
“The conclusion I have is the Strait of Hormuz was opened before this unjustified war,” Booker said. “We are now scrambling to find a way to get it back open again.”
Booker argued the U.S. was now in a “worse situation, an adversary and our enemy is causing havoc in the region, funding proxies and terrorists, has discovered, thanks to you all, the power of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.” He said Iran was now in a better position, while America was worse off.
“It made our adversary have a stronger negotiating position,” Booker said. “We are the strongest on earth and we are in a stalemate with Iran. We are begging to get back into a deal that you trashed in the first place.”
“There is no one begging,” Rubio maintained.
Rubio argued that the war was over — and Booker pushed back, saying that although Trump says it has ended, it hasn’t.
“You keep saying how we are winning the war,” Booker said.
“The war is over now,” Rubio said.
“The war is not over. The American people see how we are losing at the pump and with costs. Yet this thing has not been resolved,” Booker said.
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