Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois raised their voices at each other during an exchange Wednesday over the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Venezuela, a hearing held in the wake of strikes on boats suspected of drug trafficking and the capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro. Duckworth peppered Rubio on a number of topics, jumping from whether the United States was at war to if the United States was “torturing” people.
“Mr. Secretary, are we at, are we currently at war with Venezuela?” Duckworth asked, with Rubio responding, “No, we’re not in a state of war in Venezuela.”
“OK, the Supreme Court has described the Alien Enemies Act as a wartime power, our Supreme Court, and before now, the Alien Enemies Act was only invoked during the War of 1812, World War One, World War Two, when it was used to intern thousands of innocent civilians,” Duckworth claimed. “Are you really arguing that the president should be able to wield an internment law?”
WATCH:
President Donald Trump designated Mexican drug cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) and the El Salvadoran prison gang MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations upon taking office in January 2025. Trump also invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of TdA members in March 2025.
Duckworth tried to talk over Rubio as he answered her question.
“Let me be clear with you,” Rubio eventually said. “What the president… was talking about are these gangs that have and these narco-trafficking groups that are waging war on the United States. There’s no doubt these groups have waged war on the United States. They have waged, for example, Tren de Aragua was not just a criminal gang presence in our street, it is a criminal gang responsible directly responsible for narcotrafficking.”
“Who did we torture?” Duckworth asked seconds later, with Rubio responding, “We haven’t tortured anybody. We’ve arrested people that are members of gangs, and we’ve deported them.”
Duckworth then claimed that many of those deported were actually legally allowed to stay in the United States, and questioned Rubio about whether he’d advise Trump to rescind his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
“You’re asking me about the domestic application of a law, that’s best directed to the Department of Justice… In terms of its domestic application, I can tell you that the United States is most certainly confronting terrorist and criminal organizations operating in our hemisphere, that pose a grave danger to the United States,” Rubio said as Duckworth kept talking over him. “Anyone who believes that gangs that flood our country with fentanyl or cocaine you are not threats to the United States is not living in reality and certainly does not reflect the opinion of most Americans.”
Duckworth then claimed Trump was ready to deploy troops to Venezuela, an assertion Rubio challenged before later reminding her that Trump retained the right to protect the United States of America.
“Every president retains the right to defend the United States against an imminent threat. Yes, if there are Iranian, just give you an example, Iranian drones deployed in Venezuela that could threaten the United States, we most certainly will address that, even if it’s located in Venezuela,” Rubio told Duckworth. “But we hope we don’t get to that point. We don’t expect to get to that point. We’re not trending in that direction. That’s a fact.”
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