Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Sunday that CBS host Margaret Brennan “watch the news” as they clashed over the revocation of Syrian-born former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s visa.
Khalil, 30, was arrested on March 8 by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials following his involvement in a student encampment at the university last year, allegedly linking him to “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” according to the Associated Press. With both his green card and student visa revoked, Brennan asked Rubio on “Face the Nation” if there was any “material support” that Khalil had provided to Hamas.
“Well, not just the student. We’re going to do more. In fact, every day now we’re approving visa revocations, and if that visa led to a green card, the green card process as well,” Rubio said. “When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest. You’re coming as a student, you’re coming as a tourist, or what have you.”
“In it, you have to make certain assertions. If you tell us, when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America. It’s that simple. So you lied. If you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa. Now you’re here. Now you do it. You lied to us. You’re out. It’s that simple. It’s that straightforward,” Rubio added.
Brennan, however, continued pressing the secretary of state, asking if there was “any evidence of a link to terrorism” or if it was simply “his point of view” that officials disagreed with.
“Yeah, they take over — I mean, you should watch the news. These guys take over entire buildings. They vandalize colleges. They shut down colleges,” Rubio responded.
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“We covered it intensely,” Brennan hit back. “I’m asking about the specific justification for the revocation of his visa. Was there any evidence of material support for terrorism?”
Rubio pushed back against the CBS host, stating that Khalil was “negotiating on behalf of people that took over a campus and vandalized buildings.” He added that acting as a “negotiator” was a “crime in and of itself” before emphasizing that the U.S. doesn’t “need these people” in the country.
“We never should have allowed them in the first place. If he had told us, ‘I’m going over there, and I’m going over there to become the spokesperson and one of the leaders of a movement that’s going to turn one of your allegedly elite colleges upside down, people can’t even go to school, libraries and buildings being vandalized,’ we never would have let him in,” Rubio continued.
Since Khalil’s arrest, protesters have gathered in his defense now that the Trump administration is seeking to deport him. In April 2024, Khalil dubbed himself the “lead negotiator” for Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest, with the group demanding the school divest from companies linked to Israel.
“If you are in this country to promote Hamas, to promote terrorist organizations, to participate in vandalism, to participate in acts of rebellion and riots on campus, we never would have let you in if we had known that. Now that we know it, you’re going to leave,” Rubio said.
“We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes, undermining our national security or public safety. It’s that simple,” Rubio continued. “I don’t know where we’ve gotten it in our head that a visa is some sort of birthright — it is not. It is a visitor into our country, and if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave.”
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