During Tuesday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) questioned top Trump State Department nominees about Panama, Israel, and legal authorities.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Rubenstein, we talked about this a little bit. Can you give me,
00:05here's the issue that bothered me a few years ago. I could not get through the Secretary of State,
00:16them to make sure we got rid of immunity for suing PAHO. As you probably know,
00:25PAHO is some sort of sister organization to WHO. What was happening is Cuban doctors and Cuban
00:32nurses are being sent around the world. Then they were paid a certain amount of money to the Cuban
00:37government. Then the doctors and nurses got a pittance of that. To me, I think that's human
00:42trafficking. I never could get, under the first Trump administration, I never could get the waiver
00:50of immunity. I don't know if you've had any time to think about that and what you think about that
00:56and whether that's right. I think human trafficking is wrong. I think anything to help the Cuban
01:01regime is not good for the United States. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for taking the time to
01:16speak with me. I very much appreciate and enjoyed our conversation. Yes, I agree with you, human
01:23trafficking is wrong. I further understand your frustration. As I explained over the course of my
01:30career, I have done perhaps more than kind of the normal amount of victim of terrorism
01:36representation, so I feel these issues very strongly. I do not know the circumstances of
01:46what occurred and what was going on when you requested the information. I have not been read
01:51into the facts. I would want to take a look and understand what the institutional position was
01:57and what was going on. But I pledged to you then and I pledge to you now that I will always
02:03communicate with you or any other member of the committee and provide as much information as
02:09lawfully I'm able to provide. At least for me, the most frustrating thing is just a black hole.
02:15A lot of my time up here is you ask people information from the executive branch and it just
02:21just goes, we're working, you know, it's like, but all right, Governor Huckabee, can you tell us
02:28why is the defense of Israel, the support of Israel important to America?
02:34Senator, great question. The truth is it's been very clear as expressed by the Iranian government
02:40that Israel is the appetizer and we're the entree. They don't want to stop at Israel. They certainly
02:45want to annihilate them. They've said it over and over and there's an old saying that when people
02:49are saying again and again they're going to kill you, you might want to take them seriously. But
02:53they've also gone beyond saying they want to annihilate Israel and wipe it off the face of
02:58the earth. They've said that their ultimate goal is to first take care of the little Satan they
03:03identify as Israel and then come after the great Satan. Senator, that's us. And whatever is
03:11happening to Israel, it is the canary in the coal mine. These governments, Iran being the most
03:18notable, who want to develop a nuclear weapon and who have the audacity to wish to use it to destroy
03:27a sovereign Jewish state so that they ultimately could destroy Western civilization. That's why
03:35it matters, Senator, and I appreciate your question because I hope people will understand
03:39this is not just about Israel. It is about us. And if we don't stand with them, they stand alone.
03:48And if they fall alone, we fall next. Thank you. Commissioner Cabrera, as we've seen, I know you
03:56put a lot of effort into freedom and liberty in Latin America. As we've seen in Panama, the
04:03Communist Party has tried to infiltrate all the politics, the port and all those things. So,
04:09how important is Panama to America, to our trade, to our defense, to our success?
04:19Thank you for the question, Senator. I will say that Panama is a very important ally because we
04:23talk a lot about the southern border, but when you talk about the southern border, you can't
04:26really talk about it without Panama because through the Darien Gap just a year ago, you had
04:31over 500,000 folks crossing. Right now, under the success of President Trump and Secretary Rubio,
04:37we've been able to lower those numbers in January and February of this year, 95%.
04:41Again, that's not just migration, but that's drugs as well. Panama is a huge ally in
04:46in drug seizing as well. They've been number one four years in a row in Central America,
04:51over 100 metric tons, and 40% of the cocaine that enters America enters through Panama.
04:56So again, if we have a strong ally in Panama, we have a strong border in the Darien Gap,
05:02and making sure that we stop the drugs, we stop the migration, that helps us at the southern
05:05border and helps America make sure these drugs aren't infiltrating. But again, that Chinese
05:09influence that you mentioned is also a problem, and it's about making sure we continue to make
05:14great strides like Secretary Rubio and President Trump have done with the concessions being sold
05:18at the port, with them exiting Belt and Road, being the first country to enter Belt and Road
05:22and being the first country to exit in Central America, and making sure we provide opportunities
05:26for American companies to be treated fairly in Panama so they can continue to be the largest
05:31foreign direct investment. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.