Marco Rubio Tells Reporter His Question About Deporting Foreign Student Campus Protesters Is 'Silly'

2 days ago

At a press briefing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a reporter his question about deporting foreign campus protesters was "silly."

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Transcript

00:00I thank you mr. President mr. Secretary for taking questions from us mr.

00:04Secretary first to you you've traveled throughout the region as you know China

00:10has a growing presence throughout the Caribbean and Latin America you carried

00:14out an effort to limit a Hong Kong company's presence in the Panama Canal

00:18and you talked with some reservations about Chinese projects yesterday in

00:22Jamaica I was wondering is it the aim of the Trump administration to try and have

00:29the two superpowers reach an accommodation or understanding where

00:33each power limits their military diplomatic and economic presence in the

00:38backyards of the other powers meaning spheres of influence for each power and

00:44then related to China in 2019 you supported legislation to support to have

00:49the US government support the protesters in Hong Kong to pro-democracy protesters

00:53and mostly the protests are peaceful but also occasionally they disrupted public

00:58life and so based on your rationale for deporting campus protesters in the US

01:02would you now support the Chinese Communist Party or Hong Kong authorities

01:06deporting foreigners who took part in those protests in 20 yeah the first

01:10question is silly because the people that we're getting rid of in our country

01:13are vandalizing they're not protesters they're taking over college campuses

01:16they're harassing fellow students we let them in our country to study we gave

01:20them a visa because they said I want to go to your university I want to get a

01:23degree they didn't say I want to go to university and I want to vandalize your

01:26library and I want to chase Jewish students down the street and I want to

01:29wear a mask over my face like if it's Halloween and terrorize people we didn't

01:33give him a visa to do any of that so we don't want those people in our country

01:37they're not they're not demonstrating for that they're they're they're going

01:42beyond demonstration they are going and they're creating a ruckus they are

01:45creating riots basically on campus and it's making it's unfair for students

01:49some of these schools are some of the most expensive schools we have in

01:52America people pay a lot of money to go to these schools they borrow money to go

01:55to these schools you can't even go to class because some lunatic who's

01:58covering their face is running through campus spray-painting things harassing

02:02people and they're in my country as a guest we want them out every one of them

02:06I find we're going to kick them out on your second on your first question I

02:09don't we don't talk about spheres of influence the United States is an

02:12Indo-Pacific nation we have relationships with Japan South Korea the

02:15Philippines we're gonna continue those relationships my problem with China is

02:19twofold the first is we haven't in many cases we don't have American companies

02:23that have shown an interest in investing in a country so they don't

02:26show up you leave them with no option my second problem is in a lot of these

02:29countries the Chinese companies go and they do a terrible job not a bad job a

02:33terrible job I just came from Guyana where we had to drive on a road the

02:37Chinese built it is that were you you're on the trip with us or you did you have

02:40to go on this road yeah okay we almost all had concussions because the the

02:44plane the the the road was so bad it was terrible they paid these people to build

02:49this road and then they bring their workers they bring their workers they

02:51don't hire you they bring their workers in to do all the work and then or they

02:55want you to borrow a bunch of money and then they hold it over your head so what

02:58I want is for for countries to have an alternative to that what we want is for

03:03countries to have an alternative to that we if you're gonna build a road I want

03:06you to like I have a real road they were better off with the dirt road than the

03:09road we were just on and it's not the fault of the current administration you

03:12know in Guyana that was a road that was built before but they did a terrible job

03:16if you did that job in America someone would sue you for a lot of money okay

03:19it was a bad road so we want to be able to ensure that we are providing

03:24alternatives to what we think is bad work by the Chinese that never finishes

03:29on time it's always over budget and and and brings their own workers don't even

03:32hire the locals and one more point I would make in this regard there are

03:36certain sectors okay when it comes to telecommunications and so forth where I

03:40just honest with people if you're gonna have a telecommunication system that is

03:44controlled by Chinese companies you're gonna have trouble having American

03:47investors come in because they don't want all their stuff stolen they don't

03:50want all their stuff yanked out by some backdoor that the Chinese have installed

03:54in their telecommunication system again we've had to face that too in America

03:58because while we was deploying in America as well again we have to have an

04:01alternative though there has to be somebody else that comes along and says

04:03we can do it too and we won't spy on you when we do it so our goal is to fold

04:08create these options but not just options that don't that are to China

04:12options to work that involves bad workmanship over budget with debt

04:18attached and using their own workers instead of yours that's the alternative

04:22we want to provide and in any endeavor we can

Marco Rubio Tells Reporter His Question About Deporting Foreign Student Campus Protesters Is 'Silly'

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