Secretary of State Marco Rubio will face a barrage of pointed questions when he appears before his former Senate colleagues today — but it’s unclear if any of those lawmakers will be able to hit their mark.
Senate Democrats are grappling with a recurring problem as they prepare to grill Rubio before the Foreign Relations Committee at 10 a.m. — there are too many issues they want to ask him about.
In conversations on Monday with a handful of Democratic senators on the panel, there was no consistent throughline heading into what is ostensibly a hearing about the State Department’s FY2027 budget request. Lawmakers name-checked everything from Cuba to Lebanon, Iran, Ukraine, China and an emerging Ebola outbreak as priorities.
“I’m looking at a lot of options right now,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “This administration’s foreign policy has been a disaster for the country, so there’s a lot to look at.”
There is one thing they all agree on: Iran will come up. It’s just not clear who will force the discussion.
“The State Department part of it is the negotiation to try to find some kind of a ceasefire or larger deal, so there will be questions about that,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said.
Rubio’s Hill appearances this week — Tuesday before the Foreign Relations Committee and a House Appropriations subpanel, followed by a pair of hearings on Wednesday — come at a critical point in the Middle East conflict. Rubio will publicly address a Congress that’s potentially on the brink of formally and bicamerally rebuking the administration’s military posture toward Iran.
The Senate recently voted to advance a war powers resolution reining in President Donald Trump’s operations in the region. And the House is on the verge of doing the same thing this week, unless GOP leaders can minimize Republican absences and defections.
Rubio will also have to deal with national security hawks who are already extremely skeptical of Trump’s dealmaking with Iran.
“I personally don’t think even if there were some negotiated agreement with the Iranian regime that you could trust them to comply with it,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.
Any Iran commentary will be closely followed well outside of the committee. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Monday evening his questions on the situation are “too numerous to mention at this point.”
Western Hemisphere focus. Expect some Republican committee members to center their time on the United States’ next steps in Venezuela and Cuba.
“I just want to know: are we going to hold Delcy Rodríguez accountable, because she’s clearly not doing what she said. She’s not releasing all the political prisoners,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said. “And are we going to arrest Raúl Castro? I’m glad he got indicted, now I want him arrested.”
One wild card? Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has consistently bucked his party to support various war powers efforts and has criticized the administration’s military adventurism.
“You’ll have to come to find out,” Paul said coyly when asked about his questions for Rubio.
