Pressed By Murray on Whether He Advised Trump to Go to War with Iran, Rubio Affirms Unwavering Support for Iran War

06.03.26

   

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full questioning***

  

Washington, D.C. — Today—at a Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee hearing on the FY27 budget request for the Department of State—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, pressed Secretary Marco Rubio on whether he advised Trump to go to war with Iran, and she slammed Trump’s proposal to blow $1.5 trillion on his war budget instead of helping families afford groceries, gas, housing, health care, and child care.

 

[IRAN WAR]

  

Senator Murray questioned Secretary Rubio on his role in advising the president on matters of national security and what his opinion was on engaging in war with Iran. 

  

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary, you are not only the Secretary of State—you are also the president’s National Security Advisor. Those are both full-time jobs when we’re at peace, let alone as we have troops deployed in multiple conflicts around the world and the president is threatening to invade Cuba.

  

So, I want to just ask you specifically about Iran. You were one of just a handful of top aides with a seat at the table when the president ultimately did decide to launch the Iran war.

  

Did you advise the president against the war?

  

RUBIO: I’ll never tell anybody what I advised the president privately, but I will tell you that the president had before him all the information that he needed. I agree with the decision that he made, if that’s what you’re asking, because the President of the United States saw a threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon behind a conventional shield that, in about a year, would have been impenetrable, and we could not allow them to develop that immunity, and then they could break out to a weapon.

  

MURRAY: So, you won’t tell us. you know, this is a question that millions of Americans are asking, how on earth did we get here? So, I wanted to know what did you advise the president? Were you for or against this war, or did you—the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor—have no opinion?

  

RUBIO: No, I just told you I support the president’s decision. I think he made the right decision, but I cannot tell you, and will never do. And you have to understand, nobody in my role has ever done is to go to you and say, “oh, I was in a meeting and I told the president this,” I just can’t do that, I won’t do that, it’s unwise to do that, and it’s unfair. But I am telling you, the president made the right decision, that’s my view, I believe in it strongly.

  

MURRAY: You do now, okay. Let me just—

  

RUBIO: I always have, I mean, in terms of my view of the challenge that it poses.

  

MURRAY: Okay, well back in March, you said this war would end in: “weeks, not months.” And here we are four months, hundreds of troops injured or killed, and billions of dollars later.

  

Trump promised everybody he was going to lower prices and no new wars. Now we have higher prices and a new war. Trump promised the American people this war would be fast and decisive. It has been slow, and secret, and endless.

  

And the majority of Americans do oppose this conflict. What my constituents are telling me is they want child care, they want health care to be more affordable, they don’t want Trump to have 1.5 trillion dollars for a defense budget to start wars around the globe. I hear that constantly from so many people.

  

[VALUE OF INVESTING IN DIPLOMACY & ASSISTANCE]

  

MURRAY: You know Secretary Rubio, let me just say this: diplomacy and development tools help keep us safe here at home by mitigating conflict, by mitigating disease, other global threats. But the budget that you are here to defend—which would slash this work to the bone, while sending war spending through the roof—makes clear that diplomacy is Trump’s last priority.

  

And by the way it’s not just the budget, or the unhinged rants attacking allies like Greenland and Canada, or threatening to “end civilizations,” or Trump treating war like a game—the White House posting literal video game edits as if he weren’t getting American soldiers injured.

  

It’s also the actions that you have taken over the past year to gut the State Department—deeply concerning, dismantle foreign aid, abdicate American leadership. Under your leadership, it is deeply concerning that State left 500 tons of food aid to rot in ports, and it had to be incinerated. Or pushing out thousands upon thousands of dedicated public servants—including families who put country first here, and left their home to serve around the world only to be sacked with no rhyme, no reason. I’ve heard from them.

  

Meanwhile, you are planning to put Trump’s face on U.S. passports. As if that is going to help our image when all that’s happening. And the hack-and-slash job that you have done to foreign assistance, and you’re asking for in this budget, has not only shattered America’s global leadership, it has led to millions of preventable deaths. Programs have been frozen, grants have been cancelled, lifesaving work utterly turned upside down.

  

I want to talk about global health—the stakes of life and death are here under global health. PEPFAR-supported testing reach[ed] nearly five million fewer people than the year before. In Zambia, babies born to HIV-positive moms used to be tested within hours of birth, and treatment started immediately for positive cases. Now babies are not being even tested until they’re six weeks old.

  

So you are not just cutting resources that I just reference—you are actually cutting the United States out of the conversation on global health threats and leaving all of us less prepared. We are in the middle of a deadly Ebola epidemic, we are seeing a worrisome hantavirus outbreak, this administration has halted funding to the World Health Organization. And you are currently withholding nearly two billion dollars in FY 25 Global Health funding that was appropriated with bipartisan support here, signed into law by President Trump, and expires in less than four months.

  

Now, I know that Ebola funding somehow miraculously started moving when we were seeing bad headlines—but what is moving right now Mr. Secretary is less than two percent of what is available. So my point is that the delay in mobilizing those resources has cost us valuable time and let this disease kill more people. And the fact is, we already had these support systems in place, they were in place, until this Administration destroyed them.

  

And even as we stare down a crisis caused by this administration’s incompetence in my opinion, you are here today to defend a budget that doubles down on that—that is what is really disturbing to me—with a 40% cut to Global Health Programs in this budget. So to my point of view, this budget doesn’t make America great again, it makes the world sicker and less safe.

  

And that I’m just talking about the cuts that you’re proposing with this budget, because we cannot ignore the biggest line item in the president’s overall budget that’s in front of us—which is war. 1.5 trillion dollars for war.

  

Not a cent [more] for child care. Not a cent to make health care more affordable. That is the budget that you are here today to defend, and it spends $1.5 trillion on war and slashes your Department to ribbons.

  

So that is what is concerning to me, as you come before our committee today to back this request up. It just seems to me we are cutting diplomacy and paying defense contractors, and I just believe from my point of view, and I know you disagree with me, but I just think this is the wrong way for our country to go. A budget is a statement of values. I’ve said it many, many times, and I think it is in big question where the values are in this budget. So that’s where I am.

  

RUBIO: Mr. Chair, Senator Boozman, can I respond? Because she touched a lot of topics. I don’t know if I can get all of them, you know, but, but I’m going to get to most of them.

  

CHAIR: Sure.

  

RUBIO: Because I strongly disagree with almost everything you’ve said,

 

MURRAY: I figured you would.

 

RUBIO: A couple points. First, let’s talk about the State Department. The State Department was actually one of the least impacted of all the agencies in government.

  

MURRAY: I’m not talking about least impacted. You heard—

 

RUBIO: No, no, no, no. But let’s be frank, we didn’t—not a single, for example, overseas employee was RIF’d from the State Department. The vast majority of the reduction in forces came from the career civil service, not the foreign service, and that’s because we got rid of the functional bureaus and put all the power under the regional bureaus. It’s one of the best things we’ve ever done, and I think it’s going to prove to be very wise. And we already see the impacts of it.

  

Let’s walk through some of the programs you’ve pointed to. So, for example, our disaster response today around the world, because we combine those accounts, is faster than it’s ever been, and more effective than it’s ever been. These are not theories, it is the reality. We responded to hurricanes in the Caribbean, Jamaica, and Cuba, by the way, $3 million in aid to Cuba, faster at a record pace than ever before. We’ve responded to two typhoons in the Indo-Pacific faster than we’ve ever responded, because we combined and consolidated those accounts, and we’re able to move very, very quickly in that regard.

  

Beyond that, you mentioned the PEPFAR. The reality of it is, first of all, you have to combine it with all these other programs that we’re involved in, but if you look at the numbers for the last, well in the third quarter of 2026, 2025, the exact number of people that were receiving medications were receiving medications during that period of time. The exact number, and it’s going to even improve, because we’re adding innovation to it. There have been recent innovations in AIDS treatment, HIV treatments that are even more effective than some of the legacy programs that are available.

  

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary it is very clear why you are the secretary, because you’re very good at words.

  

RUBIO: No, but I’m giving you, I don’t know how else can I answer you other than words?

  

MURRAY: I will stand by my statement against yours. I just will.

  

RUBIO: What was that?

  

MURRAY: I will stand by all of the facts that I gave.

  

RUBIO: Okay, but I get a chance to respond, right?

  

MURRAY: Well, my times out, it’s up to the chair.

  

CHAIR: You can respond.

  

RUBIO: Okay. So, on the other things you’re not talking about, those I think are very valuable to this, are these global health compacts that we’re entering with 32 countries, 27 of them in Africa. In which we’re basically going to the country to say, “okay, we used to give money for clinics, we used to give money for health care, we used to give money for maternal care,” and we used to have it in a bucket, and it was maternal care globally, and then we went out and dished out contracts for people to go into individual countries.

  

Now we’re entering into contracts, compacts, agreements with the country, and we’re saying to them, “okay, what are your needs?” And we’re doing this through the embassies. “What are your specific needs in this country?” And entering into a compact, not just to provide them aid for these things that they need, but to help them strengthen their national health care systems, so that long term they will be self-sustaining. Now, in some countries, it may take 10 years to get to that point, some it may take less. But for the first time, we are not just having these buckets that then are distributed broadly around the world. It is targeted at the highest needs of those countries based on their own domestic strategies and allowing us to become a value added to their strategy and to build their capacity. That’s something that hasn’t been talked about.

  

You look at what we’ve done with OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], we’ve signed the first humanitarian reset agreement in Geneva, and along with our anchor pledge of 2 billion in support for the 18 country-based crisis level pool funds. This is going to allow us to respond in a more effective way. With the Global Fund, we’ve entered into agreement with the Global Fund. They’ve put out repeated statements thanking the United States for the role that we are playing with the Global Fund, and we’re prepared to do more if donors match what we are providing, we’re prepared to do even more in that regard.

  

The list goes on and on. The point is, this is not about, first of all, this is not about denying and being punitive towards the world. This is about delivering aid, but delivering it in a more effective and concise and consolidated way that actually gets more aid to more people faster, that is the goal. And I think we’re well on our way to achieving it.

  

Now, as far as the budget is concerned, you know we operate under an OMB guidance that tells us, “this is how much you have, tell us what you would do if this is what you get.” We present this to you, having served here for a long period of time, I said this before you walked in, so perhaps you missed this point, is we always understand that there’s going to be a congressional process in which you’re going to look at our request and generally ignore it, but in many cases add to it or reframe it, and we’re prepared to work with you as we did last year in the passage of an appropriations bill, which we would like to see passed, because when you pass appropriations bills, it gives us the structure that we need in order to carry out these reforms.

  

MURRAY: Mr. Secretary, I just will tell you, I appreciate that you have words to explain everything from your point of view. I’m talking from reality on the ground, and from what I am seeing and hearing, and I fear deeply that we are losing our place and our value globally. So, you and I have a disagreement. Thank you.

  

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