Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R-FL) eviscerated CBS host Margaret Brennan in a fiery exchange over the Trump administration’s decision to revoke visas of pro-Hamas student agitators.
Rubio didn’t just defend the move—he took the Left’s double standards on free speech and crushed them under the weight of their own hypocrisy.
The back-and-forth took place on CBS’s Face the Nation, where Brennan, as expected, tried to shield the Hamas sympathizer and Columbia University student whose visa was revoked for promoting Hamas propaganda.
Rubio, however, was having none of it.
Rubio laid out the facts clearly—foreign nationals have no constitutional right to stay in America if they lied about their intentions. The senator emphasized that participation in radical activism, rioting, and campus takeovers is more than just a “controversial opinion”—it’s a violation of visa conditions.
Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you about a decision you made to revoke a student visa for someone at Columbia University this past week. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes:
“The administration needs to be careful. It’s targeting real promoters of terrorism, not breaking the great promise of a green card by deporting anyone with controversial political views.”
Can you substantiate any form of material support for terrorism, specifically to Hamas, from this Columbia student? Or was it simply that he was housing a controversial political point of view?
Marco Rubio: 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.
Here’s why—it’s very simple. 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.
When Brennan pressed Rubio on whether there was any direct evidence that the Columbia student had a link to terrorism, Rubio delivered the knockout punch.
Margaret Brennan: But is there any evidence of a link to terrorism, or is it just his point of view?
Marco Rubio: Yeah, they take over… I mean, you should watch the news. These guys take over entire buildings. They vandalize colleges. They shut down colleges.
Margaret Brennan: We’ve covered it extensively. I’m asking about the specific justification for the revocation of his visa. Was there any evidence that the materials for a terrorism..
Marco Rubio: Was there any evidence that the spokesperson was negotiating on behalf of people that took over a campus and vandalized buildings?
Negotiating over what? That’s a crime in and of itself—that they’re involved in being the negotiator, the spokesperson, this, that, the other. We don’t need these people in our country. We never should have allowed them in in the first place.
If he had told us, “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, where people can’t even go to school and buildings are being vandalized,” we never would have let him in.
Now that he’s doing it and he’s here, he’s going to leave. And so are others. And we’re going to keep doing it.
Rubio then turned the tables on the Left’s faux commitment to free speech, exposing their blatant hypocrisy.
Marco Rubio: By the way, I find it ironic that a lot of these people out there defending the First Amendment—alleged free speech rights of these Hamas sympathizers—had no problem pressuring social media to censor American political speech. I think it’s ironic and hypocritical.
But the bottom line is this: If you are in this country to promote Hamas, to promote terrorist organizations, to participate in vandalism, or to engage in acts of rebellion and riots on campus, we never would have let you in if we had known that.
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