▶ 0:06:36Committee on Foreign Affairs. Prayers will come to order. I would ask that everybody rise. Join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
▶ 0:07:15Good morning everybody. The purpose of today's hearing is to understand the vision and direction that new under secretary of state for public diplomacy has for implementing the public diplomacy policies and directives from the Trump administration and Congress in NDAA 2026 and the role public diplomacy plays in supporting national security.
▶ 0:07:38I now recognize chairman of the subcommittee on South and Central Asia, Representative Heisenga for an opening statement. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, and I'm glad that we are joined today by Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers. Good to see you again. Uh, public diplomacy is a critical national security tool with real impact. When done right, it convinces countries and their people to partner with, invest in, and defend the United States.
▶ 0:08:08When done wrongly, it turns people against us, undermines our values, and wastess taxpayer dollars. We are in a competition to win the hearts and minds of people around the world. The Chinese Communist Party spends billions of dollars every year on propaganda, censorship, and the export of digital This is a coordinated global campaign to erode American influence and to convince the world that authoritarianism is the future.
▶ 0:08:37The CCP is wrong and it must resort to lies and censorship to achieves to achieve its goals. America has the truth on its side. Our values of freedom, liberty, and free markets have secured more individual rights than any other governmental system ever devised and has lifted billions of people around the globe out of poverty. Public diplomacy is how we share that story.
▶ 0:09:04Successful public diplomacy persuades nations and people with a clear and simple truth. Partnering with the United States of America is the best path to prosperity and security for your people. Partner with America and not the CCP. Unfortunately, the Biden administration approach to public diplomacy left America with a damaged image.
▶ 0:09:26In my opinion, instead of telling the truth about America, they wasted taxpayer money on radical ideological projects and a censorship industrial complex that violated our core values. The Biden State Department spent $25,000 on transgender opera in Colombia, $150,000 to quote build the capacity of interex leaders in India, uh $20,000 for a drag show in Ecuador, $72,000 for queering the map of Slovakia,
▶ 0:09:57whatever that means, and the list goes on. And to people in Washington, that may not sound like a whole lot of money. Go ask the average American taxpayer how much 25,000 or how much 150,000 is to them. I assure you that we do not win the hearts and minds in Michigan or the global south or anywhere else by wasting taxpayer dollars on drag shows for kids.
▶ 0:10:22The Biden administration through the Global Engagement Center spent roughly $50 million a year of taxpayer dollars, which I might add, a lot of that is borrowed, facilitating global censorship, including we know now of Americans. It wasn't just wasteful. It was strategically devastating. It destroyed bipartisan consensus, discouraged countries from wanting to partner with us, and aligned our tactics with the rep the repressive regimes that are supposed to be who we are confronting.
▶ 0:10:51That era is over. This committee has come together on a bipartisan manner to fix it. Through last year's state authorization effort and the NDAA, we authorized in law two out of three key public diplomacy officials. We mandated non-political exchanges. We required a real strategy to counter lies from China and other adversaries with the truth. We stood up for internet freedom which has been under attack around the globe.
▶ 0:11:18We supported President Trump's goal of hosting the 2035 World Expo in America. And we elevated the role of sports diplomacy. And as our gold medal winning Olympic teams recently proved, excellence in sports can capture the imagination and the admiration of the world. As a representative of Michigan, I'm proud to learn that our great state produced both game-winning goalcorers, by the way.
▶ 0:11:42Uh be that Megan Keller from Farmington Hills and Jack Hughes from And as we look to the future, America will be able to showcase all of the things that make our country great by hosting the upcoming FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in LA. None of this would have been possible without President Trump's decisive leadership and prioritization of this issue. But the job is not finished.
▶ 0:12:07The critical remaining piece of public diplom diplomacy is enhancing the Bureau of Global Public Affairs into a true strategic communications hub to combat foreign lies by promoting the truth. This is how we proactively counter CCP CCP propaganda around the globe, defend the free flow of information, and creatively use technology to overcome information barriers to reach people. The bipartisan foundation is here.
▶ 0:12:36It's critical that we get this last remaining piece through. Under Secretary Rogers, thank you for your efforts in realigning public diplomacy with its congressional mandate and for arranging bipartisan briefings on all of the public diplomacy requests and chairman mass state department authorization letter to Secretary Rubio, including the new partnership between community colleges and the state department. Your engagement with this committee is appreciated and I look forward to your insight and recommendations. And with that, I yield back.
▶ 0:13:05Thank you, Chair Hisa. Now recognize ranking member Meeks from New York for any opening statement you may have.
▶ 0:13:12Thank you Chairman Mass and thank you under secretary Rogers for appearing before the committee. Uh I am really glad that we are holding this hearing today. Um particularly because we've not had many uh administration officials to be before us.
▶ 0:13:29Uh so I'm pleased that we will have you today and you know I can't help but say and again ask the chairman for more hearings with administration uh officials uh particularly in regards to Iran. You know we have not had one single administrative witness testify publicly on Iran in the past year and even after the administration bombed Iran in June. I would have loved to have had uh individuals in here from the administration to talk to them.
▶ 0:13:59love to would have had the conversation with uh Mr. Witoff and Kushner about what has been taking place with regards to their conversation. Um I do believe the American people deserve to know why the president has taken us to war and what the objectives and nature of the imminent threat are and how much it will cost the American people. To me, these are just basic questions that should be easy to explain before dropping bombs.
▶ 0:14:28uh my extent constituents of course uh did not elect me to be a rubber stamp. But let me go back to you madam under secretary and let me say and and start emphasizing a point on which I think that we do agree. Public diplomacy is not symbolic. It is our frontline tool for ensuring the United States, not China, not Russia, shapes how billions of people understand democracy, freedom, and American values.
▶ 0:14:59It's how we counter foreign disinformation and propaganda, and it demonstrates United States leadership to win the hearts and minds of individuals. Uh now we need to tell this story and uh I you know quite frankly um from what I have read and and too often uh when I've looked at some of your statements uh which I have had some uh some problems with like political engagements
▶ 0:15:29and social media activity uh rather than this I think it should be a global message not just something subject to Europe. uh you've met in Europe with a lot of partisan political actors in Europe and publicly criticized allied governments and domestic policies. um where I think you should be explaining Americans foreign policy.
▶ 0:15:52uh that I think is what your mandate is and your public statements on migration and political issues in allied countries um have at times caused controversy and your activities in Europe, you know, from what I'm told has uh disrupted US EU trade discussions and I've even understood from my just doing some quick research that some of your senior officials in your own administration have raised objections to to to that approach.
▶ 0:16:21So I'm concerned that the focus of your tenure at times appeared more aligned with advancing a domestic political brand than strengthening America's global credibility. Uh that is not public diplomacy and it diminishes the credibility of your under secretariat and the professionals who serve within it.
▶ 0:16:44The public diplomacy mission was not meant to be confined to one continent which I was talking about earlier or one issue. It's a it's global by design and for a good reason. You know, China is rapidly expanding state-run media, cultural diplomacy, and exchanges around the world.
▶ 0:17:06While Russia continues aggressive information warfare, authoritarian actors are filling influence gaps wherever America appears absent. So, US public diplom diplomacy has never been more important or needed uh and should not be uh neglected. The world is watching an America that has launched trade wars and military wars also. They are trying to understand what America stands for.
▶ 0:17:35That is precisely, I think, the mission of your office. Uh, and that's why you're there to do just that. This should have been an opportunity to showcase American leadership and values. Uh, you know, we're hosting FIFA World Cup and celebrating America's 250th anniversary. Yet, anti-US sentiment seems to be rising and some countries have issued travel advisories for the United States.
▶ 0:18:00Tourism has declined and the perception environment uh makes your mission more more critical not less. So Congress needs to strengthen and did strengthen public diplomacy under the secretariat at state because leadership and public diplomacy is essential to national security.
▶ 0:18:21The authority carries ex expectations that America's global voice be coordinated, credible, and focused on advancing America's standing, not weakening it. And so, um, if public diplomacy is perceived as partisan or ideological rather than strategic, it will undermine its own effectiveness and hand our adversaries exactly the narrative they want. It erodess trust and undercuts our power, persuasion. So, I know you got a big job ahead of you.
▶ 0:18:49I look forward to hearing from you and and I hope that we can refocus the office to a degree to its actual me uh mission. But I do thank you for being here because it's been rare for me to see uh people from the administration before this committee. I yield back.
▶ 0:19:04Thank you, Ranking Member Meeks. I appreciate your opening statement. Uh before we go to the opening statement of our witness, uh since you identified China uh as a concern, which we agree on, I am going to submit something for the record just before we get going.
▶ 0:19:18Uh it is an article cited state department identifies code pink and other far-left group as vectors of Chinese influence operation uh and specifically denoting how they uh get their money from a network of connections to the Chinese Communist Party. And so I'm going to submit this for the record right now. Since we have Code Pink in the room, I thought now would be a really great time to uh to put this for the record and identify their uh their network with the Chinese Communist Party.
▶ 0:19:46In that other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. Uh so without objection so ordered. We are pleased to have under secretary of state for public diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers with us today. Your full statements will be made a part of the record. I'll ask you uh to speak about whatever it is that you want but try to limit it to around five minutes so that other members have times for questions as well. and uh we're pleased to have you today and you are recognized for any opening statement you wish to give.
▶ 0:20:17Thank you very much. Uh good morning Chairman Mast, ranking member Meeks and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It is a profound honor to serve as under secretary for public diplomacy and I am deeply grateful for the trust placed in me by President Trump and Secretary Rubio. I welcome this opportunity to update the committee on our work.
▶ 0:20:40As the president has said, the United States is conducting military operations in Iran under Operation Epic Fury to eliminate threats posed by the Iranian regime to America, our forces, and our partners. The State Department's priority is the safety and security of US personnel, facilities, and American citizens. Now, I understand that this is the first hearing this committee has had since commen commencement of operations. And as under secretary for public diplomacy, I probably can't answer every question you have about Iranian operations.
▶ 0:21:09But I can tell you that for me, one of my foremost priorities is in ensuring the safety of American exchange participants in the region. Our ECA bureau is working around the clock to support them with all necessary resources. Our global public affairs communicators are ensuring that timely safety guidance reaches all American citizens through social media and the smart traveler enrollment program acronym STEP notification system.
▶ 0:21:35Beyond immediate operations, a primary focus of my tenure has been freedom of expression. That is not a partisan issue. Freedom of speech is America's most famous freedom and our number one strength. Both parties have often agreed on that. I have engaged in high profofile advocacy in Europe and the UK against the extr territorial enforcement against Americans of censorship laws.
▶ 0:21:59I'm also working to foster constructive solutions to real policy challenges that prompt misguided centurious responses, threats to child safety online, deep fakes, anti-semitism, and genuine anti-American propaganda operations by foreign actors and other vectors of malign foreign influence.
▶ 0:22:18Through advocacy grants and direct outreach, we are making clear to foreign publics that freedom of speech is foundational to prosperity, innovation, and long-term Freedom of expression is central to our work, but it is one part of a much broader mission. I am harnessing our entire public diplomacy enterprise to advance the president's America first agenda, ensuring that every engagement delivers measurable results for the American people and tells the story of our excellence, confidence, and leadership.
▶ 0:22:49Our new public diplomacy strategic plan to be released next month will place sovereignty, security, and economic renewal at the center of our foreign policy communications. We are increasing increasing clarity of US resolve, countering anti-American propaganda and foreign influence operations, and reinforcing the responsibilities of our allies and partners. To ensure that every single one of those dollars is spent wisely, ambassadors and their public diplomacy teams now use a new grant approval process.
▶ 0:23:17No more trans operas in All spending is tracked, approved, and targeted to advance US policy objectives. the one the the ones the American people voted for through rigorous monitoring and evaluation. I see public diplomacy as deploying two essential tools. The first is long-term relationships.
▶ 0:23:37Through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, we maintain a global network of exchange programs, English language initiatives, and cultural partnerships that connect us to millions of emerging leaders each year. Former participants in these programs have gone on to become key foreign officials, bringing profoundly positive experiences to the negotiating table and producing more favorable agreements for the United States.
▶ 0:24:00Thanks to programs like Fulbright, Gilman, and IVLP, we get to make deals with people we know who know us and who've seen some of the best of America, not just partisan media toplines. The second major tool in the public diplomacy toolkit is strategic messaging. The Bureau of Global Public Affairs shapes global media narratives using every digital channel to reach our key audiences. We are harnessing artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to identify emerging trends and measure effectiveness.
▶ 0:24:29We have also implemented new unified branding guidelines centered on the American flag, ensuring that US programs abroad are clearly associated with American leadership. Our regional bureaus bring these tools to life. In the Western Hemisphere, we're contributing to ending illegal immigration and disrupting transnational criminal organizations. In Europe, we're defending freedom of expression and supporting civilizational In the Indo-Pacific, we are highlighting US technological leadership.
▶ 0:24:56And in the Middle East and Africa, we are building partnerships that promote peace and economic opportunity. We're also seizing unique opportunities to amplify our impact. As the country enters a decade of sports ahead of the FIFA World Cup and Los Angeles Olympic Games, we are championing sports diplomacy. Through USA Pavilions at World Expose and our partnership with the NFL, we are showcasing American excellence and opening doors for US business. As we approach our 250th birthday, we are using this milestone to celebrate American achievement on the global stage.
▶ 0:25:26Throughout this work, I'm committed to being a responsible steward of every single dollar the taxpayers entrust us to spend. I'm grateful for the committee's partnership and I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you.
▶ 0:25:41Thank you, Under Secretary Rogers. I'm now going to recognize members for any questions that they may have, alternating between Republicans and Democrats. We're going to begin with Representative Heisenga.
▶ 0:25:51Thank you once again, uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, Under Secretary Rogers, uh, as a First Amendment advocate and Supreme Court litigator and now as uh, the under secretary for public diplomacy, you've made freedom of speech a defining issue of your career. Uh, I deeply appreciate your focus on that issue. That is one of the things that distinguishes us as a country and as a people. Last year, I chaired a subcommittee hearing on the censorship industrial complex run out of the then global engagement center or GEK.
▶ 0:26:22Uh, one of the witnesses was the Biden administration's uh, well, I I dubbed her the disinformation Zarina, uh, Nina Jankowitz, uh, Ms. Jenkowitz claimed that the GE facilitating the censorship of America of Americans was just a quote right-wing conspiracy theory.
▶ 0:26:40Uh, Under Secretary Rogers, could you please clarify uh clearly and state for the record whether the Biden State Department was facilitating the censorship of Americans and how they were doing so.
▶ 0:26:53Thank you very much uh Congressman Heisinga and thank you for your opening statement which made really resonant points. I try not to be a Zarina in this role and I hope that I succeed. I think you know a recent corpus of evidence that we can look at are the results of the House Judiciary GOP investigation which focused on the transnational component of the Biden era censorship regime.
▶ 0:27:13But and that that shows communications between social media companies and foreign regulators where foreign regulators are trying to choke off the expression of certain viewpoints and the conduct of certain political debates by Americans on American soil on American social media. But you're right, this was happening do domestically too before the people elected President Trump to stop it. So under the Biden administration and there's a large corpus of documents that came out in what's called the Murphy litigation. People can Google Mr.
▶ 0:27:40Mury and there's a whole like appendix of documents um and that also came out in the Twitter files by journalist Matt Taibbe. You essentially had during COVID and it ca became so conspicuous during COVID you had this network of NOS's funded by the government that having seen the inside of this apparatus these NOS's if you want them to they really do act as agents of the government you had NOS's like the Stanford Internet Observatory election integrity partnership um the Global Disinformation Index reaching out to social media companies and
▶ 0:28:10working with this kind of um cartel of like Stacey organizations that call advertising ers and tell people to demplify certain content. You had them suppressing uh what they called adverse narratives. So notice not foreign propaganda and not misstatements of fact and not deep fakes, but adverse narratives. Narratives we don't like that promote the wrong political outcome. Narratives like, for example, the co virus leaked from a lab. Well, we now know that people at the CIA thought that was more likely than not.
▶ 0:28:39Narratives like the vaccine isn't completely sterilizing. We now know that that was true. and narratives like there were irregularities surrounding the 2020 election which happened under truly irregular circumstances. In private practice, I represented Charlie Kirk, who I promise you was not a Russian bot. People might have disagreed with Charlie's views, but he was all-American and he was on a top 20 censorship target list maintained by this NGO network. Needless to say, we've put a stop to that under President Trump.
▶ 0:29:07Well, amen. Allelujah. And so that just to be clear, these were organizations that ostensibly were supposed to stop foreign misinformation, yet they turned inward. Correct.
▶ 0:29:18So I think what happened is, you know, around 2016, you get this mandate to protect America's cyber infrastructure and there's this decision made that that includes America's cognitive infrastructure. So let that detonate in your brain for a moment. And under that nomenclature, I guess your brain is part of the power grid and the government gets to control what goes in and out of it. Um, you know what's tricky is there are foreign narratives that get intentionally injected into and amplified by what appear to be domestic IP addresses.
▶ 0:29:44But instead of exposing um and conducting counter speech against those foreign narratives, which the government was doing, they they went a step further and a step too far. They would find like a guy in Idaho tweeting something that, you know, they thought Russia wanted him to tweet and they would tell Twitter to take it down.
▶ 0:30:00Okay. Um, we passed out of this committee the first comprehensive authorization of the State Department in over 20 years. And I was proud to have the authorizations passed out of this uh out of our subcommittee for your role as under secretary and the addition of the ECA assistant uh uh assistant secretary signed into law during the NDAA.
▶ 0:30:20The final piece left to put to to left to finish is the enhanced assistant secretary for global public affairs which was rebranded as assistant secretary for strategic communications. China, Russia, Iran are uh actively actively pushing their anti-American message across the globe and it's critical that we are actively pushing back in my opinion. Last few seconds here.
▶ 0:30:41uh how are you thinking about combating foreign propaganda efforts and will you commit to working with this committee to finalize authorization of the our family section that this Congress more strategically is that uh that so we can strategically enhance public diplomacy with state
▶ 0:30:56I'm a highly committed congressman I'm going to use every tool in our toolkit and more just not censorship and I think as justice Lewis Brandeise famously said when you're combating falsehoods and fallacies the best remedy reme remedy is more speech not enforced silence I want to do more speech and I'm really grateful for all the support this committee can provide.
▶ 0:31:12That's wonderful. Appreciate it. And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:31:15Thank you, Ranking Member Meeks.
▶ 0:31:19Yes, Madam Hor. You know, you're right when you're the first witness here since this war. We're now at war in Iran. And in the past, the department has touted its close public diplomacy cooperation with the US military entities like Yet there does not seem to have any real coordination at this time even as we've been surging military assets into the region for
▶ 0:31:49weeks. And we also see that uh in the changing messages about our and in the late evacuation advisories for US citizens that have left so many American citizens stranded. My office is getting calls every day in Texas from people who are stranded because there was no plan about them getting out.
▶ 0:32:13Now, if the administration can't get its message straight when speaking to I can only imagine it's worse overseas. did your bureau engage in any advanced planning about how to manage the information environment and effects of this war on global public opinion?
▶ 0:32:38Thank you, Congressman. So, my bureau is always engaged in advanced long-term planning on how to respond to crisis situations. We have really dedicated career professionals I've been very impressed by who maintain a roundthe-clock crisis task force. We have a whole situ a whole special dedicated facility for that that Secretary Rubio Toran highlighted yesterday. Um I want to highlight that since February 28th, the department has facilitated the safe return of over 17,500 American citizens from the Middle East.
▶ 0:33:04And as of yesterday, including a single day surge of 8,500 arrivals yesterday. Thousands more have successfully transitioned to safe havens in Europe or Asia. So they're not home, but they're somewhere safe. You know, public diplomacy means we try to communicate in an authentic message. How did you how was that messaged?
▶ 0:33:21Well, so our bureau our bureau of global public affairs and our bureau of consular affairs have been coordinating closely consular affairs not my bureau is principally responsible for those kinds of consular services. Here's how you get on a plane. Here's how you get home. We've been working
▶ 0:33:33you have that conversation before the bomb started dropping.
▶ 0:33:36So the under secretary for public diplomacy is not part of the tactical operational or strategic planning for commencement. There was no military operation direct but but no Congressman Meeks respectfully that's entirely wrong. There's constant direct planning going on. We are constantly constantly um bolstering our infrastructure for crisis communications and communications in closed societies like Iran where the government doesn't want our limited amount of time. We are constantly bolstering our ability to communicate with global public. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
▶ 0:34:06Don't try to filibuster me.
▶ 0:34:07I'm going to answer because I'm speaking up. I am speaking up for my career professionals professional who have been working around the clock in this crisis. to filibuster.
▶ 0:34:18Stop going to malign their work.
▶ 0:34:20Stop trying to filibuster. Just answer the question.
▶ 0:34:23Legislators that filibuster, not me.
▶ 0:34:25Just answer the questions. Now, tell us what was done in your secretariat to prepare for the war with Iran.
▶ 0:34:38So, as I've as I explained, I'll I'll try to answer again. I think we are
▶ 0:34:44I want to know specifically about the war in Iran. I don't know what constantly means. It's specifically with preparation for the war in Iran. What did you do?
▶ 0:34:55So specifically in Iran, I'm happy to give you very Iran specific stuff. So we coordinate closely with USGM which beams and otherwise gets messages into Iran. Um and we also run a social media platform called um US ABARC that is one of the main sources frankly of outside information in Iran. And so preparing for any conflict or any crisis, these are key tools. Maintaining them is something my office did to prepare for this war that we're doing to prepare for any crisis or any conflict in the future.
▶ 0:35:23Those are evergreen preparation measures and I don't think they should.
▶ 0:35:25So you were working with Carrie Lake on
▶ 0:35:28Uh yeah, absolutely.
▶ 0:35:29Okay. And you know that Carrie Lake, who's the de facto leader of the US Agency for Global Media, has been working to dismantle the proven tools that we need to communicate to people of Iran and the broader East. She cut Voice of America's Persian service to almost zero, only to then scramble back to try to fix it by her mistake by bringing staff back from administrative leave.
▶ 0:35:53She continues to hamstring radio farter by refusing the use of USAGM medium wave transmissions into Iran, forcing Radio Farter to find alternative platforms, wasting precious time and taxpayer money. We ought to be surging more on content so that the Iranian people know what's happening and where we stand with them. That has not been happening.
▶ 0:36:22and your bureau with Miss Lake. Seems to me that there is a even a disconnect there.
▶ 0:36:40I'm out of time, but I just want to say that there are other things that we do need your commitment on with reference to carrying out the statute as you carry out your responsibilities to work on programming that shall be non-political in character and shall be balanced and representative for the diversity of American political, social, and cultural life and that academic and cultural programs maintain scholarly integrity and meet the highest standards.
▶ 0:37:10of academic excellence or autistic achievement. You know, because this is what the law says. And the law also goes on to require you to ensure the department does not fund organizations engaging in partisan pol political activity in the United States. These two provisions are very important. In fact, the first one I read was written twice in the statute by Congress. It's that important. And I yield back.
▶ 0:37:39Thank the ranking member for his comments about surging uh media. I hope you're as interested in surging ordinance that actually destroys and degrades the imminent and constant threat against the United States of America that has been Iran that you denied was a threat for several hours
▶ 0:38:00I'm interested in getting some witness in here to testify.
▶ 0:38:02You have one in front of you. You didn't want to let her speak. Witco Kersner, individuals from the State
▶ 0:38:10You have you have an individual in front of you.
▶ 0:38:13This is the first one.
▶ 0:38:14and I'm talking this has been over a
▶ 0:38:16Take the time to to ask questions here.
▶ 0:38:18Get Wit Coffee here. I will.
▶ 0:38:20Well, write a letter to him. Maybe he'll write you back.
▶ 0:38:22We have.
▶ 0:38:22You guys could be pen pals.
▶ 0:38:24We have.
▶ 0:38:24I'm going to recognize Representative
▶ 0:38:26Have a job to do.
▶ 0:38:27Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Secretary, I'm I'm over here. Um I chair the Europe subcommittee of this full committee and uh my concern about Europe itself goes well beyond the digital services act. Uh earlier this week I was on a zoom call with multiple chairman of foreign affairs committees in our allies in Europe.
▶ 0:38:51We were discussing hybrid war and uh they wanted to talk about Russian interference in elections. I reminded them that uh we have examples of our European allies interfering with elections amongst our European allies uh specifically in Romania, but there are other examples.
▶ 0:39:14What are you doing to make sure that your your free speech extends to our allies in Europe against other allies in Europe?
▶ 0:39:23Well, thank you so much for the question, Congressman. I think, you know, along with freedom of expression, a core American value and a core American interest is the liberty of democratic self-determination. And really those two go hand inand. If you can't campaign in a democracy and you can't hear what your uh campaign elected officials want to say, if you can't rally people to support your cause or debate you if they oppose you, then you don't have a democracy. You don't have self-government.
▶ 0:39:47So when you try to, you know, ban political parties using a court on sanitary or choke off political opposition on the internet, these are real concerns that undermine the shared values that have underpinned our NATO alliance for years. Now, what I will say though is that um diplomacy, you know, soft diplomacy and also trade negotiations and the full spectrum approach this administration have taken, I think, have produced really constructive engagement in Europe. So, President Trump had a great meeting yesterday with Chancellor Merritt.
▶ 0:40:14And we also saw a German court a few days ago uh preliminarily, not totally throw out, but preliminarily refuse to ban the popular party AFD as extremist. And then we saw a follow-up. We saw an an editorial in a very mainstream German newspaper, kind of like a German New York Times.
▶ 0:40:32the German name I would butcher so I won't try to um say it but they basically said look we we may not agree with AFD but we have to let them participate in the democratic process this ruling is probably right and that's really what we're going for you know there's a lot of bad faith accusation that when we stick up for polit for democratic self-determination and for expression in Europe that we're taking partisan sides no we are taking the side of self-governance which we chose 250 years ago and we think has benefited our allies too
▶ 0:41:00okay so let's go to uh platform form X uh because the digital services act also uh probably intends to censure us speech on X. What are you doing about that?
▶ 0:41:13So there's no probably about it, Congressman. Unfortunately, and that's what the House Judiciary um investigation recently revealed, but it's also common sense. We knew that before those documents came out. Um, we knew that one of the targets of our recent 3C sanctions policy, Imran Ahmed, who worked for a British NGO, that one of the goals, one of the goals of that British NGO's activity was to quote, "Kill Musk's Twitter in order to undermine American political freedoms." We also saw a letter from a former European uh, Commission Representative, Terry Bratton, sent to Mr.
▶ 0:41:43Musk in August 2024 threatening adverse regulatory action if Elon dared to allow President Trump, now President Trump, the for the frontr runner in a presidential election, to speak on that platform. The letter basically says, "Nice platform you've got there.
▶ 0:42:00Wouldn't want anything to happen to it, and if you allow an American candidate for an American- elected office to speak to the American people, we will crack down on you." Interestingly, that letter made reference to separate ongoing regulatory proceedings against X purportedly on contentneutral topics like blue check verification and algorithm transparency. And the letter says if you let President Trump speak, things might gets worse for you in this other ongoing investigation.
▶ 0:42:26Now, that other investigation culminated in an unprecedented 120 million euro fine against X just this winter and that has spurred a lot of my engagement in
▶ 0:42:36Okay. Have you suggested shield legislation against Britain's online safety act?
▶ 0:42:41Not just sorry.
▶ 0:42:42This this is this is what we need to be doing. We need to be making legislation uh so that we can make a firm statement here in the the legislative branch. Even if the executive branch is doing all you're doing, we need to make uh a firm statement in the legislation legislative branch. And I would ask for suggested legislation to shield Americans. Congressman, I couldn't agree more and thank you very much for bringing it up. So, we have the 2010 speech act.
▶ 0:43:09That's the law that says you can't enforce British liable judgments here because they go against the First Amendment. Simple step would be to amend that. You can't enforce foreign liability for the content or viewpoint of speech on social media platforms or anywhere else. And I believe that Senator Schmidt has a version of this proposal. There was a version recently proposed in Wyoming. I'm happy to work with your staff or anyone's staff on that legislation. You're absolutely right. It is a core
▶ 0:43:32I would like to do that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 0:43:35Thank you, Representative Self. Representative Barah.
▶ 0:43:37Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, you know, I travel a lot and meet with foreign leaders around the world. And while these programs um don't fall under your the best diplomacy we have in the were foreign exchange students. And and I meet with a ton of leaders that have come here. They might not like American policy, but they love the American people. They love what we represent. They saw the freedoms that we have here and they take that back.
▶ 0:44:05These are prime ministers, these are presidents um across the the world and the second best thing we can do is the Peace Corps um sending our young men and women again not your purview necessarily, but it is the best part of America is the American people, who we are, what we represent, etc. Um now nowadays when I travel we're not having those students come to the United States. That's a problem. They're going to China right now.
▶ 0:44:35Um we are not sending our young people abroad in in the numbers that we did previously to show them who the American people are. Again, you see the Chinese filling void after void after void. That's why um I introduced HR6428 with um my friend from South Carolina, Joe Wilson. And Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'm glad that we're going to mark that up shortly.
▶ 0:44:57It really is just asking the State Department to take a quick look at what we're doing abroad, the programs that we support, but also inventorying what the PRC is doing so we have a good sense of what this competition is about so we know where to allocate those funds. So again, I'm appreciative that we are going to mark that bill up. One way we have been trying to combat this is supporting young leaders in foreign countries. One of those programs that I get a chance to meet with regularly is the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative.
▶ 0:45:26We wili um you know I meet with these young folks that have gone through a program that the United States government's funded. Um they learn about who we are. We help develop that next generation of leaders who will be the next prime ministers, the next legislators in their own country. Um for fiscal year 2026, Congress appropriated 35 million um for the Weili program.
▶ 0:45:49However, as I kind of look at this, only about half of that has currently been posted to the the Weisselli program um creating a real disruption um in program What I'd like this that does fall under your purview. Um have all awards for young leaders initiatives for FY25 been fully dispersed by um your department?
▶ 0:46:11Um so, thank you, Congressman. So I understand that a number of programs were some dispersements were delayed in inter agency but are now on track and I know my staff have been briefing staff on the details of appropriations and I'm happy to get more information um if if the congressman needs it. But what I can say is why is one of these programs that's on track and we've actually we're using that program to convene about 70 professionals in uh the Indoacific to combat online scams which are you know one of our really important challenges over there. uh the Weisely Professionals program.
▶ 0:46:41The newest cohort will arrive in the United States on March 9th, 2026. And those participants will engage with US interlocutors on economic prosperity, natural resource management, uh civic engagement, and governance. And again,
▶ 0:46:54I've got your commitment that, you know, the the congressionally appropriated funds will get distributed both the FY25 and FY26 funds. There are inter agency processes there, but I will totally commit to follow the law, including um any law pertaining to the appropriations from this Congress, and I I like this program and I want to support it.
▶ 0:47:12Great. Um I appreciate it is important for us to protect our um freedom of speech, our first amendment rights and so forth. Um, can you give me in the era of um AI, in the era of how our adversaries very easily can um mimic Americans can, you know, use propaganda to influence our elections. Um, again, I'm not talking about American citizens doing their first amendment rights.
▶ 0:47:40I'm talking about adversaries who, you know, may choose one political party versus another. How are you and and how's the state department approaching um influence and propaganda in the era of
▶ 0:47:53So, this is really a team effort and we coordinate closely with our intelligence community. My staff have touch points with them every couple of weeks. I was just out at um one of the main intelligence campuses last week getting detailed briefings and engagement on this. We also coordinate closely with the DOW um MISO operations that you know when I was kind of in the wilderness waiting to be confirmed I met with prior under secretaries and they all said make sure you have better inter agency coordination. One hand needs to know what the other hand is doing and I've really made that a priority and it's really made a difference.
▶ 0:48:22The other thing we do is we don't censor and we don't suggest censorship and we don't um incentivize it but we do talk to the social media companies. They are some of our sentinels on the front lines. they see the incoming bot activity and they can tell us what they're see.
▶ 0:48:34Can I get your commitment to come back to this committee um and give us a briefing on the tools that are necessary to combat what is going to be a challenging playing field?
▶ 0:48:43Not only will I commit to you know any briefing that this committee requests but I will point to 30 days ago I submitted a report to this committee or maybe it was to all of Congress on our FEMI formal line influence strategy and I'm very interested in the AI issue. I think there are some very exciting tools and I've just dedicated some funds to incentivize development of tools that help individual users discern what's true instead of choking off things the government thinks are adverse.
▶ 0:49:08Okay. Thank you,
▶ 0:49:10Representative Bar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and uh Secretary Rogers, thank you for your service. Critics of this administration's America first policy like to complain uh asserting that we are alienating our allies and driving them towards the grasp of Xiinping's so-called charm offensive.
▶ 0:49:31There was this ridiculous interview this morning on CNN with some uh some British diplomat who was suggesting that because we're uh ridding the world of this menace in Iran that somehow we were alienating allies. Don't see that with our Gulf uh allies. Don't see that with Saudi Arabia. don't see that obviously with Israel. We see we see appreciation and gratitude for for ridding the world of this uh uh the world's leading state sponsor of terror and their their capabilities.
▶ 0:50:00But under President Trump's leadership, we are seeing a historic level of engagement, negotiation, strategic alignment through trade restructuring, but we're also supporting our allies with the return of hard power deterrence. So, can you respond to some of these critiques and explain how this America First agenda is actually supporting our allies um and and helping us um better compete or and deter our
▶ 0:50:27Absolutely, Congressman, and thank you. So, America first has never meant America alone. And as Secretary Rubio underscored at Munich, you know, one reason we want our European allies to invest more in their own defense, for example, is because we believe safe, strong, prosperous allies make us safe, strong, and prosperous, too. A hard deterrent obviously matters in in the new foreign policy order that we are entering. I think we have taken we took the prior order for granted for too long and the landscape is shifting.
▶ 0:50:56Now, this actually dovetales a bit with the with the misinformation topic because some Iranian propaganda that we've seen successfully countered on Twitter is this idea that these Gulf countries aren't aren't being bombed, you know, randomly by Iran. They're not they're not targeting civilian populations. They must have just been hitting US military bases. And we see community notes on these tweets and we see people respond and and, you know, ratio them thoroughly with videos of Iran bombing the Burjal Arab hotel and random people in residential apartments.
▶ 0:51:24So the battlefield on which we fight the information war is evolving but I think um the the new tools for winning on that field can be um harnessed and marshaled by us in really favorable and impactful ways. I also think that, you know, we're renegotiating our nuclear deterrent um framework now and that's something that my colleague Tom Dano would be more equipped to talk about, but I think messaging on that has been, you know, has been made easier by by the administration's resolve.
▶ 0:51:53And and do you do you believe that the uh the willingness to to use and the to display the exquisite capabilities of our military in Operation Midnight Hammer with the Maduro uh extradition and with this uh campaign epic fury? Do you think Xiinping is more or less deterred? Do you think Kim Jong-un is more or less deterred? And do you think Vladimir Putin is more or less deterred? Without a question more, Congressman,
▶ 0:52:21um let me ask you about um another PRC issue. In December, the House passed pre and President Trump signed into law the uh FY26 NDAA, which included portions of my bill, the countering PRC malign influence fund act. This fund was designed to provide the Department of State subject to clear congressional oversight enhanced tools to combat Chinese Communist Party coercion, manipulation, and mine influence abroad.
▶ 0:52:46Um, how is your office, Secretary Rogers, attacking the issue of Chinese mine influence and how can the US work with allies like Taiwan to counter uh US skepticism narratives promoted by Chinese proxies in the Indoacific?
▶ 0:53:00I wish I had more than five minutes to answer that question because it is such a multi-pronged effort and it's so important. So, we are using our exchange fellowships and person-toperson engagement to generate tangible results. Um, for example, we ran a communications program in Mexico warning about Chinese economic coercion and the Fouchian bargain that China offers with ports and infrastructure. That uh campaign succeeded and contributed to new tariffs on Chinese goods. In the Indoacific, we are actively fostering, you know, all of these alliances in in the C5 countries.
▶ 0:53:29We've got these great, you know, critical minerals deals that are helping to secure our supply chain. Those are all very important. We are also working to expose Chinese United Front spending which sounds consistent with the aim of your legislation and those efforts are so multifaceted that I cannot discuss most of them in this setting but they are very serious.
▶ 0:53:46I I applaud you, the administration, the president, Secretary Rubio for all of this great work. Uh China is increasing their diplomatic budget by 9.3%. there is a charm offensive, but what you all are doing in the Indoacific is in incredibly important and I know our allies in Taiwan are are grateful for all of this good work uh and and there should be no uh there should be no misunderstanding of of this administration's resolve when it comes to uh deterrence uh in the in the Western Pacific.
▶ 0:54:17I yield back.
▶ 0:54:18Thank you.
▶ 0:54:18Very good. We now recognize the representative whose name gets screwed up the most, Representative Elchesky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, thank you, Chairman Mast and Ranking Member Meeks for holding this hearing. Thank you to Under Secretary Rogers for your presence today. As has been noted, this is our first hearing since the president forced us into a war with Iran. And make no mistake, this is a war. The president has said as much himself. We've lost American service members.
▶ 0:54:47We've lost um a lot of resources. This will be a protracted military engagement. The president hasn't ruled sending boots on the ground. We expect a supplemental budget request and I believe Americans will be asked to pay billions of dollars in support of this fight. Iran is a brutal and repressive regime. They cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Strikes and wars are sometimes justified, but the constitution demands demands congressional approval.
▶ 0:55:17Instead, this war has been started with no congressional authorization, no public debate, no clear evidence of an imminent threat, no coherent plan for what comes next, and no explanation of how these strikes are in the best interests of Americans. Under Secretary, you said something recently to a colleague I'd like to repeat.
▶ 0:55:36If you can't hear what your campaigning elected officials want to say, if you can't rally people to support your cause or debate you if they oppose you, then you don't have a democracy. I couldn't agree with you more how true that is, but also how sad that those you report to, including President Trump, fail to operate that way with Iran and in other places.
▶ 0:56:05And as has been pointed out, as the war rages on, I think it's unconscionable that the State Department didn't have a plan before the strikes to evacuate Americans from harm's way. I have to imagine that layoffs have only worsened this administration's response. Farsy and Arabic speaking foreign service officers have been let go.
▶ 0:56:24The Consular Affairs Bureau has been hit hard by riffs and reports suggest that the FBI fired a dozen agents and staff from counter intelligence units tasked with monitoring threats to Moran just days before the attack. So, let's be consistent in our values. If we're going to talk about protecting national security and prioritizing diplomacy, which I support, let's not be silent as the president starts wars of choice.
▶ 0:56:47Turning to your work, Under Secretary Rogers, um I want to start by asking if you agree that community colleges play an important role in advancing the State Department's mission to shape an international environment where all Americans can thrive.
▶ 0:57:00I think all of our higher education infrastructure can if we engage
▶ 0:57:03That's great. Thank you for that. And I agree. I think community colleges are super helpful. Uh it's why I was proud to work with Chairman Mass and his team to include report language during the state department reauthorization effort to require uh the assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs to brief Congress. Uh after going back and forth for about two months, we finally did get such a briefing scheduled and so we thank you for that. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and your team for working closely with my staff to get something on the books.
▶ 0:57:29It was a little frustrating, I'll admit, under secretary, to get that going, but I do appreciate you finally getting it scheduled. I was also shocked when I learned that there may be an effort to move this request out of the state department and into the department of education. Um, in part because I thought this was an administration that was abolishing the department of education. So, I wanted to ask um are there ongoing conversations or efforts within the state department to move some ECA programs to the department of education?
▶ 0:57:55Not to which I'm party. I we do have some inter agency agreements and conversations with the department of education. those have generally focused on streamlining and enhancing and augmenting those capabilities usually by centralizing them under state but it's possible there's some mutual exchange so for example I've acquired uh the section 117 of the higher ed act capability to investigate and hold to account universities that don't comply with their transparency obligations visa v foreign money that's obviously I wanted to mention that earlier very important on the formal line influence front um we've
▶ 0:58:25also acquired there were some English language programs that were kind of divided between education and state and it didn't really make sense and we're moving to bring those under state. I'm not aware offhand of anything moved from state to ED, but it sounds like there are staff briefings ongoing and I'd be happy to
▶ 0:58:41if we can follow up that'd be great. I appreciate that. And just as I I wrap my last 45 seconds here, I'll note that the fiscal year 26 solicitations for the community college administrator program were recently posted. I wanted to also thank you for that. We are still waiting for solicitations for the community college initiative program, the CCI. Um and so just want to reaffirm um our support of that and that we hope to see that happen soon. And uh again with that we thank you for your time, your presence and Mr. Chairman with that I yield back.
▶ 0:59:05Thank you.
▶ 0:59:07Representative Kim.
▶ 0:59:09Thank you Chairman Mast and ranking member. Um I want to thank our under secretary Rogers for joining us today. You know, the world remains focused on Operation Epic Fury, during which President Trump is demonstrating decisive leadership against an evil regime that has perpetuated decades of state sponsored terrorism that killed and brutal oppression of its own people in a persistent nuclear threat to the United States and to our allies.
▶ 0:59:38Uh, I want to turn attention to the non-kinetic efforts like stric information operations and public diplomacy that are critical to sustaining the momentum, weakening the regime, and supporting the Iranian people's desire for change.
▶ 0:59:56So, can you talk about how the R family uh tailored and disseminated messaging to the Iranian people over the past several months from the start of the December 2025 protest through the current military operation?
▶ 1:00:11Absolutely. Thank you so much, uh, Congresswoman. This is very important for us and I'll talk about what I can talk about in this setting and we could arrange other briefings for other material. So, um, we've facilitated internet freedom efforts in closed societies including Iran all year. Um the VPN efforts I think are a matter of public record and we continue to engage in those and others. Um we also have a flagship social media presence that I mentioned earlier. US Aba Farscy with over 2.3 million followers. That's up from 1.5 million in 2021.
▶ 1:00:40So it's grown significantly and that's concentrated on three social media platforms um ex Instagram and Facebook and that directly conveys US foreign policy to Persian speaking audience. large numbers of Iranians comment on, debate, and react to US policies across these platforms. We are also using multiple other vectors to reach Iranians directly. Our message supports their aspirations for freedom while exposing the regime's repression and regional destabilization.
▶ 1:01:06Although I don't control the US AGM assets, which Deputy CEO Lake supervises, my office does coordinate with her office, and there's been some uh misleading reporting suggesting that those efforts were dismantled or downscaled. Um, we're very committed. you know, our Kuwait tower was briefly compromised, but we fixed that and we're very committed to getting messaging into Iran.
▶ 1:01:23Thank you. Can you I I know you talked about a lot of that. Uh, you know, I wanted to ask you about how the Art family has taken to uh debunk the Iranian regime's disinformation and to advance the America's commitment to internet freedom.
▶ 1:01:38you were touching on those, but I want you to go into a little more specific maybe using examples to uh you know the internet freedom anti-censorship tools in the Iranian people's right to free expression and then you mentioned coordinating with other US uh agencies and allies. Talk about specifically on how you're aligning those messages uh to counter the regime's anti-US narratives. Of course, Congresswoman.
▶ 1:02:04So, um, when we coordinate with other agencies, that includes AGM, which includes the Open Technology Fund, and we've provided direct support for censorship circumvention technology in Iran, and that's something we continue to coordinate closely on. A lot of our other efforts on propaganda and information operations, including providing technology to the Iranian people are very sensitive and I can't discuss them in this setting.
▶ 1:02:24um in terms of the broader information war since the start of the conflict because the situation is so fluid and so complicated messaging has been very centralized but you know leading up to this like digital freedom has been a core priority of my office and we've invested in you know I think I think one difference versus prior administrations is we don't only direct our digital freedom efforts at closed societies but we care a lot about closed societies so we're investing in technologies to make free internet available to everyone everywhere and that would impactfully include Iran.
▶ 1:02:54Thank you to the extent that you want to share more.
▶ 1:02:57In different setting, I would love to uh invite you to that.
▶ 1:03:01Um I want to ask you a question about North Korea. Uh North Korea's regime enforces draconian censorship measures and severe uh restrictions on freedom of speech like isolating its people from global perspectives and denying them access to the critical uh unbiased information and sustaining the regime's propaganda.
▶ 1:03:23uh it should be in the US's national interest uh security interest to break that information barrier and empower the North Korean people with accurate external viewpoints. So question to you is um the what strategies and public diplomacy tools is the our family utilizing when it comes to information freedom in North Korea?
▶ 1:03:43Thank you very much Congresswoman. So on North Korea, we are in complete alignment with our allies and partners and we continue to call for the complete denuclearization of the DPRK. Both President Trump and South Korea and President Lee support meaningful dialogue and have called on DPRK to abide by its international obligations. Um USAGM again has some really useful assets here that we're bringing back online.
▶ 1:04:06So, the VA Korean language service resumed broadcasting in December 2025 with daily 15inute shortwave broadcasts and digital content and plans to expand programming in FY26. And we've done, you know, we do surveys because everything we spend has to be it has to produce a result, right? So, we want to make sure that North Korean defectors and others are listening and we found evidence that they are.
▶ 1:04:30Uh, Radio Free Asia received full FY25 funding um and the broadcasting again, you know, into North Korea has just resumed and we refer members of the committee to AGM leadership for further
▶ 1:04:44Thank you very much. My time's up. I yield back.
▶ 1:04:47Representative Dean,
▶ 1:04:54there we go.
▶ 1:04:56Pardon me while I adjust. My microphone is not working. Thank you, Chairman Mast, Ranking Member Meeks, for holding this hearing. Thank you, Under Secretary Rogers, for testifying before us today. I want you to know that I'm a former college professor. I've seen firsthand the power of international exchange programs both for students as people growing uh for their cultural understanding, personal growth, professional development, but also for our country.
▶ 1:05:22These programs strengthen our support around the world, building generations of leaders that appreciate and trust the United States. I'm deeply concerned by this administration's deprioritization of these programs and delays in distributing the grants despite bipartisan congressional support. Last year, Shel uh Congresswoman Shelley Pingri and I led a letter to the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs about payment freezes.
▶ 1:05:51I believe this issue has been resolved, but I have also learned uh about the concerning trend of the Office of Management and Budget preventing program awards from being completed. I ask you, under secretary, to please provide a full report to this committee uh as well as to the appropriations committee where it is reasonably under our jurisdiction uh to ensure that these grants uh will be processed for FY26 expeditiously.
▶ 1:06:22Will you do that?
▶ 1:06:23Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman. We will provide whatever transparency the committee wants. and I was confirmed in October and I believe that some of these uh programs that were stalled are now back on coming back online
▶ 1:06:33and I do appreciate that uh and I appreciate your service and I appreciate that you are new in this role. Speaking of diplomacy and disinformation and propaganda here we are at war with Iran. what happened to diplomacy for me as a member of Congress, for me as a United States citizen, how I had hoped that our Secretary of State, not Mr. Witoff, not Mr. Kushner.
▶ 1:06:58They could have been supportive in the diplomacy, but how is it that this administration cut off diplomatic conversations around what to do next in Iran and instead the president went on a feeling a feeling as the Secretary of State said the day before uh we went to war with Iran because we knew that Israel was going to go to with war with Iran. And here we are with 50,000 troops in the region and we're following Israel into that.
▶ 1:07:28I don't think that is uh a the use of diplomacy. War should be the last resort. Diplomacy should be before that. We didn't exhaust that. Uh and so sadly this administration can't get its act together on what was the imminent threat, what's the purpose of this war, and what's the outcome.
▶ 1:07:47I just want to read into the record the names of the six deceased members of our military who died in the very first day of this war of choice by President Trump. Captain Cody Cork, Sergeant First Class Nicole Armor Amore, Sergeant First Class Noah Sergeant Declan Cody, Major Jeffrey O'Brien,
▶ 1:08:18Chief Warrant Officer Robert Merzanne. They are gone day one without any explanation to Congress. I I can take that personally under article 1 section 8, but without any convincing of the American people that we would spend billions of dollars and blood and Talk about disinformation, failure of diplomacy, propaganda put forward.
▶ 1:08:50Will you go back to the Secretary of State and convey to him that A he should have been the one negotiating this and that B they need to get a clear idea of how we get out of this mess because the war is ever broadening and we failed to use diplomatic tools. We are continuing to fail to use them. Will you go back and take that message to the secretary of state and to the president?
▶ 1:09:17I'm always happy to convey the committee's feedback to the State Department leadership as appropriate, but um Congresswoman, I have a slightly different recollection of those events than you do. President Trump is one of the greatest dealmakers alive. And as we know, deals aren't about negotiations, life and death negotiations over whether a regime whose motto is death to America can have a nuclear weapon. Those life and death negotiations are not just a science. They're an art.
▶ 1:09:44And I trust I trust the judgment of this president and I trust the judgment of my boss secretary of
▶ 1:09:50You're new here. I get that. But you cannot just talk over us. The are five minutes. You are here to answer questions and I am able to cut you off.
▶ 1:10:00If you're cutting me off or do you want me to do you want to cut me off or do you want me to answer?
▶ 1:10:03Well, you answered falsely. You decided the word repres of Ohio is recognized.
▶ 1:10:09Decided it was about nuclear. Representative Davidson,
▶ 1:10:12what the president? That is what I recognize you. Uh,
▶ 1:10:16I yield back.
▶ 1:10:17I already recognized Davidson, so it's a little late.
▶ 1:10:20Thank you, Chairman. Um, M. Rogers, I thank you for being here today and for your work and it's timely uh because there's just a lot going on in the world and you think about the importance of public diplomacy. Look, I was stationed in Europe uh during the end of the cold war. Uh and you know, nine November 1989 is going to be one of the most famous days in history.
▶ 1:10:45Uh and shortly after that, I was in Berlin meeting people who were experiencing their first hours of freedom. You know, Ronald Reagan had said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." And Gorbachev didn't tear it down. Nor did the United States. The people on the other side of it tore it down. and they couldn't believe what we had in the west. A guy my about my age then I was 19 uh said, "Is it like this everywhere?" And it was obvious that he was deceived.
▶ 1:11:14He he was told that we had a couple blocks for show just like they did. He couldn't believe that stores were open 247, that you could walk in and get fresh milk, and that everyone could go in, not just the party people. And I'm like, "They want everyone to go in so they sell more stuff." He's like, "Well, then how do they get the shells to be full?" And we've gone from that to one of Reagan's quotes at the time was, "Freedom's never more than one generation away from extinction." But here we are in a time and place where in our own country, in this Congress, we've
▶ 1:11:44got people who describe themselves as socialists. We've got across Europe people from Western Europe, people from London and Paris and Germany who are claiming asylum on the other side of the Iron Curtain. I experienced it when I was in Budapest last year. I met Jewish people who said, "Budapest is great. I can walk around and wear a Kipa and feel safe." I would never feel safe like this in London or Paris.
▶ 1:12:14Meanwhile, if you look what's going on in Europe, as Vice President Vance and uh Secretary of State Marco Rubio called out, I mean, they're putting people in jail for speech. You know, uh if you look in, you know, Britain's abortion buffer zone law, they're putting people in jail for even silent prayers that might be in favor. I mean, they're putting people in jail for memes. Uh meanwhile, they do have hate speech laws in Europe. they don't have a first amendment.
▶ 1:12:45They're selectively enforcing that. Um where you know, if you call out rape gangs in Britain, well, that's uh that's hate speech. Well, I don't know. Maybe you should do something about the crime. But if you say things that are anti-Semitic, that's on the rise and nobody's doing anything about it. Christian churches are being burned. Uh we talked about that a couple weeks ago in later that night, a church in London was burned and a church in Montreal. I mean, they're just the North American Europeans up there in Canada, I think.
▶ 1:13:13But, um, meanwhile, Christians are under attack. So, your role in defending speech in religion is just so important with public diplomacy. Um, and this all comes in context of the digital services act. They're trying hard to prevent the truth and speech from reaching uh ordinary people in Western Europe, in the European Union in particular, and they're taking action against American companies to try to make sure their people don't find out truthful things.
▶ 1:13:44So, in that context, could you highlight uh your lines of effort?
▶ 1:13:48Absolutely. Uh Congressman, and there are public lines of effort and then there are kind of bilateral diplomatic ones. Um, so first, you know, we've used the tool of diplomacy to just raise our voice and advocate for American interests. I'm faulted sometimes for the volume and the intensity of my advocacy on this issue, but I can't help it. I'm an American. Free speech is the most important um asset I have, and that's true for all Americans, whether they realize it or not. I um have met with a lot of the plaintiffs in these free speech cases.
▶ 1:14:16The um I have not been able to meet with Adam Smith Connor, the abortion buffer zone plaintiff, but that story is incredible. He's standing there with his hands clasped and the police walk up to him and they say, "What is the nature of your prayer today, sir?" And then they arrest him based on his answer.
▶ 1:14:31And every time I put that to a British audience, do you want to live in a society where the police can say, "What is the nature of your prayer today, sir, and arrest you if you name the wrong god or the wrong cause or you admit that your aborted son died and that you're sad about it?" Um, so I, you know, those engagements have been productive. Every day, this is not an exaggeration, every day. I wake up and I have social media notifications and messages from grateful British people saying thank you for standing up for us. Um I have an initiative called freedom.gov that hasn't totally launched yet.
▶ 1:14:59It's just a landing page that that extols freedom. I get more visits there from Britain than from anywhere else. Even though Britain is not the most populous country in the world, these people I mean this is this is a message that resonates with free people who have the same who have the same heritage and values that we do fundamentally even if they lack a first amendment. There are other lines of effort too. So Tanner Greer has ongoing trade negotiations with the EU and obviously you know that team is going to negotiate strongly for President Trump's agenda and this is part of President Trump's agenda.
▶ 1:15:28I've also engaged at the OECD which is a place where you know non-European countries can engage with a lot of European ones on internet governance issues and while those are Chattam House discussions they've been very very productive. I actually had a great exchange with a European diplomat um where we started off at odds over the digital services act and our different definitions of freedom and representative Davidson your comments really resonated with me because I quoted Reagan's Brandenburgg Gate speech to her and she got tears in her eyes and she said she was a little girl in Eastern Europe you know and she wanted that wall
▶ 1:15:58torn down and that was you know then she and I we're friends now we kind of exchanged some gifts and we stay in touch and I think when you when you remind Europeans about these values that we kind of recite rotly when we invoke our NATO heritage. When you remind them what they meant in times when their freedoms were threatened, you really see a response. And I think we're seeing a lot more constructive engagement from Europe.
▶ 1:16:21We're seeing an omnibus regulatory simplification bill in the EU because sane heads in Europe are starting to prevail and they realize this regulatory thicket is strangling the spirit of liberty and creation that Secretary Rubio invoked in Munich. And that spirit of liberty and creation is what has animated the West and what must continue to animate us if we're going to beat our adversaries.
▶ 1:16:40Thank you. It'll definitely take vigilance. I appreciate your efforts and happy to help in any way. My time's expired and I yield. Representative
▶ 1:16:48Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, Under Secretary. Uh but I want to point out a fact. We're here today to talk about public diplomacy, but everything we've seen from the Trump administration has done just the opposite. Instead of leading with diplomacy, President Trump chose war with Iran. He r attacked Iran in the middle of diplomatic negotiations with no imminent threat to the United States. No authorization from Congress, no clear justification for the attack, and importantly, no plan for what comes next.
▶ 1:17:18Now, six American service members are dead. Americans in the region are stranded in dangerous conditions. Violence is spreading across the Middle East, and our embassies are sheltering in place. That's not diplomacy. That's How are our diplomats supposed to do their jobs when they're sheltering in place or when the embassy is on fire from Iranian drone strikes? Trump's unconstitutional war with Iran isn't the only way he sabotaged in public diplomacy.
▶ 1:17:48Trump gutted Voice of America. He only reopened the Persian service in June 2025 because he was about to strike Iran for the first time. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter into the record uh this column from the Washington Post. Carrie Lake is making Trump's job harder in Iran. She has gutted America's ability to get good information to the Iranian people in a
▶ 1:18:08It's ordered.
▶ 1:18:10Look, he's fired expert staff. He's cut embassy programs. And he's withheld funding for international education and cultural exchange programs run by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. From the Fulbright program to the international visitor leadership program to the sports visitor program, your bureau supports dozens of education and cultural exchange programs that have enjoyed decades of bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats.
▶ 1:18:38Under Secretary Rogers, since the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs falls under your purview, you should know the answer to these easy, very easy yes or no questions. Do educational and cultural exchanges benefit American scholars who want the opportunity to study abroad
▶ 1:18:54so long as those programs are conducted in the American interest?
▶ 1:18:58I'm Thank you. Have these educational and cultural exchanges help connect the US with emerging world leaders? Yes or
▶ 1:19:05Have these educational and cultural exchanges strengthened our alliances and supported American national security?
▶ 1:19:11Great. That's why these programs are some of the most effective and cost-efficient tools of public diplomacy that we have. They give Americans a and students a chance to study abroad and make connections in a global economy. They give students the opportunity and funding needed to study abroad and provide uh our students with the skills they need to compete uh in the international economy. They help our students build relationships with future leaders around the world.
▶ 1:19:39In fact, the International Visitor Leadership Program alumni include more than 500 heads of state and government, over a thousand members of parliament, and 12 noble laureates. So, it's not charity. That's strategic investment in American leadership. But last year, the Office of Management and Budget sat on fiscal year 2025 funding for 22 of these programs until the very end of the year. Congress appropriated the funds.
▶ 1:20:05the funds were released to the State Department, but the Trump administration simply did not distribute it. So, Under Secretary Rogers, if these programs are important, as you confirmed uh to public diplomacy and and we have that agreement, why hasn't that funding reached these critical programs yet?
▶ 1:20:21Um, thank you, Congressman. So, I think a few things have happened. There have been slight topline reductions in public diplomacy spending, including ECE, but it's been eight for 10 to 8 to 10%. It's not been catastrophic. And with efficiencies we've reaped, we saved 180,000 man-h hours last year alone through AI uh media dashboards, I think, and with money we've gotten through
▶ 1:20:39So when's the funding getting there?
▶ 1:20:41I'm sorry.
▶ 1:20:42When is the funding getting to to those
▶ 1:20:44So my understanding is there were some inter agency delays, but now these programs are back are getting are back online or getting back online. So for example, our young African leaders initiative, I think, is back online and we'll have our first summit this summer.
▶ 1:20:57All right, that was an example. But I I'm going to follow up with you on that because I want to know when the money gets there because Congress appropriated it. So it's got to get to where it needs to to be. And so what assurances based on your agreement about these programs, can you give this committee that fiscal year 2026 funds will be distributed on time, not with delay, a directed by Congress so these programs don't get disrupted again?
▶ 1:21:19So congressional appropriations are the law and I commit to follow the law.
▶ 1:21:22Great. I you know, it's good to hear that from a Trump administration official. If this administration truly believes in public diplomacy, the funding and the flow of the funding has to follow the rhetoric that you've shared with me. And so with that, I yield back. Representative yields back. I will say thank you for disrupting funding to things like transgender comic books uh that were funded through Fulbright. That's a perfect thing to disrupt funding for absolute waste, fraud, abuse.
▶ 1:21:51So, thank you for disrupting the funding to that. Uh, Representative Perry, you are recognized.
▶ 1:21:56Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary, for being here. Uh, you may be well aware at this point that there's a communist flotilla heading from the United States to deliver aid to Cuba's communist regime. A coalition of anti-American organization across America is collecting monetary support, material aid to offset the blockade of the island and demonstrate that the people of Cuba are not alone in communism. unfortunately lives well in the United States of America.
▶ 1:22:24A non-exhaustive list of this coalition includes the Progressive International, the People's Forum, Code Pink, with well-known documented ties to ch the Chinese Communist Party, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the Sunrise Movement. What do you know about the planning, organization, funding, and intended execution of this flotilla, including any potential violations of US law restricting aid, travel, and transactions with Cuba or in general?
▶ 1:22:53Um, thank you very much, Congressman. So, fighting communism in the Western Hemisphere is a key focus of our administration, and it's a great privilege to be part of a State Department that fights communism. Um I am not crisp on the granular tactical details of that flotillaa but obviously we have an embargo against Cuba and there various sanctions in place and I'm confident that even though I don't oversee these organs of the administration the relevant ones will pursue all necessary recourse now as to as to public diplomacy vis Cuba I can tell you that in Cuba like other closed societies and
▶ 1:23:24like other antagonists in our western hemisphere we're very interested in promoting internet freedom and other causes that um might help the Cuban people prevail over their um horrible regime.
▶ 1:23:35So we hope they prevail too. But in the case that they don't, we have to safeguard the United States from these incursions from China, Russia, Cuba itself, communists in general. And I don't have the same level of confidence that other organizations within the administration are going to take this um take the appropriate action.
▶ 1:23:55So, I would hope that the State Department would encourage in writing the appropriate agencies, most notably the Department of Justice, to investigate and take appropriate actions if United States law is being violated. And and and so I'm asking you to do that. Let's not just assume and hope that they're going to do that. And I appreciate that.
▶ 1:24:17So, under the category of wasteful programs, in a recent interview, you said AI with the Western Soul is a top priority for our entire administration and should be a top priority for anyone who cares about freedom. And I generally agree with you, but I'm just going to underscore under the Biden administration, the State Department green lit $25,000 on transgender uh on a ch transgender opera in Colombia, $20,000 on drag shows in Ecuador, $30,000 to make an
▶ 1:24:47LGBTQ comic book in Peru that the chairman referenced, $37,000 to study the relationship between collective movement, meaning walking, boxing, and dancing, and systemic conditions of anti anti-trans violence, $72,000 on a student to travel around uh I guess Czechoslovakia and Slovakia on a project about queering the M.
▶ 1:25:11Look, I've got a whole list of this stuff and I know the gentleman just asked you about a bunch of these programs and you said it helps out and I'm sure it does help out in fostering relationships. These countries have their own societies and their own culture and they don't need America's left-wing communist operation using taxpayer dollars to be imposed upon them.
▶ 1:25:36And so for for the sake of the gentleman who asked you what the status was and and uh and asked for a report back, I'm going to say we don't want to fund these things. This committee has taken action during this session to make sure these things aren't funded and we don't want them funded and and we're 38 trillion plus in debt. America American taxpayers work hard for the money that they earn. They don't want it sent to these things.
▶ 1:26:02We know we need to have diplomacy relationships and so on and so forth. But we don't have to be working to make sure every country is focused on LGBTQ as much as we are. if they want to do that on their own, God bless them. But we got other priorities. And and so I want to highlight that there's another side of this conversation and this equation here. And I just want to make sure you hear it because that's not the only voice in the room. And I know you know that, but it it it's outrageous.
▶ 1:26:31It is outrageous to fund $70,000 on DEI on a DEI musical in Ireland. I'm sure Ireland can figure out how much DEI they want and and they don't need America forcing that down their throat so that we can be friends. And so again, I would encourage proactive action regarding the DOJ on this flotilla. Let's just not hope that they're going to and I will ask the DOJ when they're in front of me what they're doing.
▶ 1:26:59But I'm asking you as the State Department, the one in charge of international relations and foreign affairs to be proactive on that issue. We don't. People need to know there are consequences for aiding and abetting the enemy. Thank you. I yield.
▶ 1:27:13Thank you.
▶ 1:27:15Thank you, Representative Perry. And I will submit for the record a copy of the trans uh comic book from Peru for the record uh in case anybody wants to go out there and see what your tax dollars were spent on unfortunately. In that yield five minutes to Representative
▶ 1:27:34Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Um before I begin, let me take a moment to uh recognize uh sadly uh the six lives that have been lost uh this week in the war uh that we are presently engaged in and our thoughts and our prayers are with their families having made the ultimate sacrifice. Uh members of this committee, let me return to the subject at hand. Um and I would like to offer a different narrative.
▶ 1:28:05uh for the actions of this uh madam secretary that you have taken in the name of diplomacy. I believe that musing about taking Greenland from Denmark a valuable NATO ally are making Canada the 51st state is insulting. It's insulting to our allies. It does nothing to advance US standing abroad, nor is it in our national interest. Belittling our NATO allies.
▶ 1:28:33And by the way, it's nice to have friends, including Denmark, whose people, by the way, fought and died alongside American servicemen in the front lines in Afghanistan on a proportional basis, losing more lives after NATO answered America's call to arms when we for the first time invoked article 5 after 9/11. and they came as allies in force.
▶ 1:29:01Calling the brave president of Ukraine BT Barnum, while he's working successfully to push back the invasion by that communist war criminal, Putin, our adversary, pushing back Russia against all is not right. shutting down US aid illegally without the act of Congress, by the way.
▶ 1:29:30And now efforts to defund and undermine the voice of America, which serves to spread America's message abroad and provide unbiased news through the noise of authorit authoritarian propaganda. The administration's continued to cut items in the State Department budget that are important to public diplomacy. Last January, um I'm told over 10 ambassadors Egypt and UAE and others were notified that their services were no longer needed.
▶ 1:30:00We're in the middle of a war. We don't have an ambassador, I believe, at UAE today or Egypt. That's got to be So while the United States spends this year $215 billion in public diplomacy, Russia and China spend a great deal I'm all for efficiencies and spending, but there's a point where the scale of resources is critical to carrying out our mission.
▶ 1:30:26And we are falling behind, I think, Madam Secretary, in this So I don't see how these actions make your job any easier. These actions undermine America's reputation globally. I've been active on this committee and in with our European allies for years, for years. And they tell me they're confused. They don't understand what they're doing. They ask me what's going on in America.
▶ 1:30:51And when you look at poll after poll in European countries, our reputation is an all-time Madam Secretary, can you say or really say given these actions and public comments that as President Reagan used to say that America is that shining city upon the hill anymore, as President Reagan used to say with great pride and love for our country,
▶ 1:31:22it's nice to have friends and our allies are wondering what's happened to us, where we are, Can they still count on us? Whether they be in Europe or whether they be in Asia, you've got a difficult job. Please
▶ 1:31:37Thank you, Congressman. Um, without question, America remains the shining city on a hill and all else that, um, Toqueville and others over the years have extolled. I would say that, you know, if it seems like we have some disagreements with our allies, like the Europeans, it's because we have a lot of conversations with them. We have conversations where we disagree and we have conversations where we agree. I think American participation in the
▶ 1:31:59conversations are good but belittling people and insulting our allies is not
▶ 1:32:04It's you know you know what I would say congressman is it's my privilege to steward tools that increase America's representation abroad. So um reputation abroad. So for example I uh recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the NFL and sports some people think sports is soft that's trivial but it's not. Sports brings people together in a way nothing else.
▶ 1:32:22Sports are important.
▶ 1:32:23Sports are very important. So, we're going to do we're going to have flag football in the Olympics for the first time. I've advocated for that in the
▶ 1:32:29And I hope you're going to give us the same support that Italy gave its nation for the Olympics this last month for the Olympics in California.
▶ 1:32:36I think I think the administration is hugely supportive of FIFA World Cup Olympics, all of these mega sporting events. The convening power of sports is very well understood by President Trump and by my office. You know, I had the privilege of touring the Warsaw Uprising Museum when I was in Poland recently. And if you want to talk about, you know, increasing America's representation, uh, reputation abroad, sometimes American kinetic actions against totalitarian and other brutal regimes, um, are the best thing we can do for
▶ 1:33:02my time's expired, but the conversation to be continued, but the California delegation will be seeking out support as we prepare for the Olympics on behalf of America.
▶ 1:33:12Thank you.
▶ 1:33:13We got more of your California delegation right now. Representative
▶ 1:33:17Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And uh I want to thank my my friend and colleague from California because he's although he stole the shining city on the hill again ahead of me. Uh the fact is he brought up some points that extreme are extremely important and that I think that our concern across the aisle and as usual I found his comments to be more measured than some. And so let me go through a couple of things. We were the shining city on the hill. We were that beacon of hope all through the cold war.
▶ 1:33:48Because Voice of America sent a consistent message, a message that started with whoever the president of the United States was and talked about freedom to these people who were oppressed. Correct.
▶ 1:34:01And it did so in a very efficient fashion. Correct.
▶ 1:34:04That's my understanding. Yes. Now, as we continued to build other messaging uh operations, some of them were directly out of the State Department, others went through a a series of of independent nonprofits. Correct.
▶ 1:34:19Correct. And as we sit here today, would it be fair to say that when the nonprofits have a cost based on publicly available figures of almost $5 per listener, well, The Voice of America runs about 87 cents per listener that there are inherent inefficiencies in what we've been doing.
▶ 1:34:41It would certainly appear so from the accounting congressman. And that's in addition to some of the expenditures that were counterproductive to previous administrations, not just this one.
▶ 1:34:53Absolutely. So when the chairman tried to have a reauthorization that consolidated these programs back into their original intent, in other words, state department and the administration work together with all the agencies to provide a message of freedom anywhere it's needed at any time at the most efficient way. that was what you were hoping to see come out of this committee and the chairman was trying to give you
▶ 1:35:23very much so. So, as we sit here today and we're trying to figure out uh and quite frankly, I'd like to put it into the record uh some uh historic figures on the uh Voice of Asia trying to uh or yeah, Voice of Asia trying to sell off all of their equipment because they could, although they were thwarted from it after it became public. Without objection. Thank you.
▶ 1:35:50uh the uh the fact is bringing together these messages so that whether it's Cuba or Venezuela, whether or not maybe the message to Venezuela changed in the last few weeks, but the money is still there to shift it would be one of the advantages of it being under a consolidated authority.
▶ 1:36:15Yes. And I'll just add, Congressman, you know, the statute that created AGM directs, it doesn't just permit, it directs the State Department to ensure foreign policy consistency. And so we've pursued tighter integration and tighter coordination, and we're really supportive of anything the committee wants to do by way of reform in that
▶ 1:36:31Now, one area that that is a particular concern I want to make sure that we all agree would be the case. We're not talking about eliminating third-party companies or individuals or nonprofits from participating in some portion of a message on again off again as needed.
▶ 1:36:51Of course not.
▶ 1:36:52So the idea that we're trying to get rid of grantees isn't the case. But let's ask the basic question. Do we need to have a grand a large money grantee who is not accountable as to who they hire, how they hire them, whether they hire them, whether or not they spend the money, or do we need to have targeted independent operators, maybe as much as a an individual uh reporter who's working for us?
▶ 1:37:21A core principle of my grant making is that every single dollar has to be accountable. So whether that's accomplished in the grant agreement or some other oversight mechanism um every single dollar I spend whether I spend it or grantee spends it was taken from an American taxpayer who didn't want to forfeit that dollar. She had to forfeit it to the government. So I have to use that dollar well and that means
▶ 1:37:40So let me just close by asking a question that I think everyone needs to understand because I believe it to be true. Isn't it true right now that grantees whose grants have expired are currently in litigation against the United States government demanding that they continue to continue to receive money and that they will not negotiate a new grant but in fact are living with basically a judge's order to continue receiving money even
▶ 1:38:10if if in fact they are producing no material responsive to their mandate. That is one of several injunctions that has surprised me during this administration, Congressman.
▶ 1:38:21So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time and I would simply say that we need to move forward to empower that money be well spent and I think we see the path and it was the path you had in your authorization bill and I yield back.
▶ 1:38:36Thank you, Representative Isa. And we will continue with the string of Californians and go on to Mr. Sherman.
▶ 1:38:43Thank you. As we fight against Iran and we lose brave men and women, we should reflect that the most powerful force we have in the United States is not our aircraft carrier groups, but the truth.
▶ 1:39:03And here we are engaged with Iran and we have dramatically cut our broadcasting over the last year in the Farsy language to reach the people of Iran. And now we don't we see that the pro-democracy groups that might exist in Iran don't exist in sufficient uh uh to be an alternative yet to this government although we hope it emerges.
▶ 1:39:33So, we have literally u shot ourselves in the foot thinking we need uh a new regime in Iran and that would be a good thing. Whether it's appropriate for the US to try to achieve that through force is another issue. But we stopped giving the Iranians the truth.
▶ 1:39:51Um a number of uh those who spoke here earlier uh took tiny tiny expenditures and used that as an excuse for our dramatic cuts in providing the world the truth. It is said that the State Department provided $21,000 for drag show in Ecuador. Simply not true. Uh there was a proposal. It didn't happen.
▶ 1:40:21If any of us is judged by the uh stupidity of some of the proposals that take place, uh I many many crazy things are proposed to me in my office uh sometimes by a Republican colleague. Um then there's this myth of 30 $47,000 for transgender opera. Uh this was to support uh AE1 an opera written in the United States that happens to have a transgender protagonist.
▶ 1:40:52Uh I don't you would think that uh those who represent a a percentage of the American population would be portrayed in American culture. And finally the myth that the USAD provided $32,000 for a transgender comic book. Uh there was in fact a series of comic books. Uh one of them had a gay character or an LGBTQ person character.
▶ 1:41:19But even you put this all together and you say why have we given up the most powerful or substantially cut back on the most powerful tool we have in the world because of expenditures that don't amount to one tenth of 1% of what we were doing. Now, the uh uh well, I'll ask our our witness here.
▶ 1:41:45What is the total staff of th What was the total staff of those broadcasting in Farsy and and communicating in Farsy in 2024 versus
▶ 1:41:55So, I would have to refer you to USAM
▶ 1:41:57I'm asking a numerical question. It is my time. I am reclaiming that time. Will you give me a numerical answer? If not,
▶ 1:42:05I have to refer you to US AGM for personnel numbers, but I think it's very important to supplement the record because some of what's been said.
▶ 1:42:11Well, then if you if the chairman grants you time, then you can say what you want. I only granted me five uh five minutes. Um I've long advocated that we uh reach those in southern Pakistan in the Cindy uh this uh the appropriations committee has directed F uh Voice of America to do that on occasion and provided funds for doing it.
▶ 1:42:40Uh Pakistan is the only nuclear power that has had a military coup uh and some would say that's dangerous. Um do you agree that Cindy language broadcasting is important and are you doing anything about it? So I'm I'm not currently doing anything. Uh VA is running and and AGM is running these entities.
▶ 1:43:04I do think that you know when we select which languages we broadcast in, we have to select them according to our security priorities and I would engage in that.
▶ 1:43:12We are broadcasting I believe still in Greece in Greek
▶ 1:43:16because of an injunction. Congressman,
▶ 1:43:19I think I I could be misstating the procedural posture of litigation, but I think we're still engaging in some of those activities pursuant to an injunction that prevented us from
▶ 1:43:27how you would ignore a language that is the second largest language in the only nuclear state that has had some elements of instability while broadcasting to stable c countries in Europe uh surprises me. Uh administrations on both sides have given me a hundred different excuses. uh your administration is certainly different and I hope that you will be broadcasting in the Cindy language. Thank you.
▶ 1:43:57Thank you, Mr. Sherman. I'm going to submit a couple items for the record right now because it bears on the testimony. Uh number one project grant award completed department of state uh grant summary specifically to raise awareness and increase the transgender representation through operas by American poser Laura Kaminsky. So just here's the grant award. Going to submit that for the record.
▶ 1:44:25It is in fact not false that this took place. This is the completed award. I could probably do that for dozens and dozens of these, but we'll wait to see who brings up other ones and then I'll be happy to submit those ones for the records as well, but we'll submit that one for the record for right now. Representative Molen, you are
▶ 1:44:42Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under Secretary, thank you very much. And I'm glad to see we have some good engagements from the State Department in the Pacific Islands. uh the deputy secretary recent trip there to Tonga and Fiji and Samoa and how these trips uh engaged in some interest and investment in economic development in the Pacific and under secretary of course your engagement in Australian rugby and your recent trip to the Indo-Pacific forum Vegas.
▶ 1:45:12Uh, I also be interested in learning more about the engagement that the Peace Corps has with the Pacific Though we have these great engagements going on by the US, we have bad engagements going on with the PRC. Uh, they're targeting the Pacific nations through the Belt and Road Initiative and disinformation campaigns. And our Pacific Islanders are also being educated by these um exchanges with Chinese universities.
▶ 1:45:39in fact more so than with American universities. But diplomacy plays a big part and that's that's your duty and I think you're doing quite well. Thank you. And and also the islands are uh the Pacific Islands following your conversation and and the Indo-Pacific forum. I'd be interested to know more about what what your takeaway is with that.
▶ 1:46:01I also want to know how you feel the second island chain, our territories, our Pacific island territories like Guam, the CNMI, American Samoa play in advancing the public diplomacy that we have in the Pacific Islands.
▶ 1:46:15Thank you so much, Congressman. And I I actually will be taking my first trip to East Asia-Pacific uh region this spring. And I really did enjoy my engagement at the Indopacific Forum. um you know the games of rugby and football which we think of as kind of Anglophere games are actually hugely important in Papa Newu Guini and I sat next to um one of the deputy prime minister of Papa New Guinea at the forum and we connected on that and it was a really strong illustration of the convening power of sports the Indo-Pacific it contains more than half the
▶ 1:46:45world's people and about half the world's commerce and it is very very strategically important for us given the strategic significance of the adversarial activity coming from China And I think you know all of our counterchina activity is naturally beneficial to our Indoacific posture because those island chains and those um partner nations are so hotly contested by Chinese propaganda and malign influence.
▶ 1:47:08So um for example the effort that the the authorities I just acquired from the department of education to you know I don't want to say force but elicit and if necessary force more transparency from our universities on their foreign funding I think is very very relevant on uh Pacific power and I think you know our commercial diplomacy is very very relevant there too because economic coercion is one of China's main weapons and what we've seen is we're trying to alert nations to the the
▶ 1:47:38very the offer you can't refuse that China comes forth with that in fact countries should refuse because that port isn't free that infrastructure isn't so great and it turns out that if you hire an American company they build it better they treat your workers better and their fishing fleet isn't committing horrendous abuses off the coast
▶ 1:47:54exactly and talk a little bit about the global engagement center and with the recent situation with the Solomon Island elections and how China did their disinformation and influenced the local elections. So, China undertakes a variety uses a variety of vectors to insert propaganda and other information operations into contested countries. So, the global engagement center, this Congress declined to renew funding for it in uh 2024 before President Trump took office.
▶ 1:48:21The reason this Congress declined to renew funding was because the global engagement center had become a political albatross because it was censoring Americans and that was bad and my office doesn't do it. But the global engagement center was doing good things too. They were managing inter agency coordination with the intelligence community and our military. My office is doing that and the global engagement center was undertaking some coordination with social media companies and technology companies to gather information about these kinds of threats, foreign bot hives and the like. My office is still doing that.
▶ 1:48:50We also I recently received a detailed briefing that I can't fully recap in this setting but would be happy to share with you on vectors of Chinese influence in the Pacific Islands. They're very detailed. um they include infiltration of social media chats and the like, but also the purchase and co-optation of local media. That is something that we see a lot of. And so, you know, I um I have staff kind of embedded with China House at the State Department so that we can be especially closely coordinated on this issue.
▶ 1:49:17And I'm happy to, you know, continue to brief the committee or get you any information you want.
▶ 1:49:20Thank you. And just quickly, um, you know, the Pacific Island, our Pacific Island partners, the preassociated they're being hit by China so so much, the PRC, but they would really appreciate if they can have more of the Peace Corps volunteers back. Is there any plans for that?
▶ 1:49:37So, I don't think I have direct I I'm not doing anything right now with the Peace Corps, but I can certainly convey that message.
▶ 1:49:45Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you,
▶ 1:49:49Representative Castro.
▶ 1:49:51Thank you. Under Secretary Rogers, your office is statutoily responsible under the State Department Organization Act for explaining US Foreign Policy to foreign audiences. That's the core mandate of public diplomacy. You've testified and spoken publicly about your office's role in messaging a quote unified and affirmative vision of US foreign policy abroad. And you've also traveled extensively to Europe to do exactly that.
▶ 1:50:17So I wanted to ask you in your capacity as a principal official responsible for communicating US foreign policy to the world. We know that this war is already having worldwide consequences. Shipping to the straits of Hormuz is effectively shut down. Service members, American service members have lost their lives. Oil and gas prices worldwide have skyrocketed. And markets worldwide are in turmoil.
▶ 1:50:42So what message are you communicating to the world about US goals in this war and specifically why did the president join Israel in going to war with Iran?
▶ 1:50:51Um thank you congressman. So because this is such a fluid evolving and kinetic situation messaging on you know this conflict has been very tightly coordinated and my office is not doing the diversity of messaging we would otherwise do on a more diffuse issue like freedom of speech for example. But I think the alliances that we've nurtured and the relationships that we've fostered through exchange programs and other diplomatic engagements have borne fruit.
▶ 1:51:17I can remember I was sitting with an Australian sports reporter at the Indopacific Rugby Forum.
▶ 1:51:22Well, but but let me ask you, I mean, you're supposed to be the main spokesperson for the State Department to the world. This is public diplomacy. So, you're saying that they have sidelined you, that you're not part of that coordinated team?
▶ 1:51:33We have a separate spokesperson's office. Um, but I
▶ 1:51:36separate within the state department.
▶ 1:51:38There's there's a there's a spokesperson and there's me. So, I'm not technically the spokesperson. I'm sort of an executive that oversees various
▶ 1:51:43But you're in charge of public diplomacy, right?
▶ 1:51:45I'm in charge of public diplomacy, which includes some fast twitch media messaging and it includes some educational and cultural programs. Um, so in the initial days of a fluid and kinetic conflict, Hold on, I got to reclaim my time because I got to get some answers here. But but the spokesperson is USoriented. You're supposed to be speaking to the nations of the world, right? So if they if they've sidelined you well I I guess but tell me this. So what are the goals of this war?
▶ 1:52:12So I would defer to the president on our military on the sort of tactical immediate goals but I think the president has told us the strategic goal which is that a regime whose motto is death to America cannot have a nuclear weapon. And I think a lot of Americans agree with that. Now I think in terms of messaging around the world we've seen the kinds of investments my office makes bear fruit.
▶ 1:52:32And the anecdote I was just about to share was that, you know, around the time this conflict broke out, I was sitting with an Australian sports reporter and we couldn't talk about, you know, foreign policy in the course of this interview, but he said, you know, Australia stands with you and the reason Australia stands with us is because we've made investments in that relationship. Um, other other allies of ours have stood with us as well. And I think as the situation evolves and our messaging approach diversifies and it's not just focused minute to minute, then my office will
▶ 1:53:00but this is this is an important moment that we're in and the idea that you would be sidelined that your office would be completely sidelined is is disturbing. But let me ask you this in your official capacity uh are we at war with Iran?
▶ 1:53:15So I would reject the characterization that my office has been sidelined. I would say the White House and the DO are leading and the military should lead when it comes to military engagements. I'm not part of the military now. Um, as to legal distinctions from the War Powers Act, as to legal distinctions of the War Powers Act and other statutes, I would have to defer to council on that. I think we're certainly in armed conflict with Iran. I think wanting a nuclear weapon.
▶ 1:53:38Let me let me say this, Under Secretary. um you like I've asked you these straightforward questions and you said you're not being sidelined, but then you keep saying that you got to defer to some other groups of people. You have in terms of the act that enabled your office a very powerful important role and yet you seem to be sitting there saying that you don't have any role right now.
▶ 1:54:00Well, that very disturbing to me testimony, Congressman, so let me clarify my testimony um to to make sure everyone at home gets it. So, I haven't been sidelined. I think the military and the White House are leading, you know, military efforts. And that's the job of the commander-in-chief, not the under secretary of public diplomacy. Frankly, if the the people who vote for commander-in-chief would be very surprised if I took that mand for it. And I'm not your office. Why do we have this rule?
▶ 1:54:26I also want to say you referred to my statutory mandate. My statutory mandate is to explain US foreign policy, not formulate US foreign policy. I obviously formulate, you know, educational and cultural exchange policy, but um
▶ 1:54:38Sure. No, I understand. And just to keep us on time, let me make one closing remark. I think that that by statute, you and your office have an important role to play. Uh unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the administration agrees with me on that. I yield back.
▶ 1:54:54I'm going to recognize myself for my period of questioning now. I'm going to start with just saying a few comments about Iran and then uh asking some questions outside of that. And the comments just bear on what you just said, Mr. Casper. We have an important role here. Yesterday we had several hours of debate about war powers, a war powers resolution about whether Iran uh is uh the largest state sponsor of tar. Wheel vote votes on those things today.
▶ 1:55:19And it given that we do we do have a very important job to do 435 in the House of Representatives. It was astounding to me that there couldn't even be any level of nuance about the threat that Iran poses when we have members of Congress here that have voted numerous times to say Iran is the largest state sponsor of terror or uh the Iran proxies this or their participation in October 7 or we literally almost every single member Republican
▶ 1:55:49and Democrat voted to say that their nuclear program is this existential threat and literally to use the verbiage of the bill that members voted on, use any and all means necessary to eliminate it and and to have members vote on that and vote yes and then want to come forward this week and say no, no threat at all from Iran. No, they've been doing this literally every single day. They killed three Americans a year and a half ago in Jordan.
▶ 1:56:19They knocked aircraft off of our ships. They hit uh merchant marine vessels. They fly drones at US uh Navy vessels. Nah, there's no threat from Iran whatsoever. No. In fact, if they've been doing it every day for however many years, then it can't be imminent. I mean, that's the stupidity of some of the things that are being said here. If it's being done every day, that that doesn't meet the definition of imminent. That is moronic. So, I'm going to leave my comments uh about that there.
▶ 1:56:49I want to talk about some other things more related to your work. And it's been brought up by me, by others. Some people call these things waste. Some people call these things good programs. Transgender operas. Somebody just said it doesn't exist. I submitted for the record. The paperwork's showing. Yeah, this does exist. And here's the receipt for it. And we have hundreds of these things just like this. The dollar amount, it's important.
▶ 1:57:16You know, some of these they are, you know, they're large dollar amounts. their year's wages for many Americans. Are they huge in the dollar amount of what the United States of America spends? No. But the volume of crazy I don't know a better word to you. Crazy programs, the volume of crazy is astronomical.
▶ 1:57:40When you look at how many transgender operas, musicals, plays, job fairs they were doing, how many drag shows they were doing, how, you know, not one comic book, multiple issues of comic books, uh, and we can get into these, you know, DEI flash mob in Kurigstan, uh, diversity road show in India, diversity and inclusion in Luxembourg, in Spain, in New Zealand, in Canada, in Malaysia, uh, teaching trans and interex leaders in India.
▶ 1:58:06the the volume of these things and some of them are very large numbers from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars some of them are 10 and $20,000 it is amazing but I want to ask you a few questions on these and and maybe you can pro ask also as well can you provide us some information on some of these things uh whether here whether in the future so here was one I don't even understand what this means study the relationship between collective movement meaning walking boxing dancing and systemic conditions of
▶ 1:58:37anti-trans violence. Is is there a receipt for
▶ 1:58:41So, I actually came prepared to this hearing with um certain details on all of these grants, but to the extent there are additional internal records, would be happy to work with the committee to provide them and I'm happy to supplement the record with a list of um USA spending, you know, records and and other things. that it's very literally very helpful because as you witnessed yourself, we have we will have members literally say, "Nah, Republicans just made that up. That didn't exist.
▶ 1:59:10You shouldn't be sidelining funding from these agencies. They weren't really doing these things." And their hand is in the cookie jar and they won't believe it. They probably won't even believe it if you submit the records. But I would prefer you submit the record. Can you tell me uh what is queering the map? So I think we were trying to make the maps more gay
▶ 1:59:31literally. That's how do you make a map more gay? I mean especially when I you know since the age of cgraphy we've had pretty good maps but maybe they weren't gay enough. So I I know also I took critical theory in college. I think sometimes people use queer as a verb. I do understand that the maps that we were trying to make gay were I think of Czecha and Slovakia. So maybe those countries asked for it. I I doubt it but I don't know. We do have real things to work on in Congress like what's going on with the imminent threat of Iran.
▶ 1:59:58And it is embarrassing that we have to talk about the fact that things like this were funded non-binary and transfranophones, linguistic attitudes and ideologies towards inclusive French uh in Montreal, Canada. These things I'm going to give you a list. My time is expired. I'm going to give you a list of these and any of these that you can provide me the receipt for the uh Facebook link to where they wanted to take photos of uh how they were doing a DEIA flash mob in Korea.
▶ 2:00:29Uh you know, whatever documentation they have of all of these things. We would love to see that and would absolutely love to know the individuals specifically that were busy writing these grants because they have no business receiving another paycheck from the people of the United States of America. In that I will recognize Representative Schneider.
▶ 2:00:50Uh thank you Mr. Chair. United States is at war. Operation Epic Fury is now in its sixth day. American troops are putting their lives on the line and as President Trump and Secretary Hegsth have repeatedly said, some will die. So far, six American service members have made the ultimate sacrifice and I think it's important to remember every fallen hero. So, I'll repeat their names again here. Major Jeffrey R. O'Brien of Inola, Iowa. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzon of Sacramento, California.
▶ 2:01:20Captain Cody Cork of Winter Haven, Florida. Sergeant Firstclass Noah Tate Jensen of Belleview, Nebraska. Sergeant Firstclass Nicole Armor of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. And Sergeant Declan Cody of West De Moine Island, Iowa. Declan was a student at Drake University.
▶ 2:01:38My dear friend David Goulder is on the board of Drake and he posted words of wisdom this morning in remembering Declan and he said, quote, "In moments like these, we must all come together to show much needed love and compassion for the Cody family." end quote. And I will extend that to all of the families. May their memories be a blessing. And I say we should all be praying for the success of all our men and women defending our nation in Iran and around the world and their safe return home to their families and communities.
▶ 2:02:07There is no doubt that for 47 years, Iran's evil regime has been a threat to US interests and American safety at home and abroad. I think we can all agree that we must never let Iran have a nuclear weapon. We must defeat Iran's ballistic missile program, thwart Iran's sponsorship of terrorism is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and support the Iranian people as they strive to throw off the oppressive yoke of this res regime.
▶ 2:02:31Here's the thing, none of that's going to be easy, which is why I think our founders smartly gave only Congress the power to take our nation to war. I would also argue that it will be infinitely harder to achieve our long-term goals without the sustained support of the American people. Yet, the president and this administration in general have yet to coherently and consistently explain exactly why we are embroiled in another war.
▶ 2:02:58I also believe we increase our likelihood of success in confronting Iran's threats, working with our allies and gaining the support of their populations, which of course is your remit. Public diplomacy is critical, especially at this moment, especially as the war spreads to allied nations and especially as the president calls on the Iranian people to rise up. But because of cuts in your department, we are not fully capable or able to communicate with the Iranian people or our allies.
▶ 2:03:26The questions before us is whether are the bureau responsible for telling American story to the world for countering adversary propaganda for running the exchange programs and people-to-people ties that give the United States lasting influence is equipped to do its job at this moment. The Global Engagement Center, our counter disinformation capability expired and was not reauthorized in December 2024. Its successor was shuttered in April.
▶ 2:03:53USAGM including the voice of America and radio fart are primary channels to the Iranian people has been gutted from over 1300 staff to barely 80. The administration proposed cutting exchange programs from 741 million to $50 million. Congress rejected that and appropriated 667 million because these programs work. But the FY25 grant process was delayed for months and these pro programs are still pending.
▶ 2:04:23Under Secretary Rogers, I have great sympathy for your position. It has to be difficult communicating US policy to the world when resources are so badly depleted and the messaging coming from the president, from Secretary Rubio, from Secretary Hegsth and other administration officials changes by the minute. Last June, President Trump said Iran's nuclear program was obliterated. Yet a few days ago, Mr. Whitov said Iran was two weeks from a nuclear weapon.
▶ 2:04:49The president said on March 3rd that Iran was about to attack, but on March 2nd, Secretary Rubio said that the US was acting out of concern of a retaliatory attack after Israel would strike Iran. The president said that this war was about Iran's ICBM program with missiles targeting the United States, but ABC reports that US intelligence believes Iran is years away from that capability. The bottom line is that Congress and the American people deserve full answers to several basic questions. Why are we at war?
▶ 2:05:19What are the goals of this war? What's the strategy for achieving these goals? And what is the endgame? With my little bit of time left, you cited earlier numbers of American citizens who have evacuated from this region. Earlier this week, the State Department put out a notice to immediately leave 14 countries by commercial means, ignoring the fact that virtually all commercial flights have been cancelled.
▶ 2:05:40Yesterday, the State Department posted on its website from quote the office of the spokesman and quote that one one charter flight brought US citizens out of the region. Under secretary, how many flights is the US department arranged either chartered or military to evac citizens evacuate US citizens stranded by this war?
▶ 2:05:58So, that's a great question and it varies minuteto minute. So, I'd have to have my office get you updated information. What I can tell you is that
▶ 2:06:05so let's take let's take 24 hours ago 24 hours ago and life-threatening situation the fact that the administration doesn't speak in unified media toplines but gives you varied information shows that we're being honest which is what we have to do in the global engagement
▶ 2:06:19how many flights have have been arranged I'm I am telling you that I don't have that information because the situation is fluid and rapidly evolving I read some statistics into the record earlier submit these questions for writing those are the statistics as of this morning. I don't have the statistics now.
▶ 2:06:34So, so it's one
▶ 2:06:36the gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes. Uh, under secretary, sports diplomacy is an incredibly important effort that this administration has taken and run with. In his first term, President Trump helped bring this year's FIFA World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics to the United States. Now, both President Trump and Secretary Rubio have promoted sports diplomacy as an important soft power tool.
▶ 2:07:05I also applaud reports of uh a sports diplomacy playbook to really focus these events on showcasing the best parts of American culture. Can you describe the Bureau of Public Diplomacy's role in sports diplomacy and America's mega decade of sports?
▶ 2:07:22It would be my privilege and my pleasure and I it's really great to inherit this job at this moment where we're not only gearing up to celebrate America's 250th birthday which obviously dovetales tremendously with sporting events but as we've this administration has come into office that is so committed to sports which are really one of the unique convening assets we have and I cannot tell you how many times I've sat in a diplomatic exchange where maybe there are some disagreements or tensions in the room but sports just melts everyone. It makes them smile. Sports brings people together. It's aphoristic, but it's true.
▶ 2:07:52So, I just entered into anou with the NFL to promote together uh the American story and this great quintessentially American sport overseas. The NFL has been playing games abroad and will play its first international game in Melbourne, Australia this September. I believe that's the 49ers and the Rams. Uh we're really looking forward to that. Games in Dublin and in Germany have also gone extremely well. We're also supporting American uh promoting American baseball and softball overseas.
▶ 2:08:19We have I think 55 million baseball fans conservatively in Japan that watched the International Baseball Championship uh last year and we'll continue to do that. Um FIFA World Cup is a tremendous tremendous opportunity and we are organizing watch parties at many of our embassies as well as events with our exchange program participants at home. We have sports envoys who do things like organize clinics in uh foreign countries.
▶ 2:08:43Some of these are famous coaches, professional athletes who um members of the public in these foreign countries are really exhilarated to see. These are kids who've grown up and maybe the most prominent American they've seen on TV is someone like um Tom Brady. And we it's it's it's a thrill to do this. I'm glad you're familiar with our sports diplomacy playbook. And we have, you know, also the other thing that the State Department has done that's a little outside my remit but very important is Sorry, did you have another
▶ 2:09:10Yeah. Okay.
▶ 2:09:11So, I appreciate that. So, you brought up the uh World Cup and unfortunately um I think there's an implementation challenge here which is that the Department of Homeland Security is shut down and in particular FEMA uh with respect to some of the planning that needs to go uh you know into effect to ensure the safety of everyone attending uh this event.
▶ 2:09:36So what is uh you know the administration but uh the state department's uh concerns with respect to the department being shut down and the lack of uh funding. I mean the appropriations bill includes 625 million in funding for security planning and execution of the World Cup. Uh and yet that is being held up at this moment.
▶ 2:10:00We are Thank you, Congressman. We are extremely concerned and I've been involved in FIFA World Cup task force meetings and I'm so so impressed with the depth and breadth um and diligence of the security expertise at DHS and to some extent at our at our security assets at the State Department. Um and you need that to pull off this kind of event. I mean the security concerns are intricate. They are intense. This is a global event of global interest and concern where it's common sense that terrorists would love to strike.
▶ 2:10:28So, you know, the t the clock is ticking. Um, this is a team that was working at a diligent, brisk pace and now a segment of the team has been shut down. I'll also note that it's although it's less opposite to your question, DHS funding also assists the state department with key priorities like countering illegal migration. We got some of our funding through an inter agency agreement with DHS and that's imperiled too.
▶ 2:10:50Thank you for that answer. Uh over the past decades and even more so as technology has advanced, the Iranian regime has engaged in influence operations to spread disinformation around the world. In the last US election, Iran pushed fake or misleading news content seemingly to create division, distrust, and confusion among American voters. This propaganda cannot be allowed. And the State Department's Bureau for Public Diplomacy is empowered to counter these disinformation campaigns.
▶ 2:11:18Under Secretary Rogers, what actual tools does the bureau have to expose and effectively respond to these
▶ 2:11:25So, we have inter agency and um public public coordination and we have counter speech and exposure tactics. Uh we can also develop tools and technologies and promote their development in the private sector that do not censor content but help Americans or other audiences on the receiving end to discern whether something is AI generated, whether something is real or fake, where the content comes from. Those are the kinds of technologies that I'm interested in supporting.
▶ 2:11:49My office coordinates tightly with our intelligence community which monitors this stuff extensively as well as with the DO miso team that monitors that for purposes of DOW information operations and we are in touch with the private sector who are often our sentinels on the front line. So we saw over the weekend as soon as this operation launched uh Twitter X immediately blocked just thousands upon thousands of Iranian bots and disclosed information about where they came from.
▶ 2:12:12We also saw Twitter X take uh voluntary steps to demonetize and suspend uh accounts that were tweeting AI altered images of the war during the war. And I think again my office has not encouraged any censorship or takeown of any content but we see we see the private sector responding and we see I think exposure of these things is really key because people don't want to retweet content from an Iranian bot. You don't have to censor it. They don't want to retweet
▶ 2:12:39Thank you. My time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Keading, for 5
▶ 2:12:45Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we gather here this morning uh talking about uh many varied uh issues surrounding uh foreign affairs uh I must uh first and foremost uh express the gratifi gratitude and the shared national sacrifice and sorrow uh that six members of our military gave that their family uh is experiencing.
▶ 2:13:13As a gold star family member myself, I understand how generationally uh this can have an enormous effect on the family. Uh our prayers uh uh remain with those people as well as the uh members of our military who have been injured uh so far. Our prayers are for their recovery as well.
▶ 2:13:34When the president commented on this terrible uh loss of our service members, he said that's just the way it is. I say it's not the way it has to be. And I can say that as a member of Congress because we should be part uh of this effort. Uh we should be part of determining the reason why we've gone to war.
▶ 2:14:02We should be part of clearly defining what those objectives uh in war uh would be and we have to be part of what some strategic end might be. And those things uh are things as a member of Congress we can't determine because we're not getting that that kind of information from the administration.
▶ 2:14:23Uh this committee presents a very important part in moving forward uh in trying to uh deal with the situation that all wars ultimately end in and that is diplomacy. Uh that's how wars end.
▶ 2:14:38Uh but you have to have those factors going I want to comment getting drilling down on an issue too uh much more uh seemingly mundane but still important to my district as well as uh I think diplomacy and democracy the spread of democracy as well as the uh economic effects of this and and that's a program that I think we should be able to promote more in other countries uh and it's very successful program
▶ 2:15:09one that puts our country in a great light in these other countries one that uh is a shared experience that these people take home uh and and the statistics uh in interviewing people when they participate in this program are quite extraordinary about what the image of the United States is and what they tell the people in the countries they come from when they're here. Uh uh and that's the J1 visa program.
▶ 2:15:34uh you know there's an increasing number of embassies that are announcing that they have less capacity right now than in previous years for these J1 visas uh and it's a growing concern. It could lead to uh a downturn in the number of participants when this word gets out.
▶ 2:15:51So I was hoping as part of the message to the the world that we can encourage the fact that and I hope it will bear truth in in in practically moving forward with this uh that we this program is up and running uh that people should participate uh that the delays uh might be a little bit uh more than they are as we check backgrounds but that it won't hurt their ability to participate and move forward in this because uh I I think it's a valuable program an important
▶ 2:16:21time for our country uh for those people uh from around the country now who are questioning the United States. People will be coming back firsthand with their experience a year. So uh are you working at all with the Bureau of Council Affairs and the embassies to to really help ensure that these resources are there uh and the communication is there that that this program is alive and well and viable.
▶ 2:16:48Um thank you Congressman. I'm absolutely working on J1 and I'm working with CA and our embassies, but I'd also love to work with this Congress. So, in the current legislative package, we actually have a couple of legislative proposals on J1 that we think would really benefit the program. The current sponsor fee, so as you know, J1 is a source of workers, um, seasonal workers, summer camp counselors, and private sector benefits from these workers, but they're supposed to pay to support the administration of the program. That fee was set in, I believe, 1994, and it was never indexed to inflation.
▶ 2:17:16So, we're trying to update that fee and that will bolster the vetting and hopefully speed it up. And that's one legislative proposal that we've made. We just want to index it to inflation and make it flexible to actually cover costs. Um, we also have we've requested a federal statutory preeemption so that idiosyncratic uh municipal and state wage and labor and working regulations cannot target J1s for disperate treatment. That's another legislative proposal we've made. Uh, this program needs reform. Those are two reforms we've proposed, but um the program is alive and well.
▶ 2:17:45Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 2:17:49Thank you, Mr. Keading. I now recognize Representative Kaine for five minutes.
▶ 2:17:55Thank you. Public diplomacy is critical to advancing the interests of America and its allies abroad. From the Olympics to the World Cup, America is uniquely positioned to host visitors from around the world over this next decade. I look forward to hearing from Under Secretary Rogers about the work the State Department is doing to prepare this American decade of sports. Thank you. I'm sorry.
▶ 2:18:17Sorry. No, sorry, Mr. Rogers.
▶ 2:18:18I was looking forward to
▶ 2:18:19Okay. Exactly. Um, Mr. Rogers, the American Decade Sports Act recently passed this committee with bipartisan support. It addresses the important role of diplomacy through sporting events. You recently released a sports of playbook guide to the department's efforts in sports diplomacy. Can you discuss the key priorities in your sports diplomacy uh playbook?
▶ 2:18:44Thank you so much. Uh, congressman, sports diplomacy is a real crown jewel of what is sometimes called soft power, but this is serious strategic power. Sports brings people together like nothing else. And I can tell you, I've had diplomatic interactions that maybe were tense or contentious. And when we get to focus on topics like America 250 or sports, everyone lights up. It really has a convening power. So, one thing we're doing is we're using our ECA exchange programs to um foster clinics overseas so coaches and players can travel abroad, work with local kids.
▶ 2:19:13Uh we are also organizing ECA programs domestically surrounding the World Cup and we're organizing watch parties and other events at our embassies uh surrounding World Cup, Super Bowl, all these big mega sporting events. I've also advocated personally for American sports in the upcoming Brisbane Olympic Games. So we have this succession of Pacific games. We have LA 28, then we have Australia 32, then back to Salt Lake City.
▶ 2:19:38And one purpose of my recent engagements in the Indoacific has been to really make the most of that engagement and maximize the spread of these quintessentially American sports in this very strategically significant Indo-Pacific theater. And I think those engagements have borne quite a bit of fruit. I was thrilled and I know Secretary Rubio was thrilled and maybe he was even a little bit envious um that I got to sign a memorandum of understanding with the NFL to promote that quintessentially American sport overseas. So NFL has been playing international games.
▶ 2:20:08They will play their first in Australia in Melbourne this September. That's the 49ers and the Rams. Games in um Dublin and in Germany have also received a tremendous uptake. Uh so promoting those American sports and the you know commerce and opportunities they provide for American business and American media have been really core to what I'm doing. uh my home state of New Jersey, speaking of FIFA, uh has been chosen as one of the hosts for that World Cup this summer.
▶ 2:20:36What are the um important things that New Jersey can do to lead at this juncture in that regard?
▶ 2:20:44Thank you so much, Congressman. Um I grew up in New Jersey, so I want New Jersey to get the most out of the World Cup, too. Uh so what New Jersey can do is um you know work with my office and we'll enthusiastically work with you on some of these ECA events that we want to host surrounding the final and um I think we'll work well on that. And another another thing that Congress can do is um please get DHS funded because the World Cup task force is a very tightly team. I've participated in those meetings.
▶ 2:21:13the security and homeland security component of World Cup is extremely challenging and we need DHS back online.
▶ 2:21:20Okay, thank you. Um, cultural uh I agree with you on that. Uh, cultural exchange programs such as Fulbright provide opportunities for students across New Jersey and the United States to travel abroad to and promote American values. Can you share some of the ways your office is working to highlight programs like these and ensure that American students have opportunities to ga engage in these important programs?
▶ 2:21:43Absolutely. Thank you very much, Congressman. So, a top priority of my office right now is ensuring the safety um of our exchange program participants in the Middle East and as of this morning, all 71 of them were accounted for and we are keeping them safe and providing crisis resources.
▶ 2:21:58More broadly, um we are aligning these programs with the president's America first foreign policy to make sure that they aren't tarnished and damaged and that their public brand is not is not um corrupted by, you know, foolish expenditures like the ones the representatives mentioned earlier, like spending ECA money on trans operas or DEI jargon in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan never asked for that, I'm sure. Um, by being faithful stewards of these programs, we promote their their value as soft power assets long term.
▶ 2:22:28And I'd love to highlight a few examples of what we're doing. So, our young uh Southeast Asian leaders institute, we're using that to convene a very impactful conference in the Indoacific on online scams. That's one of the big threats we face in that region. International Visitors Leadership Program is another great program we have. We are we've used that to combat illegal migration, for example.
▶ 2:22:47And when I was in London, I attended a gathering of IVLP alumni who'd combed migration in the English Channel and and elsewhere in the world, who shared tips and tricks for interdicting human trafficking and unlawful international payments. It was a really high expertise, high value um gathering that would not have happened if not for ECA. ECA programs have also yielded tangible results on critical minerals and supply chain issues which are critical to our national security and foreign policy.
▶ 2:23:14So, for example, we've seen alums of these programs secure a tungst a tungsten deal in Kazakhstan, the first ever corn purchase by Tunisia, which was a big deal, and we've seen um other these programs have borne other fruit all over the world.
▶ 2:23:28Thank you. You're back.
▶ 2:23:32Thank you, Representative Kane. And I now recognize Representative Titus for five minutes.
▶ 2:23:38Well, thank you very much. When when you come at the end, you get to kind of summarize what everybody else has been saying. So, I I appreciate that. Thank you for being here. You know, right this very minute, we are engaged in this illegal war against Iran. And since the hostilities were launched by the president, the administration's been unable to settle on one message. Why now and what next? Uh we've seen it go from one explanation to another from the president to his team saying different things.
▶ 2:24:08Let's let's review it. It was regime change. It was threat reduction. and it was get back to the negotiating table. It was imminent threat. It was, you know, you name it. So, I'm just wondering and your role how you think that uh foreign our foreign audiences are going to be able to understand what they're trying to do when the members of Congress can't even understand it and we haven't gotten a message to the American people.
▶ 2:24:34At the same time all that confusion is going on, I would remind you that we don't have ambassadors in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, or Iraq. That cannot be helpful because these missions aren't there to be able to help to explain what's going on. On top of that, last July's riff, you targeted the PD sections of several bureaus. So, the State Department or your different divisions have just been eroded.
▶ 2:25:04people aren't there to help with this uh message globally and based on your answers to questions by Mr. Castro, you don't have much authority either or you don't know what's going on and so that's been eroded. So I just wonder if you can help us understand how you're getting this message out and let's start with the message. Are we at war? Let's start with the basic. Are we at war? We are in an armed conflict with a regime that wants us dead and has said so constantly.
▶ 2:25:34Now, uh, Congresswoman, you and a few others have purported to site confused or contradictory messages from the administration. I think rapid fluid evolving truthtelling from our leaders is consistent with a rapid fluid evolving kinetic situation. And frankly, it would be a propagandistic propagandistic regime in a propagandistic closed society like Iran the administration to speak.
▶ 2:25:59I don't know what I'm hiding and if you let me speak if you let me speak I'll give you some but I guess you don't want to.
▶ 2:26:06No, please.
▶ 2:26:07Okay. So, here are some facts. Here are some facts. So what we've heard from the administration, right, is that Iran would not say the magic words, no, we're not going to get a nuclear weapon. They kept saying the magic words, death to America, but they wouldn't say, no, we don't want a nuclear weapon. So we heard that something was going to happen. Then we heard that Israel was going to do a strike, and we did not want to get struck first. Those are they've been rebutted by numerous sources that those things aren't true.
▶ 2:26:34Those are just things that have come out of the mouths of this secretary of state or the president or the secretary.
▶ 2:26:40If you're going to gain what our great secretary of state hasn't called liar, then I can't help you. But I can tell you that foreign audiences have been say we are not at war. But we are not at war. Is that what you're saying?
▶ 2:26:50Don't mischaracterize my war. Do not mischaracterize my says we're at war. Are we at war or not?
▶ 2:26:55We are in a kinetic conflict with a regime that wants us dead.
▶ 2:26:59Kinetic conflict. Is that what you call
▶ 2:27:01Well, I I can use other words. I can say armed conflict. I can say violent conflict. I can say a conflict where they've shot six of our boys. And
▶ 2:27:07please say it all so we can have more confusion. Just like you've said it all about what the reason, Congresswoman, about dead servicemen and women.
▶ 2:27:15You are exactly right. That's why I'm asking you if we're at war. So don't give me some euphemisms to describe war. War is war with death of our service Not a euphemism. Let me remind you. You're supposed to be in communication with the rest of the world. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with this. Do you remember when Putin invaded Ukraine? They asked him if it was a war. Oh, no, it's not a war. It's a special military operation. That sounds a lot like what you're saying about intense conflict or whatever the term was you used.
▶ 2:27:45Yeah, conflict isable word, but I'm glad that I'm not the public officer. We are using to get out the word of the public to get out the word to the global audience that we don't know what's going on. We don't know why we did it. We don't know what the plan is. We don't three weeks, six weeks. Maybe we're going to use these kind of forces. Maybe we're going to put boots on the ground. We don't know. We don't know nothing.
▶ 2:28:09And so we are now, not only do we not know anything to reassure our uh allies and the American public and the Congress, we're using the language of Putin when he invaded Ukraine. Do you
▶ 2:28:21states my testimony publicly? You can't hear it. I thank the gentle lady for her time. I now recognize Representative Gyipal for five minutes.
▶ 2:28:35Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for appearing before us today, Madame Under Secretary. Your role in overseeing public diplomacy functions at the State Department is critical, I think, to promoting our soft power abroad and to attracting the best and the brightest to the United States. And we've done this successfully in the past, in part reflected in the fact that we've long been the top choice for international students. And nearly half of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. I'm one of those people.
▶ 2:29:04My parents sent me to the United States by myself when I was 16 years old. They had 5,000 bucks in their bank account and they used it all to send me here even though I was never going to live on the same continent as them again because they really believed that America was the best place in the world where I would get the best education and the most opportunity. Um before coming to the State Department, you were a lawyer with a focus on the first amendment.
▶ 2:29:28Um, and in your confirmation hearing, you stated that quote, "Free speech is America's number one strength and that quote protecting inconvenient speech isn't a weakness. It's the whole point." And I wanted to know if you still stand by that
▶ 2:29:43with all my heart.
▶ 2:29:44And um, is it correct uh, that the First Amendment applies to everyone in the United States regardless of citizenship status? Do you agree with that? So, the Supreme Court has made clear that foreign nationals who are guests in the United States have a lot of the same First Amendment rights as Americans, but they're not completely co-extensive.
▶ 2:30:02Well, um, the US Constitution applies to everyone within our borders regardless of legal status. That's part over the past year, and we have some Supreme Court cases around this as well. Over the last year, we've seen the State Department go after free speech rights, um, revoking student visas for speech that the Trump administration doesn't like, and specifically criticisms of the Israeli government.
▶ 2:30:26Your administration's actions were so blatantly unconstitutional that a Reaganapp appointed judge, William Young, ruled that the administration violated the First Amendment and stated that Secretary Rubio was engaged in quote an unconstitutional conspiracy. In your capacity as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, you've made numerous statements criticizing European regulations aimed at restricting hate speech for infringing on the right to free speech.
▶ 2:30:54We had a hearing on this actually in the judiciary committee as well. In a recent interview, you said it was your job to quote hold out to the world what America's values and priorities are and they aren't censorship anymore. Um, you stand by that statement, I assume.
▶ 2:31:11And so, do you think that you can effectively maintain our global reputation while your own department is cracking down on the free speech rights of people right here at home? Well, I don't agree with every characterization that the general lady's offered or that every district court judge has offered regarding the activities of the department. And I think the great thing about the rule of law and the great thing about the court system is that we have a right of appeal and we've seen that in the Mahmud Khalil case for example bear out.
▶ 2:31:36I think that, you know, the legal cases you referenced raise issues under the Immigration and Naturalization Act that will be adjudicated through the courts and my department has always abided by Supreme Court rulings and we will. But do as a free speech and and thank you for the for the answer, but as a free speech um uh proponent and I think you've clearly said that don't you think that the crackdown on people uh who just disagree who write an op-ed remaur as an example who write an op-ed
▶ 2:32:07and then are put into proceedings to deport them have real consequences on free speech in general and the perspective that the United States protects and has a first amendment right to for people to be able to say what they want even if it means disagreeing with the government.
▶ 2:32:25We are losing people from around the country and I know this for a fact because they write to me and say I don't want to come to the University of Washington to to the United States and take a position that I've been offered at the University of Washington because everything that I have said on my Twitter account is being analyzed and if I've said anything about X number of issues including Gaza then I'm going to be denied my visa or I'm going to come and I'm going to be And
▶ 2:32:55so I guess I'm wondering how you as an advocate for the first amendment and for free free speech can really say and function in your role when we are so clearly and and you may give me one example. I could probably give you five others of where courts have ruled against this administration and what they've done. But it is clearly affecting our reputation abroad. And so how do you defend that?
▶ 2:33:22So, I think the way that I address this conversation and it does come up is I think I make a few points. So, number one, you know, in America, if it were true that everyone who wrote an op-ed critical of the government or Israel got arrested or deported, um, that would be pretty bad. It's not true. And sad to say,
▶ 2:33:37but it is true with Romea Ostster, it is true. I mean, I question Secretary Rubio about this. And he had nothing to say, but the courts just ruled on Resa Ostk.
▶ 2:33:47I'm I'm aware of that ruling. I haven't reviewed it because it's not directly in my purview. But what I'll say is even if every single person who even if even if a critical op-ed got you deported in America, you would still be better off writing a critical op-ed in America than anywhere else. This morning,
▶ 2:34:01you can't you can't distinguish and say you're better off because some people have first amendment rights but other people don't. The first amendment has to apply across my testimony my testimony is that it sounds like the chairman wants us to yield back. But I would be happy to continue this. Let me say no. Let me just say to you, I let me say to you that we can't you can't say we have first amendment rights and then only apply them to amendment to others. Mr. Chairman, she was the gentle time has expired. The gentle lady's time is expired.
▶ 2:34:31Uh I do want to thank the under secretary for the valuable testimony and the members for their questions. The members of this committee may have some additional questions for the under secretary and we certainly will ask you to respond to these in writing. Uh if there is anything you would like to add for the record uh that you did not get a chance to adequately reply to, feel free to right now if you'd like. Otherwise, you can submit it in writing.
▶ 2:34:57Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's a couple of things I would like to say. Um when I and I want to I want to finish addressing I see Representative J. Paul is gone, but I think she raised an important issue. So, what I tell people is that um no matter who you are in America, you have freer speech rights here than you would anywhere. You won't get thrown in jail for calling a rapist a pig. That happened in Germany. You won't get thrown in jail for praying silently. That can happen to you in Britain. And you certainly won't get shot in the street for criticizing your government.
▶ 2:35:25That happened to the brave people of Iran. And our government is working, you know, constructively on all of these issues. I um I'll submit more in writing. I also want to say there have been some really unfair comments about AGM Deputy CEO Lake during this hearing that I'd like to supplement the record to contextualize.
▶ 2:35:43So, it is absolutely true that our AGM broadcasting services with respect to Iran are up and running and they're critical, but those services haven't always been helping the Iranian people or advancing American foreign policy priorities. There were investigations in 2016, for example, that con that concluded that those assets were wrongly being used to stifle criticism of the Iranian regime. So, Representative Lake had to do some streamlining. She had to do some house cleaning. That was what the president wanted.
▶ 2:36:12We will rebuild those resources to the extent appropriate and consistent with the wishes of the American people and make sure they are aligned as the statute requires with foreign policy priorities as we continue to integrate going I see we have another member that uh graced us. So we will now recognize Miss Klod for five
▶ 2:36:34Thank you Mr. Chair. It's always a challenge when committees are happening at the same time and thank you under secretary Rogers uh for being here today and uh thank you for meeting with me uh some time ago. So, while Trump is waging a war in the Middle East, this committee is once again sitting on the sidelines, we did not have a single hearing on Iran leading up to this conflict in which Americans have now died. And I'm sure we won't be having any now.
▶ 2:37:03Um, I think it is a shocking dereliction of duty. Under Secretary Rogers, you are here today and you are responsible for public diplomacy. And one thing I've been pleased to see is the department's prioritization of sports diplomacy. So I do appreciate that you have elevated the sports diplomacy division into its own office and drafted a comprehensive sports diplomacy strategy. Two of the major directives in my American decade of sports.
▶ 2:37:33Um and when we talked you shared that you had some travel uh to Milan I think in preparation for the Olympics. But apart from that, however, it does seem your focus on tweeting may have distracted you from the other parts of the job, including overseeing the educational and cultural exchange programs that Congress is deeply committed to.
▶ 2:37:56Last year, OM illegally froze $100 million in congressional appropriations for 21 educational and cultural exchange programs, causing an entire year of missed programming. And I'm concerned OM's unprecedented involvement in the State Department's award review process is going to derail our exchange programs yet again.
▶ 2:38:18So, Under Secretary, do you know if OM is on track to review and clear on all programs by midyear before we likely see a second year in a row of misprogramming? I know there are detailed inter agency negotiations ongoing. I can't comment on exact dates or deadlines. I will say that my office will abide by the law including appropriations laws to all of these
▶ 2:38:40So you don't know and there's no push to get it done. Okay. So can you commit that the young African leaders initiative our flagship publicy program in Africa will receive its award in time to recruit a cohort of Mandela Washington fellows for 2027?
▶ 2:39:00I can commit that that program is already back online actually and we're having a summit this summer and again any inter agency processes or appropriations or dispersements for FY26 I am happy to get you details on I don't have them but I know young African leaders is something that we're doing and it's going to it's going on this year. Okay. So I think I heard you say it's back online that it is something that is supportive uh that you have details that you will share with us. We my office will share whatever details we can share.
▶ 2:39:29My staff I think have been briefing the appropriators and we're happy to continue doing them.
▶ 2:39:33I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Uh Trump's draconian travel ban includes an embargo on exchange visas for 39 countries which means we are no longer running educational and cultural exchange programs in a good chunk of the world. So, have you asked, are you planning to ask? Have you asked Secretary Rubio to issue national interest exceptions for exchange program participants in countries subject to a travel ban?
▶ 2:40:01I know that in Africa at least we're already doing that. Those exceptions are being issued. And again, my staff could get your staff numbers, but I don't even have to ask the secretary because that's
▶ 2:40:12Okay. Okay. Well, I hope because that's not the information that we've been receiving and I've had multiple meetings with folks from many countries who are asking us what we can do. So, I'm sharing with you on record and asking that you can continue to do that. One of them is Tajikistan uh that they're not getting that information. So, they're not understanding the waiverss, maybe they're not understanding the directives. It would be great if that could be a little more visible. Uh many of the participants in the YALI initiative uh are coming from countries subject to the travel ban.
▶ 2:40:41So you did mention Africa as a continent. Um so my hope is that what we know is that 26 African countries are subject to exchange visa travel bans. So I don't know how that squares with the YALI
▶ 2:40:54Well, the reason that I mentioned Africa as a continent is because Africa is also a regional bureau and our state department and I engaged with them specifically to prepare for this hearing and that was the context in which I received information that we are issuing these exemptions. So it was there that you received information about the work to relieve the travel bans for some of these
▶ 2:41:16I have no reason to believe that that work is region specific. I think it's national interest specific and it would be the same considerations and processes
▶ 2:41:23That would make sense. The question is specific to some. So it would be great if you could get us a list of the countries, the African countries um that are now on this list to have a change in policy on the travel bans if that's what I heard you say. Um, I don't know about a change in policy on travel bans. I just know that to the extent there are travel bans, there are national interest exemptions which are being issued and I'm happy to have my staff continue to brief and respond to whatever info the committee wants.
▶ 2:41:48That would be great. We'll follow up to make sure that we get that information. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
▶ 2:41:52Thank you. And uh I just want to note we did in fact have a full committee hearing on Iran in April of last year. a return to maximum pressure comprehensively countering the Iranian regime's malign influence. And as chair of the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee, I've held numerous hearings uh on the Middle East, Iran, uh in particular, including a classified briefing.
▶ 2:42:18Many of my colleagues that are on the committee from the Democratic side, choose not to show up or engage on that committee. Uh and the record reflects that. Uh, pursuant to committee rules, all members may have five days to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record subject to the length limitations. Without objection, the committee stands