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Source: Congress.gov
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From the third highest ranking officer of the Department of State, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, or P as the position is referred to inside of the State Department. P oversees and directs via the regional bureaus the work of all of our embassies abroad. And it has enormous influence over the deployment and the composition of the Foreign Service. This hearing will provide a greater insight into how the department's reorganization plan will change the division of labor between the so-called regional and functional bureaus, and how the President's America First foreign policy will be implemented in the field. And I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. Under the Biden administration, the State Department, in my opinion, operated without clear lines of command. I believe that it blurred responsibilities in many cases and that it had a culture that prioritized process over the outcomes that the State Department would produce. I would use the DEI office as an example where they were worried about what the bucket of applicants would look like rather than the outcomes of those applicants and what they were delivering for the American taxpayer. That was a direct quote from the former DEI Secretary Abercrombie Winstanley. That has changed under President Biden, President Trump and Secretary Rubio. This committee is working to restore real command and control at the State Department, something that the Pentagon has had for decades and something that the State Department desperately needs. We are crafting the first comprehensive standalone State Department authorization bill in over 20 years. This is not meant as a gesture. It is meant as a serious institutional overhaul. We're not doing this for symbolism. We're doing it because there needs to be common sense and logic within our diplomacy.
Our goal is simple, bring order, bring clarity, and bring effectiveness to a department that too often prioritized institutional interests above the American interest. A perfect example is how members of Congress in too many cases are more concerned about somebody being fired from the State Department after 10 or 15 years of employment when they should be asking how productive those employees were and what were the measurable outcomes that were provided by them approving transgender operas or drag show tutorials or DEI musicals or LGBTQ comic books abroad. Under President Biden, the department suffered from a structural identity crisis. Maybe policy was delivered by one group, altered by another, and implemented by a third, often with no clear authority or accountability. Turf wars between regional and functional bureaus slowed everything down. The Undersecretary for Political Affairs is treated as first among equals, but that phrase itself reveals to me a problem. Too many equals, not enough leadership. No mission succeeds without a chain of command, and I believe that diplomacy is no exception. The State Department must operate like a strategic institution with a clear hierarchy, mission clarity, decisive leadership, and measurable outcomes. It should not be a think tank that looks at the world as an academic exercise with no measurable outcomes. And our reforms aim to correct that. Some will resist this. They'll defend the status quo as if it's sacred. But we've seen what the status quo produces. Mission drift. Strategic confusion. a sprawling bureaucracy that's often more focused on virtue signaling than actually projecting American strength abroad.
Let us be clear, this is not about copying the Pentagon. It's about applying common sense. At DOD, policy is made at the top through a chain of command that is recognizable to everybody. At the State Department, that discipline has been missing. We don't expect the State Department to be soldiers in uniform, but we should expect it to have a command structure that is recognizable and followed. We can't afford what has happened to happen again. Not when adversaries like China and Iran are using every tool at their disposal to undermine American power. We can't have a foreign service officers that freelance social experimentation. Our vision is straightforward. Functional bureaus and undersecretaries should focus on developing policy clear, coherent, and grounded in national interest. Regional bureaus with their area expertise should adapt and execute that policy on the ground. This creates a clear flow of authority, streamlines operations, and ensures accountability at every level. What we've had are regional bureaus providing loose oversight of embassies that frequently operate like personal fiefdoms rather than the implementing arm of the State Department.
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