Marco Rubio shut down a reporter who suggested that the Trump administration was violating the principles of free speech.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Rubio was asked by a reporter about the Trump administration’s decision to revoke a green card from last year’s organizer of the pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University.
“President Trump appealed to a lot of Americans on free speech arguments and not suppressing speech, especially from the government,” the reporter asked.
”Your revocation of the green card to many is seen as one of the most anti-speech actions a Secretary can take with his powers,” he continued.”How do you respond?”
Rubio responded as such:
When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, as a visitor’s visa, you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa.
We can deny you that if you tell us, when you apply, hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa, I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.
If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities. If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would.
If you actually end up doing that, once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it. If you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you’re here in those activities, we’re going to kick you out. It’s as simple as that.
This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with.
No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So, when you apply for a student visa, or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason.
But I think being a supporter of Hamas, and coming into our universities, and turning them upside down, and being complicit in what are clearly crimes, a vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions.
There are kids at these schools that can’t go to class. You pay all this money to these high-priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem, and you can’t even go to class. You’re afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face, screaming terrifying things.
If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out. They sent me to a psychiatrist.
Reporter: “Your revocation of the green card to many is seen as one of the most anti-speech actions a Secretary can take with his powers. How do you respond?”@MarcoRubio‘s response is fierce and factual ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/uVwJy30dVo
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) March 12, 2025
Despite the efforts by the Trump administration, an Obama judge recently blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khali on the grounds that he was exercising “constitutionally protected speech.”
The issue may eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.