Duckworth Grills Secretary Rubio on State Department Cuts That Undermine Diplomacy and Make Americans Less Safe

Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) grilled U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Tuesday, June 2, 2026, on Donald Trump’s Congressional budget request that once again proposes deep cuts to the State Department that would gut our diplomatic capacity and ultimately make Americans less safe.

At today’s U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) hearing, Duckworth warned against wasting taxpayer dollars on a war of choice while further promoting the Trump Administration’s disturbing pattern of using military force as a first resort, which has endangered our servicemembers in the Middle East, tanked America’s economy and increased the risk that our adversaries will jump to use force first, too.

Duckworth’s full exchange with Secretary Rubio can be found on the Senator’s YouTube.

“Time and again, this Administration insists on using military force as a first resort instead of a last resort, no matter the deadly costs or self-defeating impacts,” said Duckworth.

“And now, Secretary Rubio wants to make even more budget cuts to our State Department and further undermine our diplomatic apparatus—the tools and professionals that are critical for not only preventing crises before they begin, but those who will be responsible for negotiating our way out of Trump’s war of choice against Iran, and whatever nightmare he dreams up next.”

Secretary Rubio’s Fiscal Year 2027 (FY2027) Congressional Budget Request cuts the State Department by a whopping 33 percent after he previously tried to enact steep cuts and eliminations last year, many of which were already rebuked by Congress on a bipartisan basis. Duckworth noted that the Trump Administration has spent more on Trump’s illegal war against Iran than Secretary Rubio is requesting in his entire budget request.

This week, the costs of President Trump’s illegal war of choice against Iran are likely to balloon past $35 billion dollars—by the rate from the Department of Defense’s (DoD) own May calculations—and surpass Secretary Rubio’s FY2027 budget request of $35.1 billion for the State Department and related programs.

Last week, Duckworth underscored the importance of prioritizing diplomatic engagement—as well as crisis management that doesn’t solely rely on the military—on her official Congressional delegation (CODEL) to the Philippines and Singapore.

In her conversations, Duckworth highlighted the need for her new bipartisan bills—the South China Sea Strategy Act and the Strategy for Crisis Management Act—that would help ensure the State Department prioritizes diplomatic engagement and improve the DoD’s management of tensions in the region before they grow into full-blown crises that would require military action.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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