United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Chinese Communist Party and its ally North Korea are escalating tactics to repress dissent.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee putting a spotlight on the two regimes' human rights violations and coercion outside their borders.

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Today, we'll hear from the victims of the brutal regimes in Beijing and Pyongyang to determine how the United States can better protect those in the crosshairs.

The Chinese Communist Party and its ally North Korea are escalating tactics to repress dissent.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee putting a spotlight on the two regimes' human rights violations and coercion outside of their borders.

If you travel to China, Beijing may take you hostage as leverage in diplomatic negotiations.

So, of course, as all this is on hold, there still is some movement in the Democratic caucus.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, who, of course, is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he just announced that he won't clear the Trump administration's proposed $2.8 billion sale of bombs to Israel, arguing that it would violate or saying that those munitions wouldn't be used in accordance with U.S. and international law.

What does it say to you that he's vocalizing this and doing it now?

Well, it's very important, and I'm very glad that he did that.

And so the next one here, Representative Meeks says that he will not clear massive bomb transfer to Israel.

Greg Meeks, who's the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he said on Wednesday that he would not approve a massive U.S.-funded $2.8 billion transfer of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel that the Trump administration is planning to advance.

I should say he said he would not approve it at this time, basically for the time being.

And of course, I'll just read a statement.

Come back again soon.

Yeah, he's a wealth of information, so, uh, if you want to hear the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and his assessment of what he just saw when he was at the front, uh, go back to that video.

Day sixteen sixty-four, and now the professor also has to learn to pronounce Lithuanian names.

It's a tough job.

In this period in April 2024, Democrats were for the first time willing, because again, Biden had established his red line, you saw Democratic lawmakers in a groundswell come up and say, we want to hold weapons.

You saw Gregory Meeks on the House Foreign Affairs Committee hold up fighter jets for Israel.

Nancy Pelosi comes out and says, I'm against offensive weapons for the Israelis.

The Biden administration then works very quickly to undo all of that.

It might be judiciary.

Certainly, Intel or the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Armed Services Committees could have hearings on it, but I don't think they'd have jurisdiction over any legislation.

Senator Jim Talent, always good to talk to you.

Follow him on X at Jim Talent.

One was happening in the House Committee on Homeland Security.

The other was in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

And both of the topics that were being tackled in different ways was looking at what should we know now, 25 years after September 11th, how do we make sure that September 11th, a terrorist attack like that doesn't happen again? And just to note on that, one of the things you may have noticed in some of the news coverage over the last several days, marking 25 years since the terrorist attack, is that we probably, and you probably haven't heard a lot about Al-Qaeda.

We don't actually talk a lot about the hijackers or the terrorist groups around that particular day.

We don't want that to happen again.

So what do we need to know now? And that, again, was the topics of these hearings from different perspectives.

In the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, there was a State Department official who who was testifying.

Ed was answering questions.

But a month later, Energy Secretary Chris Rice said on CNBC that the account had been closed and no more money would be flowing to or through Qatar and nobody has identified where it went or where, you know, where it went since then.

So where's the money? House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meats called it an offshore slush fund.

Besant, questioned by Kasten back in February, refused to say which accounts the Treasury Department was even using, even though Trump's executive order had named him and Treasury as the custodian for the funds.

Kasten and Senator Chris Van Hollen again demanded to know where the money was back in March and were again stonewalled, and then again this week.