Marco Rubio Is Most Definitely a Liar.

He also doesn't really care about the First Amendment

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The Trump administration has had a busy month of foreign policy, what with the Venezuela operation, Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, saber-rattling over Iran, and of course the very gutsy decision not to invade Greenland this week.

This means it has been the season for Marco Rubio profiles. I know because I keep getting asked to comment on them courtesy of my own Rubio essay and follow-on commentary.

While many of these profiles note Rubio’s ideological flexibility, they also acknowledge that he has managed to survive and thrive in the second Trump administration, occupying both the national security advisor and secretary of state positions. This has earned Rubio some measure of respect in certain quarters. Europeans like to talk about Rubio as their preferred adult in the room, the guy who can ensure that the Trump White House’s latest crazy idea gets tamped down.

And who know, there very well may be a glimmer of truth to this. It is worth remembering that many commentators were skeptical of the “adults in the room” thesis during Trump’s first term. It’s safe to say that his second term behavior validates that thesis. Maybe, just maybe, Marco Rubio really is preventing even worse foreign policy things from happening.

None of that, however, changes the fact that he’s a stone-cold liar.

In April of last year the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World wrote about federal government’s decision to snatch Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk off of a Medford street — as well as Rubio’s public claims that the reasons went beyond a Tufts Daily op-ed that she co-authored. Let me just excerpt the key sections from that post:

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked specifically about Öztürk’s case during a State Department press conference, this is what he said in response:

If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa. We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus.

At this point it is worth stipulating two things:

1. Even Rubio acknowledges in those comments that writing an op-ed alone is insufficient grounds for revoking a visa. There have to be actions that cross a line from speech to disorderly or threatening conduct;

2. Rubio implies in his answer that Öztürk is in fact guilty of disruptive conduct;

One would assume that the federal government possessed rock-solid evidence of Öztürk’s misdeeds before detaining her and sending her to an ICE facility in Louisiana despite a U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts telling the federal government not to do that.

As the weeks have passed, however, no evidence has emerged that Öztürk engaged in any threatening or disruptive behavior of any kind. Rather, the opposite has emerged.

You can read the rest of the post to see the absence of evidence that emerged at the time. This week, however, the New York Times’ Zach Montague reports on the unsealed court filings that confirm Marco Rubio is a lying liar:

The documents include several batches of memos, prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to the State Department, which contained the formal recommendations that five students — Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri and Yunseo Chung — be deported.

The documents indicate that in nearly all instances, the arrests of the students were recommended based on their involvement in campus protests and public writings, activities that the Trump administration routinely equated to antisemitic hate speech and support for terrorist organizations. They also show that officials privately anticipated the possibility that the deportations might not hold up in court because much of the conduct highlighted could be seen as protected speech….

In one set of documents with the referrals, officials acknowledged that almost no grounds existed for deporting the students other than a rarely used 1952 law that says the secretary of state may deem noncitizens deportable for reasons related to foreign policy.

“D.H.S. has not identified any alternative grounds for removability,” agents wrote of several of the students, “including the ground of removability for aliens who have provided material support for a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity.”

In justifying the attempt to deport the students, Mr. Rubio and other administration officials repeatedly asserted that they had supported terrorist organizations.

“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Mr. Rubio wrote online in March, referring to the militant Palestinian group in Gaza.

What about the evidence that DHS collected specifically with respect to Rümeysa Öztürk? According to Montague, beyond the op-ed itself, there was no evidence.

The documents that Judge Young unsealed showed that government investigators searched for findings of wrongdoing on the part of the students, but internally acknowledged that they had found the task difficult.

In the case of Ms. Ozturk, a Tufts University postdoctoral student, officials wrote that there was no evidence she had “engaged in any antisemitic activity” or made “any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.” Nevertheless, they recommended that her visa be revoked based on “the totality of the circumstances presented.” A dossier compiled about her centered on an opinion piece she had written in The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, calling for divestment from Israel.

The State Department memo sent to Rubio recommending the revocation of Oztrurk’s student visa is worth quoting just to understand what “the totality of the circumstances presented” means, exactly. Note State’s acknowledgment of the lack of evidence in the DHS report:

While OZTURK has been involved with actions protesting Tufts’ relationship with Israel, DHS/ICE/HSI has not, however, provided any evidence showing that OZTURK has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally. While the report implies a connection between OZTURK and the now-banned Tufts Student for Justice in Palestine (TJSP), the report presents no evidence other than OZTURK’s membership in Graduate Students for Palestine which supported proposals to Tufts which were also. supported by TSIP. Nor has DHS/ICE/HS! shown any evidence that OZTURK was involved in any of the activities which resulted in TISP being suspended from Tufts.

Through a search on March 21, 2025, on available USG interagency databases, CA/VO identified no reporting specific to OZTURK, and interagency vetting partners did not provide any response to OZTURK’s 2024 visa application indicating the existence of derogatory terrorism-related information.

DHS did not identify any alternative grounds of removability that would be applicable to OZTURK, including the ground of removability for aliens who have provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity, and have not indicated whether it plans to consider termination of OZTURK’s SEVIS registration. Although information provided by DHS/HSI/ICE does not establish any potential ineligibility for OZTURK, you may, in your discretion and in accordance with Department policy in 9 FAM 403.11-5(B), approve revocation of her F-1 visa effective immediately based on the totality of the circumstances presented indicating that revocation may be warranted.

In short: the totality of the circumstances is that Rümeysa Öztürk co-authored an op-ed critical of the Tufts University president — the very same man who authorized a declaration stating that the op-ed, “was not in violation of any Tufts policies.”

In closing: Marco Rubio approved the revocation of Rümeysa Öztürk’s visa based entirely on her role in co-authoring an op-ed and then lied about the reasons for why he did so.

I write, research, and teach about world politics for a living. I am keenly aware of what people will do to acquire power — and then what they might do once they amass said power. It can be very ugly.

For reasons I cannot entirely articulate, however, Rubio’s bald-faced lie will stick with the rest of my days. I don’t care what foreign policy horrors he might have averted behind the scenes. I really don’t. What I do know is that this man approved a rendition based on no real evidence, trampled on the first amendment, and then lied about what he had done.

And this, this I cannot forgive.