NOTICIAS

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Mornings with Maria to discuss the investment of federal employees’ retirement funds in Chinese firms, Sony’s courageous stance against Chinese censorship, the leaked Supreme Court opinion draft, and Rubio’s bill to remove tax breaks for woke corporate activism. See below for highlights and watch the full interview here.

On attempts to invest federal employees’ retirement funds in firms controlled by the Chinese Communist Party:

“These companies in China do not, at this moment anyway, follow the same requirements that any other companies that are listed follow in terms of transparency and auditing requirements, so you’re risking American money into companies that we know very little about and in fact refuse to comply. 

“Add to that the irony [that] if you are in the armed forces, defending this country, you’re putting money aside in this equivalent of a 401(k), [and] they are turning around and investing that money [in] companies in China that are controlled by the military, designing the weapons that are one day going to be to attack you, kill you, or kill your children when they grow up and serve in the military. That is outrageous.

“I think there’s just a very simple, common-sense line here. Why are we using American money to fund companies that are building the weapons that are being designed to destroy and kill American troops?

“[These decisions are] controlled by a board of investment ‘experts’ and ‘specialists.’ Unfortunately, we have seen across equities markets that people think or believe their only job or only consideration is, ‘Can I get a good return for our investors?’ That is a very important consideration, there is no doubt about it, but I think there needs to be some common sense here.

“Now it’s sometimes the same people, on the other hand, that have no problem divesting…companies that are involved in fossil fuels or [gun production]. They have no problem divesting…those companies, but at the same time, they have no interest in not putting money into the hands of companies that are controlled by the military of a country that intends to overtake America, become the world’s most powerful country, and in that process threaten our troops in the Asia-Pacific region and, frankly, at some point, anywhere in the world.”

On whether Congress can stop federal employees’ retirement funds from being invested in Chinese firms:

“It’s a bipartisan issue, meaning generally everybody agrees. It’s not a bipartisan priority. In fact, even in my own party, it’s not a priority for everybody. A lot of people would agree with the position, but [they’re not all] interested in focusing on it, really tuning into it, working on it on a daily basis. There are a lot of reasons why people aren’t. Either they don’t take the threat seriously, or they’re listening to some of these people that come from Wall Street over here and tell us not to mess around with investment, give you the runaround as to why we’re exaggerating and it’s not a big deal. So yes, it’s a bipartisan position, but, unfortunately, it is not a bipartisan priority.“

On Chinese censorship in the movie industry:

“China has been censoring Hollywood for a long time. So that is why you don’t see movies with a Chinese government, communist villain in them. But…in this new Spider-Man movie, the Chinese demanded that the Statue of Liberty be taken out of one of the final scenes…. Sony said, ‘No, we won’t do it.’ So they walked away from the ability to have that movie distributed in China. 

“It took a Japanese company to do what American companies would not do, and that is refuse to bend the knee to the Chinese Communist Party on censorship. They should be applauded for it. It puts to shame all these companies in Hollywood that are constantly doing whatever China tells them.”

On the Democrats’ mismanagement of the country: 

“There’s no doubt Democrats do not want this election to be about immigration, crime, [or] inflation. They don’t want it to be about things that are impacting real people every single day, because they’re doing a terrible job at all three. They’re all going to continue to get worse. Inflation is going to get worse. Crime continues to surge around this country. We’re going to have a massive illegal immigration surge this summer, due to Joe Biden’s inviting people to come here illegally. They don’t want it to be about any of that.”

On the leaked Supreme Court opinion draft to overturn Roe vs. Wade:

“My sense is this was a strategically planned leak, designed…primarily to try to intimidate justices. That is what you are seeing right now, efforts to intimidate them. There is a website out there that identifies the addresses of the five [Supreme Court] justices that they’re targeting and where they live. [Then there’s] a map on how to get there, and [they’re] encouraging people to go to their homes and try to intimidate them there. Clearly [this leak] was designed to do that, not to mention that it’s a direct attack on an institution.

“What we’ve learned in the last few days, which we should have learned before, is that the only time that Democrats want to defend institutions or consider a Supreme Court ruling as the law of the land is when they agree with it or it furthers their political aims. Any other time, they feel free to not just criticize the Court, but attack the justices by name and attack them personally. That’s the world we live in today. 

“I hope they find who did this, but this person is probably not going to hide for very long. They’re going to get a show on MSNBC, maybe even land some pretty well-paid gigs, a book deal, and they’ll be a hero on the Far Left. I’m not sure why they’re hiding. They should just come forward now and admit it was them.”

On the senator’s No Tax Breaks for Radical Corporate Activism Act:

“I don’t believe there should be taxpayer funding for abortions. That’s a widespread position in our country. We shouldn’t be using government money to do that. When you tell a company you can deduct the cost of sending someone to get an abortion in another state, you’re in essence providing them that assistance … We shouldn’t be doing it.”