During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) spoke about pressuring France to increase its defense spending.
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00:00What a great panel. We have a University of Pittsburgh graduate, we have a Villanova graduate
00:04who's an Irishman, we have my friend Charles Cushman, and we have my friend Joe Popolo.
00:07So congratulations to all of you and to your families on this great opportunity to serve.
00:14I will thank the chairman and the ranking. I mean, I could go on all day here. I'm by myself now.
00:19I mean, this is good. I'll thank the chairman and the ranking member for convening this hearing,
00:26and thank you all for your service. Let me start with you, Mr. Kushner. I just want to say it's great to see you this morning.
00:32I know you and your family, a big admirer, and I really do think your life is representative of the American dream.
00:41It's an American story as the son of Holocaust survivors. To be sitting here today as a successful businessman,
00:48a successful citizen, and the future ambassador to the Republic of our oldest ally.
00:52There's three things I'd like to just put into the record in terms of your qualifications.
00:57First, I'm heartened by your testimony that Holocaust education will be a priority for you in France.
01:03I think we've seen post-October 7th that the scourge of anti-Semitism exists across America and across the world,
01:12and I commend you and your commitment to lead on that front, and I'll be happy to support you in any way.
01:17I also want to just spend a minute thanking you and recognizing your leadership on criminal justice reform.
01:27A friend of mine for, I don't know, 25, 30 years now is Cory Booker.
01:31Cory and I have spoken about your leadership in New Jersey and all that you have done to help young men and women returning from prison
01:39get back on the right path in their lives, and I want to share for the record a specific statement from Senator Booker,
01:50and I quote,
01:52I can unequivocally say that without Charlie Kushner, we would have not passed the Bipartisan First Step Act,
01:59which led to the liberation of thousands of Americans from unjust incarceration and unjustifiably long prison sentences.
02:05His work has helped us to reform the criminal justice system, save millions in taxpayer dollars,
02:13and help nonviolent offenders have a successful chance, a second chance in life.
02:19So thank you for that.
02:20I want to make sure we recognize that leadership.
02:22I think it answers in part Senator Shaheen's question of the leadership you bring to this important role.
02:29And finally, I want to just say I was encouraged by the priority you put on strengthening the U.S.-France defense relationship.
02:38On that front, the French carrier strike group recently returned to Toulon after a five-month deployment in the Indo-Pacific.
02:46These types of deployments are absolutely critical to preserving freedom of navigation, as you know, in the Indo-Pacific,
02:53against our greatest geopolitical rival and adversary, China,
02:57and to ensure that France is leading alongside the United States in the face of the PLA's increased military assertiveness,
03:05which we see throughout the region.
03:07So with all that, let me ask you the first question.
03:10Will you commit to encouraging France to continue such deployments and to conduct future Taiwan Strait missions and transits?
03:19Absolutely, yes, because it's France and America work in tandem with exactly the same objective to keep those regions safe and secure.
03:31So the urging of the president, I think, in terms of urging for more spending on defense capabilities is critical,
03:42and the working together to secure those areas of the world are also critical.
03:48So I'm committed to it, absolutely.
03:50Very good. Thank you.
03:51And second, shifting to Europe, one of the things I think President Trump has done masterfully is put the pressure on Europe,
03:57France, and other countries to pay their fair share of NATO and in defense investment,
04:03but we're still not where we need to be, as you know.
04:06So in your role as ambassador, what will you do to continue to assert the kind of pressure we need
04:12to make sure that America's role in the world is supplemented by a really robust defense spending on the part of France and others?
04:20I think President Trump has done most of the work already because Macron, in particular, they're up.
04:28They've increased from their GDP to 2 point something percent of their spending, but it still ranks the lowest third.
04:39They're 19 out of 13 of 32 of the allies.
04:42So they still rank very, very low in terms of what they're spending.
04:47Macron himself, because of the pressure of President Trump, has acknowledged that he wants to go to 3 percent.
04:52So it's the job of myself and whoever else can insert influence to get him up to the 5 percent mark of the GDP,
05:00and I plan to try to be influential to push just that.
05:04Very good.
05:04And I'll just try to squeeze in one more question.
05:07Ms. Campos, shifting gears to drug trafficking, it's a big deal in Pennsylvania.
05:13We have a huge fentanyl crisis.
05:14We, as you know, have a lot of efforts by the cartels to further build out their drug traffic operations throughout the Caribbean and South America, Central America.
05:30What, in your role, will you commit to working with law enforcement and really making drug trafficking a priority?
05:39Thank you, Senator, for that important question.
05:41And as you know, the Dominican Republic, and as I mentioned in my statement,
05:46and the Dominican Republic and the United States already have a really strong relationship across all the anti-drug trafficking, anti-criminality operations.
06:00As you also know, we haven't had an ambassador in the Dominican Republic for four years.
06:04So I'm hopeful that if I'm confirmed that getting there will help reinvigorate, strengthen that partnership that we already do have with the Dominicans,
06:14strengthen their commitment and our commitment as well.
06:18Very good.
06:18Thank you all.