Rubio rebellion against Tillerson brewing

“I intend to take this very seriously,” Rubio told reporters. “If we’re going to have moral clarity in our foreign policy, we need to be clear. And I don’t want to see us move towards a foreign policy in which human rights only matters when nothing else matters.”

Such a move would be politically-explosive. Republicans have a 10-9 majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meaning that his vote could cause Tillerson to lose the confirmation vote at the committee level. That wouldn’t necessarily doom Tillerson’s cause, but it would be an embarrassment to the nominee and a potentially lonely position for Rubio.

“I’m prepared to do what’s right,” he told reporters after the hearing.

The Florida Republican faulted Tillerson, at the end of the day, for demurring when asked to condemn human rights abuses by important countries, rather than condemning their abuses and explaining why the United States should work with them anyway.

“[Refusal to condemn human rights abuses] demoralizes these people all over the world and it leads people to conclude this — which is damaging and it hurt us during the Cold War — and that is this: America cares about democracy and freedom, as long as it’s not being violated by someone that they need for something else,” Rubio told Tillerson. “That cannot be who we are in the 21st century. We need a secretary of state that will fight for these principles.”

Rubio’s criticisms were not a total surprise. Fresh off his reelection to the Senate, he raised doubts about Tillerson in the days before Trump tapped him as his pick to lead the State Department. Rubio, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and John McCain of Arizona, was skeptical of Tillerson’s past interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But he avoided joining Graham in setting Tillerson’s willingness or unwillingness to call for sanctions in response to Russian cyberattacks as a litmus test that would dictate his confirmation vote.

That seemed to keep the door open for Rubio to back Tillerson, but the former ExxonMobil CEO frustrated him early and often during Wednesday’s testimony. Tillerson refused to dub Putin “a war criminal” in light of the Russian military’s attacks on civilians in Syria; he declined to label Saudi Arabia “a human rights violator,” saying that he “would need to have greater information” before applying that term to the regime.

“When you designate someone or label someone, the question is, is that the most effective way to have progress continue to be made in Saudi Arabia or any other country,” Tillerson told Rubio Wednesday afternoon.

“I share all the same values that you share and want the same things for people the world over in terms of freedoms,” Tillerson continued. “But I’m also clear-eyed and realistic about dealing in cultures — these are centuries-long cultures, cultural differences. It doesn’t mean that we can’t affect them and affect them to change . . . what I do believe is, it is moving in the direction that we want it to move. And what I wouldn’t want to do is [take] some kind of precipitous action that suddenly causes the leadership in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to have to interrupt that.”

Such demurrals haunted Tillerson at the end of the day, especially his statement that he needed access to classified information to make a variety of judgments.

“These were not obscure areas,” Rubio said. “The questions I asked did not require access to any sort of special information.”

Inauguration Day, January 20, is the earliest that the Senate will be able to vote to confirm any cabinet picks, so Tillerson’s allies will have some time to try to convince Rubio to vote in favor of him.

“I recognize the partisan split on the committee and what it would all mean and so I have to make sure that I’m 100 percent behind whatever decision that I make because once I make it, it isn’t going to change,” Rubio said.