EXCLUSIVE: The incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is pledging a thorough accounting of how taxpayer dollars have been used by the State Department when he takes the reins of the influential panel next year.
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., is expected to take the helm from current Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who is term-limited.
“When you’re dealing with the State Department, it is dollars going to foreign companies, foreign countries, foreign NGOs and, like Afghanistan, foreign adversaries – the Taliban. And that needs – to have to use a word out there – a colonoscopy, to say the least,” Mast told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
“That will be the focus of the committee. That will be the focus of each and every subcommittee – is getting into each of the branches of the bureaus across the State Department, working with [Trump Secretary of State nominee Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.], of course, and … really having a way to put sunlight on this in a way that this [Biden] administration did not allow.”
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Mast said he wants the State Department to be required to notify Congress of each grant it issues, “So we have eyes on where you’re sending these dollars, to third-party and fourth-party and fifth-party places abroad, and be able to [say], ‘No, that’s not one that we’re going to authorize.’”
The decorated Afghanistan war veteran won a crowded four-way race to succeed McCaul as the top Republican on the House committee overseeing the State Department and U.S. foreign relations.
He’s been in Congress for less time than the Republicans he ran against, but Mast has stood out as one of Trump’s most crucial allies in the 2024 presidential campaign.
Mast led the Veterans For Trump coalition and was a surrogate at several events related to service members.
The Florida Republican is also notably less hawkish on Ukraine than two of the Republicans he ran against: Reps. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., and Joe Wilson, R-S.C., as well as McCaul.
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Like Trump, he’s critical of continued U.S. aid to Ukraine and has voted against supplemental funding in the past.
“President Trump wants Ukraine to have victory. He wants this to absolutely be a reprimand [of] the actions of Russia and [President] Vladimir Putin, and he wants to bring this to an end promptly. He has a plan for doing that. He will execute that, and he will have every bit of my support in doing that as the authorizing side of foreign affairs for the House,” Mast said.
He also pointed out his deep relationships with the Trump administration, including ties to Rubio and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., the incoming national security adviser.
Asked if his ties to Trump were part of his argument to win the gavel, Mast said that it “certainly was.”
But his overall aim for the committee, Mast said, would be based on the principle of “Every diplomat and every dollar puts America first.”
“If you’re a diplomat that’s out there apologizing for America and not putting America first, you’re going to be under our microscope. That’s for sure. And I hope that has a chilling effect on them,” Mast said while pointing out that Rubio would likely be a partner in that goal.
“But as we all know, when our colleagues get these opportunities to take over these agencies … you go in there with years and years and years of decades-long employees there that maybe are not ideologically aligned. Well, guess what? If you were one of the 15 people that were signing on to spending half a million American taxpayer dollars on atheism, then you should know that we’re looking for you.”
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