Senator Chris Murphy spoke on Wednesday at a U.S. Senate Appropriations hearing on President Biden’s FY24 budget request for the U.S. State Department with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Murphy applauded the State Department’s role in the Windsor Framework and the normalization agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, as well as the budget’s request for a double digit increase for the Global Engagement Center (GEC). Murphy questioned Blinken on the Department’s plan to ensure the United States has sufficient diplomacy expertise on the ground in fragile states like Libya and why the budget maintains FY23 levels of military aid to Tunisia despite its democratic backsliding.