WATCH: Marco Rubio Elicits Laughs With Hilarious One-Liner During Confirmation Hearing

Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee, arrived in front of many of his former U.S. Senate colleagues on Capitol Hill Wednesday, ready to make his case for why he is best prepared to represent America on the world stage. But before he gets on his first flight, Rubio will need to pass through a panoply of protestors, one of whom was mocked by Rubio after being dragged out of the hearing room.

The mild-mannered former Florida senator was in the middle of delivering his opening remarks when he was interrupted by a Spanish-shouting female protestor. “Radical jihadists openly march in the streets and sadly drive vehicles into our people,” he began, referencing the deadly New Orleans attack by an ISIS-inspired military veteran on New Year’s Day. America, he said, has for too long “prioritized the global national order over our own national interests,” a line that didn’t sit well with a restless woman in the back. “Attención!” she cried, claiming “children were being killed in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.” Rubio paused while security at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dragged the protestor from the room, but he couldn’t resist breaking out a little smile.

“I get bilingual protestors, which I think is cool,” joked Rubio, who is Cuban-American. “That’s a first for us,” laughed Chair Jim Risch (R-ID), “at least in recent times.” But before the proceedings could get back underway, another female protestor passed by the camera and yelled about “human rights” as she was strong-armed out of the room by a guard. “Sanctions against countries that…” she tried to blurt out, but her demand was lost in the wind. Both interruptions followed others by Code Pink, a semi-professional band of female agitators who draw increased attention during such Senate hearings, most notably those of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Some were present in the audience on Wednesday and were seen with the palms of their hands dyed blood-red, wearing keffiyehs and shirts that read “hands off Iran” and “stop killing the children of Gaza.”

The elevation of Rubio, a defense hawk, to the secretary of state role, is a curious one for President-elect Trump, widely seen as being domestic-focused and less interested in continuing expensive wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. In contrast, Rubio, as a senator, consistently urged his colleagues to take a hardline approach against U.S. antagonizers like China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia, and he parlayed his experience on the Committee on Foreign Relations into his failed presidential run in 2016. Elsewhere in his remarks, Rubio reiterated his desire to see America enforce stringent new sanctions on China for human rights violations, calling the communist-run country “the most powerful adversary the U.S. has faced in living memory.” If confirmed, he is expected to push Trump to take a firmer approach toward renegotiating with Iran around its nuclear program as well as his dealings with Nicolás Maduro, the dictator leading Venezuela, an oil-rich nation that supplies the U.S. with several hundreds of millions of barrels of oil per year.

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