'Lit a fire and threw it on a keg of gasoline': Senator 'regrets' voting for Trump nominee

Maryland lawmaker Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said Wednesday that he regrets voting to confirm former Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state, especially now that Rubio is enthusiastically supporting Trump's proposal to take over Gaza and turn it into a resort.

Van Hollen told CNN's Phil Mattingly he was appalled that Trump pressed the Gaza issue in front of King Abdullah of Jordan on Tuesday.

"What the president has done is, he has lit a fire and thrown it on a keg of gasoline," Van Hollen said. "Because what's happening in Gaza, what's happening in the Middle East, is already a tinderbox. It's already on fire, and what he is doing is going to spread that fire. He has essentially called for what amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the forced removal of two million Palestinians to other areas."

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Mattingly asked, "There are people in kind of the Trump orbit that you are never surprised when they immediately jump to support whatever the president says. I was reading what your colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, were saying in the chamber after that proposal, and Republican allies were very surprised, were very, I think, candid, at least in that moment, saying, 'This isn't really a thing that can work.' One who wasn't, though, was the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who you served with in the U.S. Senate, who was on the committee with you. Are you surprised how quickly he got behind the proposal?"

"Look, I am," Van Hollen answered. "My one vote I cast for a member of the Trump cabinet was for now Secretary Rubio. I regret to say that I regret that vote, because, once installed in office, he is essentially abandoning the positions that he took here as a United States senator."

Van Hollen continued, "So, yes, I've been extremely disappointed in the actions of Secretary Rubio, including jumping on board on this insane wrong idea, which effectively is calling for ethnic cleansing in Gaza because the president said he would be willing to use the military to do it."

Watch the clip below via CNN or click the link.