Sen. Marco Rubio bashed President Obama’s newly-announced plan to close Guantanamo Bay Tuesday, calling it a mistake and arguing that none of the prisoners at the naval base should be released from the facility.
Rubio, who was making his final stop in Nevada ahead of Tuesday evening’s caucuses, said that Obama’s plan “makes no sense,” adding further that handing over the base to the communist nation is a bad idea.
“You wake up this morning to the news that the president is planning to close Guantanamo — maybe even giving it back to the Cuban government,” Rubio said to boos from the Las Vegas crowd. “This makes no sense to me. No. 1, we’re not giving back an important naval base to an anti-American communist dictatorship.”
“No. 2, we’re not going to close Guantanamo. In fact, we shouldn’t be releasing the people that are there now. They are enemy combatants,” Rubio said. “These are literally enemy combatants. In essence, soldiers — though not soldiers — terrorists of foreign terrorist organizations, many of whom as soon as you release them, they rejoin the fight against us.”
The Florida senator then launched into a line from his stump speech, telling supporters that if a terrorist is captured in battle, they will indeed go to the U.S. naval site.
“Not only are we not going to close Guantanamo,” Rubio said. “When I’m president, if we capture a terrorist alive, they’re not getting a court hearing in Manhattan, they’re not going to be sent to Nevada. They’re going to Guantanamo, and we’re going to find out everything they know.”
Rubio’s comments came minutes after Obama told the nation that he wants to close Guantanamo once and for all, which would make good on one of his 2008 campaign promises. However, Obama’s plan to shutter the facility is meeting staunch opposition from congressional Republicans, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling it “illegal.”
The military prison, which held 800 prisoners at one point during the Bush administration, currently houses 91 detainees after the Obama administration transferred 147 detainees since he took office in 2009.
