Marco Rubio called terrorists such as the one behind an Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 50 people an emerging threat that is dangerous and hard to combat.
“The homegrown violence extremist … is the hardest terrorist threat this country has ever confronted,” the Florida Republican senator told CNN from Orlando.
The shooter has been identified as Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on a 911 call before committing the shooting early Saturday at the gay nightclub Pulse.
Rubio said that it is difficult to identify homegrown extremists, saying that Congress will conduct oversight on the FBI’s multiple investigations into Mateen. The FBI investigated Mateen back in 2013 and 2014 for suspected ties to terrorists but didn’t find anything.
Rubio said that Mateen was able to purchase weapons and it can be difficult to identify radical extremists before they commit a shooting.
“You may not know that and they may be radicalized and it may be too late,” he said.
