Sen. Marco Rubio defended President Trump after a U.S. military strike killed Iran’s Gen. Qassim Soleimani.
“The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warning they have received” tweeted the Florida Republican late Thursday night. “They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions. They badly miscalculated.”
Soleimani, the “shadow commander” and head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, helped bolster the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units that empowered Shiite insurgents against U.S. forces throughout Iraq over the past decade. Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, leader of the PMF, was also killed in Thursday’s strike.
Rubio, who faced off in a bitter primary campaign against Trump in 2016, praised the president for his ‘”restraint” in dealing with the Iranian-backed mob that encircled the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, shouting, “Death to America,” on New Year’s Eve.
“For months @POTUS has exercised tremendous restraint,” Rubio, 48, added. “These are facts & any other view is either a misinformed one or a lie.”
Late Thursday night, the Department of Defense released a statement claiming the assault was instructed by Trump.
“At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designation Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the statement said.
The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received
They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions
They badly miscalculated
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 3, 2020
