Sen. Marco Rubio lit into Democrats supporting the Iran nuclear deal Friday after 42 of them blocked a resolution that rejected the deal on Thursday.
During an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, the 2016 hopeful called out Democrats for “walking the plank” by supporting the deal after seeing how Sen. Charles Schumer was treated by the administration after he came out against the agreement in August. Rubio also argued that Democrats who backed the agreement have “become captive to a radical element in their party.”
“They know it’s a bad deal. The Democrats know it’s a bad deal,” Rubio said. “That’s why they all couched their terms in the sense of ‘I don’t think it’s perfect, I don’t think it’s ideal.'”
“But here’s why they are doing this: They are afraid of the radical, left-wing base of their own party,” said Rubio, who sits in third in the Washington Examiner‘s power rankings. “They are afraid of being anti-peace. They’re afraid of being attacked by this president. They saw what he did to Schumer. That’s why they are walking the plank on this.”
While Rubio saved his harshest words for Democrats supporting the deal, he also directed some of his ire at GOP Senate leadership for not getting anything done — especially on the Iran deal.
“First of all, on every issue, [GOP leadership says] there’s nothing we can do because there’s a procedural bill, a procedural vote that’s blocking it, or ‘We don’t have enough votes,'” Rubio said. “What’s the point of having the majority then? We might as well have stayed in the minority and at least we can just criticize it and say there’s really nothing we can do.”
“It seems like, apparently, these guys control the world no matter what the numbers are in Congress,” Rubio added.
