On Fox News Channel’s wrap-up of President Barack Obama’s Sunday night address to the nation, GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio offered his thoughts on the speech.
According to Rubio, Obama’s speech rang hollow in reassuring Americans about their safety and in some ways he argued it has made things “worse.”
“Let’s begin by understanding the mood of the country. People are really scared and worried. Last night, I ran into a couple that often travels abroad or to other parts of the country for New Year’s Eve. For the first time in a decade, they’re not traveling anywhere because they’re so scared. I ran into someone else who said they’re avoiding stadiums and malls this holiday season because they’re scared. And people are scared because of the growing sense we have a president that’s completely overwhelmed by them. This is the president that called them the JV when they first emerged, ISIS did. Just on the eve of the Paris attacks, said they were being contained. Called the attack in Paris just a setback as opposed to a widespread terrorist attack that showed real progress on behalf of ISIS. After Paris, by the way, the only emotion the president ever showed on his overseas trips is when he was attacking the GOP on the debates we were having here about what to do with the Syrian refugee program. And nothing that happened in the speech tonight is going to assuage people’s fears. First of all, we heard tonight the strategy that’s brought us to this point is the strategy he’s going to continue with.”
“I mean, he honestly believes there’s a coalition fighting against ISIS,” he continued. “This is absurd. There’s no such coalition. A lot of country have put their names onto a piece of paper, but we continue to conduct very limited air assaults. And you can’t just defeat them from an air perspective … Beyond that tonight, he announced nothing new other than we need gun control, even though it would have done nothing to prevent the attack in California. We need to prevent people on the no-fly list from buying these weapons, even though there are people that work for DHS that are on the no-fly list. And by the way, these individuals that conducted this attack would not have been prevented from accessing their weapons. And then the cynicism — the cynicism tonight to spend a significant amount of time talking about discrimination against Muslims. Where is there widespread evidence that we have a problem in America with discrimination against Muslims? And the refusal to call this what it is — a war on radical Islam. Very disappointed tonight. I think not only did the president not make things better tonight, I fear he may have made things worse in the minds of many Americans.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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