Rubio: ‘I Most Certainly’ Support Congress Requiring Trump to Implement Sanctions on Russia

Thursday on CNN’s “Wolf,” when asked about President Donald Trump’s administration missing the deadline to implement sanctions on Russia passed by Congress, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he would “be supportive” of Congress requiring Trump to follow the law.

Rubio said, “The job of the executive branch is to execute, to carry out the law. Congress passed the law. He had a choice to veto or sign it. He signed it, and now it’s the job to implement it. Now their argument is they haven’t been able to identify the companies and the firms that need to be sanctioned yet. My response would be, sanction the ones that you know and add new ones later as you gather more information. I think they need to execute the law and do it, and they are already late in doing it. I don’t believe that it is legitimate to argue, I’m not going to execute it because I don’t like it.”

He added, “I think laws need to be followed, and if the law was passed by Congress and signed by the president, the president has an obligation to execute the law. If there is some reason why he can’t that we are not aware of and they want to share, I will be open-minded about that part, but ultimately the law should be executed and if they don’t —and that is speculation, I’m not going to say they are not going to eventually do it — but if they don’t and there is something Congress can do about it, then I would most certainly be supportive of it because I voted for it and I support sanctions.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN