Elections

Rubio Says Obama Has ‘Put A Price On The Head Of Every American Abroad’ [VIDEO]

Steve Guest Media Reporter
Font Size:

Sen. [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] slammed Barack Obama for negotiating with Iran over the Americans held in captivity saying Obama has “put a price on the head of every American abroad.”

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Rubio said, “Our enemies now know if you can capture an American, you can get something meaningful in exchange for it.” (RELATED: Cruz Rips Obama For Negotiating With Terrorists, Compares Latest Prisoner Swap To Bergdahl Deal [VIDEO])

“Do you think these Americans would be coming home if it wasn’t for the Iran nuclear deal?” Chuck Todd asked.

“I don’t think these Americans should have ever been in prison. They didn’t do anything wrong,” Rubio argued. “They are hostages. And so now we have a president that has traded hostages in exchange for prisoners who did commit a crime and were convicted after due process and a trial and everything of that sort.”

“And what the president is now doing, not just with this but what he did with the Castro brothers and what he did with Bergdahl is he’s put a price on the head of every American abroad. Our enemies now know that if you can capture an American, you can get something meaningful in exchange for it. I’m glad they’re coming home and by the way, the case of Bob Levinson remains unresolved. The Iranians, I believe know where he is and they’re not cooperating and it’s an outrage. We need to continue to remember about him. But that said it doesn’t — at the end of the day when I am president, I will repeal the deal with Iran. It will end when I am president. We’ll reimpose sanctions and if Iran tries to build a nuclear weapon program, we will stop,” Rubio insisted. (RELATED: Who Are The Seven Iranians Released In Exchange For The U.S. Prisoners?)

“So under President Rubio, you would not have negotiated any sort of prisoner exchange for those four American hostages,” Todd asked.

“When I become president of the United States, our adversaries around the world will know that America is no longer under the command of someone weak like Barack Obama and it will be like Ronald Reagan where as soon as he took office the hostages were released from Iran. We would impose additional sanctions, not just congressional sanctions now, there would be even more additional sanctions on Iran.” (RELATED: Five Americans Released From Iran)

“You wouldn’t have given Iran anything,” Todd pressed.

“We would have gotten them home… We would have given them sanctions, crippling sanctions. In fact there never would have been a discussion on these deals until they were released,” Rubio claimed. “Iran needs more from us than we need from them. We need to remind ourselves of that and at the end of the day, these are people that view these sorts of things as weakness. That’s why this week they captured our sailors, they tried to humiliate them on video, putting their hands behind their back and putting them on their knees and videotaping them apologizing. That doesn’t happen when I’m president because they will know we have a strong president, unlike the weak one that we have now.” (RELATED: Kerry Thanks Iran Following Humiliation Of US Sailors)

Follow Steve on Twitter and Facebook