Rubio: Obama’s ‘Weakened Our Ability to Gather Intelligence Against Potential Adversaries’

TAPPER: "President Obama will address the nation this evening to talk about the fight against ISIS and the ongoing investigation into the San Bernardino, California, terrorist attacks. When it comes to protecting the homeland, what steps should be — should the government be taking that we are not taking right now, that the government is not taking right now?"
RUBIO: "Well, there’s a number of things I hope the president will outline tonight. And I think they will all be part of a strategy towards defeating ISIS and all the broader risks we face to our national security, so not just ISIS. But, for example, our security gathering — our intelligence-gathering capabilities have been significantly diminished just in the last four or five days. For example, yesterday, we learned through the Associated Press that the records, the phone records of these two individuals that carried out this attack in California, we only have access to the last two years. So, it doesn’t give us a complete picture of, for example, the U.S. citizens’ involvement for the last five years. So, I hope the president will work with us to reverse that, so the intelligence agencies have access to a full picture. He’s also issued a series of presidential directives that have weakened our ability to gather intelligence against potential adversaries. And so I hope that that will be changed as well. And then, when it comes to ISIS and around the world, they’re a growing threat in multiple countries. They’re now beginning to pop up in Yemen. They’re growing their influence in Afghanistan. They now have a very significant influence in Libya, as I have pointed out for months, and, of course, Iraq and Syria. And so, by the way, I think Jordan is very concerned about attacks within Jordan that are — could potentially be imminent at any moment. We have got a growing crisis here on our hands in the Middle East with ISIS. So, I think it’s important that the president begin to outline how they are going to be defeated. And airstrikes alone aren’t going to do it, certainly not the limited airstrikes that are happening now. But apart from airstrikes, there must be a ground force put together to confront them. And it must be a ground force made up primarily of Sunni Arabs from the region, including Iraqis and Syrians, but also a contribution of troops from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. The UAE has already expressed some willingness to provide ground troops to such an effort. This is a radical Sunni group. They need to be defeated by Sunnis themselves on the ground."