When asked last night on Fox News if he'd follow Donald Trump's suggestion of possibly shutting down American mosques in the fight against ISIS, Rubio decided to do him one better by claiming he'd go as far as shutting down radical Muslim cafés and diners, too. Do those things even exist? Marco Rubio isn't even sure, but he'd sure as shucks shut them down if they did.
Rubio was appearing on "The Kelly Files," and host Megyn Kelly asked him about Trump's mosque stance.
"There's been a lot of talk about what we should be doing here in the United States with regards to mosques now," asked Kelly. "And one of your fellow candidate Donald Trump is suggesting that we may need to close mosques that have problems with radicals at the top. What do you say?"
Indeed, earlier this week Trump, appearing on Fox News, said he'd have "absolutely no choice" but to close down mosques where "some bad things are happening."
Rubio replied to Kelly's question by saying America ought to target radicalism and noted that a lot of it was happening online, but went on to suggest any place being used by potentially radicalized Muslims should be shut down.
“It’s not about closing down mosques. It’s about closing down anyplace — whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an internet site — anyplace where radicals are being inspired," he said. "The bigger problem we have is our inability to find out where these places are, because we’ve crippled our intelligence programs, both through unauthorized disclosures by a traitor, in Edward Snowden, or by some of the things this president has put in place with the support even of some from my own party to diminish our intelligence capabilities.
“So whatever facility is being used — it’s not just a mosque — any facility that’s being used to radicalize and inspire attacks against the United States, should be a place that we look at.”
Are there radical Muslim diners in America? Rubio doesn't know, but says he has no one way to know ... because of Obama, for some reason.
Never mind that the federal government, law enforcement and the intelligence community has been effective in tracking down and arresting lone wolf ISIS sympathizers in America. Take the example of Harlem Suarez, the Key West man who allegedly tried to pursue a plan to place bombs in the sands of the Keys and South Beach.
So we can track down lone-wolf weirdos, but not entire cafes and diners, that may or may not exist in presumably large American cities, where people might be planning attacks over breakfast specials and undoubtedly non-Christmas themed cups of coffee?
Sure.
Some have interpreted Rubio's comments as a call to close down any place where any amount of Muslims gather.