Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) responded to new revelations about the Benghazi terrorist attack Wednesday night on Hannity, saying it revealed a "blind spot" by the Obama administration with regards to Middle Eastern terrorism.
Rubio added there was clear evidence Hillary Clinton's State Department had ignored a "steady stream of reporting" that the U.S. consulate there was in grave danger and not enough security was in place.
"The buck stops with Hillary Clinton," Rubio said. "Here is the other thing that I would say with regards to it. There was no plan in place. There was not enough military assets ready to deploy if they needed to rescue people if they got into trouble. So you have this dangerous place, they knew it was dangerous, they didn't provide security, and didn't have a plan to extract people, and people need to be held accountable for that failure."
A newly declassified report from the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed the deadly assault was entirely preventable, blaming the State Department for either ignoring or not heeding cables asking for more security personnel around the embassy.
Full exchange:
SEAN HANNITY: I can't conclude anything else. Everybody on down, they knew the truth, they knew it from the get-go and they purposely lied. Do you make any other conclusion that?
MARCO RUBIO: No. Here's what I would conclude. Three things I'd add. You've just illustrated one of them. That is there is this narrative from the Obama administration that the war against al-Qaeda is over, al-Qaeda is in retreat and incapable of carrying out an attack like this, when not only do they do this in Libya but we see al-Qaeda reforming elements in north Africa. Wee see it in Syria, now in Iraq. It shows a blind spot that this administration has and in this case, perhaps withholding information from the American public when they knew better.
But here's the other two points that aren't getting nearly enough attention. Number one, there was a steady stream of reporting that this facility in Benghazi was in grave danger, that this was a very dangerous place. There had been attacks against the facility before. The U.K. had already pulled out. The Red Cross had pulled out, and they didn't have enough security. Maybe they shouldn't have even been there at this stage in this process. Who's responsible for that? The buck stops with Hillary Clinton. Here is the other thing that I would say with regards to it. There was no plan in place. There was not enough military assets ready to deploy if they needed to rescue people if they got into trouble. So you have this dangerous place, they knew it was dangerous, they didn't provide security, and didn't have a plan to extract people, and people need to be held accountable for that failure.