VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT: Senator Scott at CPAC: President Obama’s Attempts to Close Gitmo “Is Simply the Icing on a Disastrous Cake”

View Senator Scott’s speech here. 


Transcript of Senator Scott’s CPAC 2016 Speech

CPAC! It is good to be back at CPAC.             

I hear there are some South Carolinians out there let me hear you scream! Oh yeah! Well we have a lot that we love in South Carolina. We love our shrimp ‘n grits, can I get an amen?

We also have an amazing delegation from Congressman Jeff Duncan all the way to my great friend, the amazing [Congressman] Trey Gowdy.  Now, we would all agree that sometimes Trey needs a little fashion advice. He’s got that crazy hair. Now, please notice, when you’re bald you have to talk about somebody else’s hair without any question.  He’s got that crazy hair and sometimes he wears white socks with dark suits. I just don’t understand everything about Trey Gowdy.  But the one thing I do understand about Trey Gowdy is he has served this nation so incredibly well as the Chairman of the Benghazi Committee. He has done a fabulous job with the Benghazi Committee.

I believe that his service on the Benghazi Committee, and what we’ve seen come to light because of that committee, further illustrates that the President’s foreign policy has been an absolute failure, and his willingness to close Guantanamo Bay and send the world’s worst enemy combatants to a location near some of us is simply the icing on a disastrous cake - baking into American history a terrible eight-year run on foreign policy.

But before I talk about Guantanamo Bay, let’s take a look at his international interactions and I’m sure you will agree with me, that we simply cannot afford four more years of an Obama style foreign policy led by Hilary Clinton. We cannot afford that. It used to be that an American president would travel to other nations and demand that walls come down and freedom would be expanded. Reagan traveled to Berlin and called for the iron curtain to be torn down, and the Soviet Union, they listened.

Do we really think that when President Obama visits Havana that political prisoners will be released? No. 

Do we think that by giving $100 billion dollars to Iran that they’re gonna stop working on a nuclear weapon? No. Some of y’all might say yes, but I say no.

Do you really think that secret backroom conversations with North Korea, Kim Jong Un, will stop their nefarious behavior? I don’t. 

Do we really think this hands off, JV approach towards ISIS makes the world a safer and more secure place? No.

Only in President Obama’s view of foreign policy do you negotiate with regimes like Iran and Cuba and North Korea and at the same time publically chastise our closest allies like Israel. Only in his view is that working.

We know better – we know better without any question.

And the results of this international experiment? Well Iran – $100 billion dollars richer. $100 billion dollars richer. And we know they’re not building orphanages or schools.  In the year five of this agreement - that needs to be torn up on the first day we have a Republican in the White House. First day, tear it up, start all over - Because under the current deal, just five years from now, the arms embargo is lifted.  Eight years from now they have the ability to get ballistic weapons. They also get to start working on advanced centrifuges.  And ten years it’s a breakaway, a runaway path, to a nuclear weapon.  We need a president who stands firm and stands strong and puts America first.

And the results of his calling ISIS the JV team? They’re now in more than a dozen countries. More than a dozen countries from Africa to Asia, and North Korea says they just tested a hydrogen weapon.  I think you would agree with me that when the President said to Putin, “Just wait until after the election. I’ll have a little more flexibility,” what’s happened in that region? Russia has set Ukraine on fire. On fire!  They trusted us to give up their nuclear weapons, and the result of that, because of this disastrous foreign policy approach, is that the world is not safer. Not safer at all.

We should have just simply used one of our amazing weapons in our arsenal – our energy.  We could have destabilized Russia’s economy, which depends 70 percent on energy, we could have destabilized their economy by simply exporting our energy. We have the resources to make their economy shudder. We should use it as our key weapon in this battle against this regime.

And now onto the icing on that disastrous cake –

While refusing to develop a policy for interrogating and detaining terrorists captured on the battlefield, President Obama has decided that he wants to move these world’s worst terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the United States of America.

I can hear you booing but I can’t hear it loud enough, though. It’s not often that you want to be booed on stage, but this is one of those times we should all say “boo” because I will tell you that there are 6 undisclosed locations where they’re looking – 6 undisclosed locations where they’re looking.

We know they’re looking at 3 or 4 sites in Colorado including Florence, Colorado. Anyone here from Colorado? That’s wrong, right? Very wrong. I wish you would’ve brought some more friends, though. I appreciate your once voice there, young man, but everybody’s got to take a stand for some reason, right? All right. Give the young whippersnapper a hand, there. I’ll tell you what, he’s also looking at Kansas – there you go – and my home state of South Carolina.

And in Hanahan, South Carolina, where he’s looking, there’s a medium security prison. It would take a couple hundred million dollars to upgrade it. It is just a few miles from more than a dozen schools, half a dozen churches. It’s a bedroom community outside of Charleston. And our president thinks that this is a good location. Why wouldn’t we just leave them at Guantanamo Bay? 

Leave them in Guantanamo Bay! Perfect location if there ever was one.

We have designed the best location on Earth, 500 miles from Havana. It is an isolated location surrounded by deserts, mountains and an ocean. We have the world’s greatest military force in the history of mankind, the marines, making sure that those enemy combatants never leave that isolated location. Our marines are doing a fantastic job. We ought to give them a hand without any question. Our marines have endured 250 assaults and not a single act of retaliation. Not a single act.

That’s why, when I visited in October, I was amazed at how well those enemy combatants are being treated. I was amazed at how well our marines are doing. And I’m amazed that the President of the United States would even dare think and break the law of our country and send those enemy combatants to any location in this country. That’s why Senators Roberts, Garner and myself stand strong and we will use every weapon in our arsenal [to stop him].

God bless you, God has bless the United States of America. Thank you. 

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