Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says the U.S. government’s surveillance of allies “might be worse” than reported.
“I actually think it might be worse than what some people might think, but this is an issue that we’ll keep a close eye on,” said Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.
Rubio was discussing a Wall Street Journal article that said the U.S. continues to spy on the communications of allied nations’ leaders, capturing communications between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides during the Iran nuclear talks.
{mosads}The report also said that the surveillance swept up communications involving lawmakers.
The Republican presidential contender raised concerns about the government monitoring Israel.
“They have a right to be concerned about the fact that while some leaders around the world are no longer being targeted, one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, Israel, is,” he said.
But Rubio added that he wanted to be careful about how he discussed the issue in public.
This is “one of those complicated issues when it comes to intelligence matters,” he cautioned.
“We have to be very careful about how we discuss it, especially since there’s a press report that I don’t think gets the entire story,” Rubio said.
He added that he is “not defending the Obama administration.”
Rubio made the comments the same day his campaign began airing a television ad accusing President Obama of treating the ayatollah of Iran more respectfully than Netanyahu.
Netanyahu was a strong opponent of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated this year by the U.S. and other world powers.