Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) claimed Tuesday there were no embassy protests or deaths of American contractors under the Obama administration.
Speaking with Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom,” the lawmaker disagreed with President Trump for arguing that President Obama had an opportunity to take out Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
“The president took on former president Barack Obama in an interview, saying, ‘Knowing what we know today and knowing what had been going on, there was an opportunity before to take out Soleimani,'” host Sandra Smith said.
“Do you think there were any missed opportunities in the past that would have prevented Iran from getting to the point that it did?” she asked.
“I do not,” Khanna replied. “Because this was not just Barack Obama. The reporting I’ve seen said President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also passed on the chance to take out Soleimani. And the reason they all passed is they didn’t want to escalate a war with Iran.”
The California Democrat then went on to tout the Iran deal and seemed to claim Obama's tenure was marked by peace.
“I believe the President Obama had a strategy of the JCPOA that would prevent Iran from becoming nuclear,” Khanna continued. “There weren’t these incidents during the Obama administration. We didn’t have protests against our embassies, the killing of American contractors. Americans were safe at that time.”
While it wasn't a full fledged embassy, the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a nearby CIA annex resulted in the deaths in deaths of an American ambassador, Chris Stephens, and three others, including information officer Sean Smith, and CIA officers Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. That attack, along with violent protests against the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, took place under Obama.
Khanna's claim that there weren't killings of American contractors under Obama is also absurd. The New York TImes reported that in 2011, more contractors than soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. And contractor deaths continued in the years after, as well.