Rubio ad: ‘Our enemies don’t fear us’

Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) latest 2016 presidential ad repeats his claim that President Obama is more deferential to Iran’s supreme leader than he is to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

{mosads}“Today, we face ever-growing threats: radical Islamic terror, a lunatic in North Korea, a gangster in Moscow, and a president more respectful to the ayatollah of Iran than the prime minister of Israel,” Rubio says in the 30-second spot, as first reported by The Washington Times.

“Our allies don’t trust us. Our enemies don’t fear us. And the world doesn’t know where America stands,” he continues. “On day one of my presidency, that will change.”

The claims echo remarks Rubio made in July at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa.

“We now live in a world where we treat the ayatollah in Tehran with more respect than the prime minister of the only pro-American, free enterprise democracy in the Middle East, the state of Israel,” the Florida senator said at the time.

The campaign told the Times the ad will start airing on Wednesday in New Hampshire and will also play in other early-voting states.

Rubio has positioned himself to the right of his White House rivals on foreign policy.

He has attacked fellow GOP candidates Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Ky.) for leading the charge to limit the National Security Agency’s collection of U.S. phone records, which he says has crippled intelligence-gathering capabilities.

The campaign released the ad one day after a report that the U.S. captured communications between Netanyahu and his aides during nuclear negotiations this year with Iran.