Rubio Defends NSA Spying on Netanyahu In Private, Condemns It In Public

BOONE, IOWA – Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) privately defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he publicly condemned the practice.

Rubio and his ally Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) discussed the matter privately in a room away from reporters early Wednesday morning at the Royal Amsterdam Hotel in Pella, Iowa. The two men talked before they set out on a three-stop Iowa campaign tour to showcase Gowdy’s endorsement of Rubio.

This reporter heard the conversation while picking up a laptop computer and other materials left in a back room, away from where reporters were eating breakfast. Rubio, Gowdy, a couple of campaign staffers, and a Secret Service agent were the only ones present in the back room.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the NSA monitored Netanyahu’s conversations, including conversations with U.S. legislators

“We spy on everyone,” Rubio told Gowdy, defending the practice of spying on a U.S. ally. “That’s the nature of intelligence.”

“It’s more complicated than the [WSJ] story makes it seem,” Rubio added.

Gowdy responded that people are upset because the U.S. decided to stop spying on leaders of Germany and some other nations, but still spies on Israel.

But Rubio sang a different tune around the same time Wednesday morning on the Fox News program “Fox and Friends.”

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