One GOP member of Congress called the president’s attendance at a baseball game in Cuba the same day more than 30 people died in terrorist attacks in Brussels “disgusting.”
Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., was speaking at a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on Guantanamo Bay.
“I’ve got something I’d like to get off my chest. I find the imagery of Obama yukking it up with FARC terrorists at a baseball game yesterday when Europe is under siege by terrorists disgusting. Absolutely disgusting,” he said.
During his trip to Cuba on Tuesday night, President Obama attended a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays. Earlier that day, a string of bombings in Brussels killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds more.
Obama defended his attendance at the game in an ESPN interview as a return to normalcy that terrorists try to upset, likening it to the Red Sox emotional first home game following the marathon bombing in 2013.
“[T]he whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives,” the president said in an interview with ESPN. “And, you know, one of my most powerful memories and one of my proudest moments as president was watching Boston respond after [the 2013 bombing].
“That is the kind of resilience and the kind of strength that we have to continually show in the face of these terrorists,” he added.
