Former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said he still supports closing the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects, arguing that it’s an “advertisement for creating terror.”
Former President Barack Obama made a campaign promise to close the prison but was not able to do so before the end of his second term.
“We attempted to close Guantanamo Bay, but you have to have congressional authority to do it. They’ve kept it open. And the fact is that we, in fact, think it’s greatest — it is an advertisement for creating terror,” Biden said during the final Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday evening.
“Look, what we have done around the world in terms of keeping Guantanamo open or what Trump has done by no longer being an honest broker in Israel, there’s no solution for Israel other than a two-state solution. It does not exist. It’s not possible to have a Jewish state in the Middle East without there being a two-state solution,” he added.
There are currently about 40 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, according to the latest figures.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said it’s time to close the prison.
“It not only costs us money, it is an international embarrassment. We have to be an America that lives our values every single day,” she said during the debate. “We can’t be an America that stands up and asks people to fight alongside us, as we did with the Kurds in fighting ISIS, and then turn around in the blink of a tweet and say that we’re turning our backs on the people who stood beside us.”
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