Susan Rice Bebeto Matthews/AP
Paul Ryan won't call for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to resign
Vice presidential candidate says not enough facts are known about Rice's information on Libya.
NEW YORK CITY -- Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan refused to join conservative critics calling on Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to resign after saying on Sunday shows two weeks ago that the Sept. 11 attacks on Americans in Libya were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video. The administration has since called the incidents, which killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, a terrorist attack.
In an appearance on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's show on Monday morning, Ryan said he wouldn’t “get into” whether Rice should resign, prompting an outburst from Ingraham suggesting that the Romney-Ryan campaign was ducking the issue.
"It’s a simple question. She goes out on five Sunday shows and she says it’s a spontaneous act when pretty much everyone and their dog knew it was a terrorist attack, seems to be a political objective for doing so, yet we can’t get a definitive answer. That, I think, is the kind of thing that kind of frustrates people out there," Ingraham said.
That prompted Ryan to draw a comparison between Rice and Attorney General Eric Holder, whom GOP nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan have said should resign over the Justice Department's handling of the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. The difference, Ryan said, was that there had been an investigation into Fast and Furious and none yet on Libya.
"Look at what we know about Fast and Furious, look at what we now know, after thorough investigations, about the Justice Department with respect to their handling of Fast and Furious. That’s why we’re saying Eric Holder should resign. We don’t know all the facts about what that woman knew at the time she made those statements," he said of Rice.
"We do know that the administration has been extremely inconsistent, we do know that this is -- was a preplanned terrorist attack, and the point I'm trying to make is we need to get all the facts to prevent that from happening again,” Ryan added. “But also we need to acknowledge that this is indicative of a broader picture, which is the absolute unraveling of the Obama administration's foreign policy."