"Iran has offered a bounty to anyone who assassinates Salman Rushdie," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted on Friday. "Today, he was stabbed in America. Why is Biden still negotiating a ‘deal' with these terrorists in Tehran?"
Rushdie was supposedly stabbed multiple times by 24-year-old Hadi Matar before a speech in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday in an attack that severely injured the 75-year-old author leaving him unable to speak and likely to lose an eye.
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The attack comes more than 30 years after Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for his death in response to Rushdie’s book "The Satanic Verses," causing Rushdie to require round-the-clock security at various points in his life.
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Several others followed Rubio in slamming the Biden administration in the aftermath of the attack for working with the Iranian government on a nuclear deal.
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"Iran’s leaders have been calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie for decades," Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted. "We know they’re trying to assassinate American officials today. Biden needs to end negotiations with this terrorist regime immediately."
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"This White House statement on Salman Rushdie is appalling," author Gary Weiss said in response to the White House’s reaction to the attack. "No mention is made of Iran putting a price on his head. Or that the ayatollah reaffirmed the fatwa in 2005 and in 2019. Is Joe Biden is THAT anxious to move ahead with the lousy JCPOA?"
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"The silence of @POTUS in response to the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie looks increasingly the result of one thing: A desperation to return to the Iran deal," Foundation for Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz tweeted. "American desperation increases regime aggression. It always has."
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A White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital that President Biden has been clear he will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and that diplomacy is the best way to ensure that happens.
Iran’s government has seemingly alienated from Khomeini’s decree over the years but a semi-official Iranian religious foundation has voiced support for a bounty on Rushdie that exceeded $3 million.
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