The parents of American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was abducted and tortured by ISIS until her death in 2015, have slammed the Obama administration for not doing enough to save her daughter, in an emotional speech at the RNC.
Carl and Marsha Mueller on Thursday praised President Trump for taking action against her daughter’s recipients, saying they would still be alive if he had been in office when she was abducted.
‘Let me just say this: Kayla must be here. “If Donald Trump had been president when Kayla was taken prisoner, she would be here today,” Carl said.
“The Obama administration kept telling us they were doing everything they could, but their version of everything was not enough,” he added.
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Carl and Marsha Mueller on Thursday praised President Trump for taking action against her daughter’s recipients, saying they would still be alive if he had been in office when she was abducted.
Kayla Mueller, a U.S. aid worker, was abducted and tortured in Syria between 2013 and 2015. During her imprisonment, she was raped by former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, U.S. officials said.
Kayla, an international aid worker, was abducted and taken hostage in Syria in 2013, where she was sexually abused and tortured before dying in 2015 at the age of 26.
ISIS said Mueller was killed near Raqa in February 2015 during an airstrike carried out by the US-led international coalition against the jihadists, although their body was never found.
During her imprisonment, she was raped by former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, U.S. officials said. Al-Baghdadi later assassinated himself in a 2019 U.S. special forces raid.
The grieving parents accused the Obama administration of not being decisive enough when it came to saving Kayla’s life, claiming it missed an opportunity to bring her home when it delayed a rescue mission in 2015.
“We put all our trust in the government, but the government let us down,” Carl added.
‘The Army prepared a rescue mission, but the White House delayed it. By the time it progressed, Kayla had moved to another location.
“After 18 months of brutal torture, we learned from ISIS that Kayla had been killed.”
The grieving parents accused the Obama administration of not being decisive enough when it came to saving Kayla’s life when she was taken hostage by ISIS members in Syria.
Al-Baghdadi killed himself during a U.S.-led operation by special forces, led by Trump in 2019
The Muellers also claimed that Obama refused to meet with them until ISIS had already killed other Americans, saying they still need to hear from former Vice President and now Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.
“The Trump team gave us empathy that we never got from the Obama administration,” Carl said.
“The Obama administration said it was doing everything it could. The Trump administration is. What a difference a president makes. ‘
The Muellers thanked the US Army Special Operators who raided the al-Baghdadi compound under Trump’s command last October.
“After learning that al-Baghdadi was assassinated, we learned something else. The operators called themselves task force 814, after August 14, Kayla’s birthday, ‘said Carl.
‘And they called the mission Operation Kayla Mueller. To those soldiers: thank you. Kayla looked down at you. ‘
Marsha added: ‘Carl and I support Donald Trump because of his commitment to make and keep America great, not with the power of government, but with the passion of people like Kayla.
‘Americans who, even in the darkest days, always have more struggle left in them. Americans who do not just talk, they do. ‘
ISIS had reportedly demanded 5 million euros from Kayla’s family, telling them they would send ‘a photo of Kayla’s dead body’ if their demands were not met.
In an interview after Kayla’s death, President Obama defended the government’s policy of refusing to pay ransom for hostages, saying the US would do everything they could ‘briefly as an incentive for future Americans to capture. ‘
“I think it’s not fair … to say that the United States government has not done everything we could,” Obama told BuzzFeed News.
‘I put in a whole operation – with a significant risk – to save not only them, but the other people who were detained, and they probably missed a day or two, just because we had that commitment.
Carl Mueller (R) and Marsha Mueller (C) hold up a picture of their daughter Kayla, killed by ISIS while she was an aid worker in Syria, while attending the address of the State of the Union at the American Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2020
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