GOP senator pushes to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado is urging Congress to keep open Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention facility located in Cuba, despite President Obama's push earlier this year to close the prison.

"These detainees aren't in Gitmo for parking tickets," Gardner, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a video released Saturday. "They're there because they want to kill Americans and hate everything that we stand for. They're the worst of the worst."

Closing Guantanamo Bay, Gardner said, would "jeopardize our security" and "may mean the loss of an important tool that could potentially prevent future attacks."

The Colorado Republican added that transferring Guantanamo detainees either to the United States or to other countries is "simply reckless," pointing to the "threat of prisoners returning to the battlefield" while ISIS and other terror groups still exist.

Gardner pushed for congressional approval of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, which outlines the budget and expenditures of the Defense Department. The bill includes provisions that would restrict how the White House transfers detainees from the prison. The Senate is expected to vote on the NDAA next week.

The bill, Gardner promised, would "bolster our national defense."

Earlier this week, the president threatened to veto the defense authorization bill if it passed the legislative branch, in part due to its Guantanamo-related measures.

In a statement from the White House Tuesday, the administration reiterated that the "continued operation of the facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners and emboldening violent extremists." Specifically, the White House took issue with the bill's limits of detainee transfers to countries abroad.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama urged Congress to shut down the detention facility, saying it was "what is right for America." Back then, Mr. Obama said that keeping it open posed a greater national security risk to the U.S. than shutting it down.

In February, the White House provided Congress with a comprehensive plan to move approved detainees abroad and moving the rest to a facility in America. Congress has yet to vote on the plan.

In the president's own address to Americans, Mr. Obama promoted his own agenda on Puerto Rico and the U.S. territory's $70 billion debt crisis.

"Only Congress can fix the problem and put Puerto Rico on a path to recovery," the president said in a video released Saturday, addressing the island's 10-year economic downturn.

Puerto Rico, which is seeking to restructure its billions in public debt that the governor has said is unpayable, would benefit from the House-passed bipartisan bill touted by Mr. Obama as one that "won't cost federal taxpayers a dime." House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi both back the package.

The legislation "gives Puerto Rico the ability to restructure its debt, safeguard essential services and provide important protections to public pensions that more than 300,000 folks rely on to retire with dignity," the president said.

He acknowledged that the bill "is not a perfect solution" but floated it as "the only option on the table to save Puerto Rico from spiraling out of control."

"That's exactly what would happen if Congress fails to do its job," he said.

The U.S. territory faces a default on $2 billion of debt payments if Congress does not pass it ahead of the July 1 deadline.