Parents of Kayla Mueller slam Obama administration at RNC

The parents of American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped and tortured by ISIS until her death in 2015, have slammed the Obama administration for not doing enough to rescue their daughter, in an emotional speech at the RNC.  

Carl and Marsha Mueller on Thursday praised President Trump for taking action against their daughter’s captors, saying she would still be alive if he had been in office when she was abducted.  

‘Let me just say this: Kayla should be here. If Donald Trump had been president when Kayla was captured, she would be here today,’ Carl said. 

‘The Obama administration kept telling us that they were doing everything they could, but their version of everything wasn’t enough,’ he added. 

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Kayla, an international aid worker, was abducted in 2013 and held hostage in Syria, where she was sexually abused and tortured before she died in 2015 aged 26.    

ISIS said that Mueller was killed near Raqa in February 2015 during an air strike carried out by the US-led international coalition against the jihadists, although her body was never found. 

During her captivity, she was raped by the former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, U.S. officials said. Al-Baghdadi later killed himself during a U.S. special forces raid operation in 2019. 

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 faith in the government, but the government let us down,’ Carl added. 

‘The military prepared a rescue mission but the White House delayed it. By the time it went forward, Kayla had been moved to another location.

‘After 18 months of brutal torture, we learned from ISIS that Kayla had been killed.’ 

The Muellers also claimed Obama refused to meet with them until ISIS had already murdered other Americans, and said they are yet to hear from former vice president and now Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. 

‘The Trump team gave us empathy we never received 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 went on to thank the U.S. Army special operators who conducted a raid on Al-Bagdadi’s compound under Trump’s command last October. 

‘After we learned the Al-Bagdadi was killed, we learned something else. The operators named themselves task force 814, after August 14, Kayla’s birthday,’ Carl said. 

‘And they named the mission Operation Kayla Mueller. To those soldiers: thank you. Kayla was looking down on you.’ 

Marsha added: ‘Carl and I support Donald Trump because of his commitment to make and keep America great, not with the power of the government, but with the passion of people like Kayla. 

‘Americans who, even in the darkest days, always have more fight left inside of them. Americans who don’t just talk, they act.’

ISIS had reportedly demanded 5million euros from Kayla’s family, telling them that they would send ‘a picture 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 ransoms for hostages saying the U.S. would do everything it can ‘short of providing an incentive for future Americans to be caught.’

‘I don’t think it’s accurate … to say that the United States government hasn’t done everything we could,’ Obama told BuzzFeed News.  

‘I deployed an entire operation – at significant risk – to rescue not only her but the other individuals who had been held, and probably missed them by a day or two, precisely because we had that commitment.’