“[The suspect] was born in the United States, he was raised in this country. He lived among us, he worked jobs here, this is a person who benefitted from all the freedoms and the prosperity of this great country and despite all that was radicalized and took the life of 50 of his fellow Americans,” Rubio said.

“We have to work with the Islamic community across the world to reject this ideology as illegitimate,” he added.

Speaking on BBC Radio’s Today programme, Rubio also said the attack, which killed at least 50 people, was “a horrible tragedy,” but restricting access to firearms “wouldn’t have prevented this attack.”

“You saw in Europe and the Paris attacks where these guns are illegal and they still were able to get them. [The attacker] could have bought them from the black market.”