“Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is making a play for China hawks in Florida as he braces for a competitive re-election fight next year,” Axios reports.
“Rubio allies have spent the past year quietly building a list of voters motivated by anti-China sentiment. Now his campaign is openly hitting up their inboxes.”
The Orlando Sentinel editorial board says Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) opposition to a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission is the last straw and asks readers to “consider these words.”
“We need to learn as much as we can: A, because it was a shameful day — something that should never happen again — and B, because I think our enemies of this country, terrorists and others, will look to learn from that day, potentially, one day take lessons learned from it to attack us here.”
“That’s not from the Miami Herald’s editorial. That’s what Rubio himself said less than two weeks ago.”
“Sorry to say it, but Marco Rubio is beyond hope.”
Christian Schneider: “In the course of his young political career, Marco Rubio has been a Tea Partier, a Reformicon, and a neoconservative. Now he’s auditioning for the role of MAGA FAN #7 by trying to paint Anthony Fauci as the real villain of the pandemic. His strategy seems to be: Dazzle the Trumpenproletariat so completely that they adopt him as their new king.”
“It’s adorable. The political equivalent of leaving your husband in hopes of catching the eye of pharma bro Martin Shkreli.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told ABC News that President Trump pardoning former campaign chairman Paul Manafort would be a “terrible mistake,” and that doing so could possibly “trigger a debate about whether the pardon powers should be amended.”
Said Rubio: “I think that would be a terrible… I really do. I believe it’d be a terrible mistake. Pardons should be used judiciously. They’re used for cases with extraordinary circumstances.”
“Just four years ago, Marco Rubio was gearing up to run for president with an inclusive and sunny message designed to capture the imagination of a modernizing Republican Party — and maybe even the country,” the Washington Post reports.
“Those days, and that candidate, are long gone.”
“Like many Republicans, the second-term Florida senator has sounded more and more like President Trump since the 2016 election — striking a notably darker and foreboding tone while adopting some of Trump’s slash-and-burn political tactics and controversial positions.”
Alex Jones confronted Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as he was talking to reporters and touched his shoulder… which sparked a very heated exchange.
“Well, he’s had the nuclear codes for a year and a half, and we’ve been all right.”
— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in an interview with the Weekly Standard, on his comments during the 2016 primaries that Donald Trump was so mentally unstable he couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear launch codes.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Economist that the new Republican tax law isn’t helping American workers like his party promised it would.
Said Rubio: “There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”
“My view is that the president deserves wide latitude in their nominations, but the more important the position is, the less latitude they have.”
— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), about Rex Tillerson’s nomination to be Secretary of State on January 11, 2017.
“We give great deference to the president… and the more important the job, the more discretion the president deserves.”
— Rubio, about the nomination of Jim Bridentstein to head NASA earlier today.
Politico: “The mass shootings in Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas and even Fort Lauderdale didn’t get Marco Rubio to seriously reconsider his position on guns. But Rubio shifted on firearms Wednesday night as he weathered the righteous anger of a parent and of the students who survived the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and who then faced him onstage at a CNN town hall in purple Florida’s liberal bastion of Broward County.”
“Jeered and booed by the crowd, buffeted by tough questions, Rubio stood alone as the only Republican onstage, in purple Florida’s liberal bastion of Broward County. He broke with President Trump on whether to arm teachers. Rubio said it was a bad idea. He said he would favor raising the minimum age to purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21. And he said he would consider restricting the size of magazines for firearms.”
CNN: 6 things Rubio said on guns at the town hall.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) allege that Russia is using “sophisticated technology” to influence Mexico’s upcoming presidential election, and they’re asking Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to urge Mexico and other countries to rely on help from USAID to safeguard their elections, CBS News reports.
“Violent protests of thousands recently erupted after the Honduras presidential election, a contested race that was marred by accusations of voter fraud. Tear gas had to be used to diffuse the angry streets when the winner was declared weeks after the vote took place. The senators point to those images in calling for the need to support strong electoral processes to sustain a democracy.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced that he had fired his chief of staff after allegations of improper conduct, the New York Times reports.
After an internal investigation, he determined that the employee had “violated office policies regarding proper relations between a supervisor and their subordinates. I further concluded that this led to actions which in my judgment amounted to threats to withhold employment benefits.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), “a key co-author of the 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration bill, has no plans to join a swelling bipartisan group of senators trying to strike a deal to protect Dreamers,” Politico reports.
“In fact, other senators say Rubio prefers a more conservative approach than the bipartisan group. And his reluctance to join the new gang underscores the steep challenge — and sense of pessimism — for reaching an agreement on a tight schedule that can win support from the House, Senate and President Trump.”
“One of Venezuela’s most powerful leaders may have put out an order to kill Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a fervent critic of the South American country’s government, according to intelligence obtained by the U.S. last month,” the Miami Herald reports.
“Though federal authorities couldn’t be sure at the time if the uncorroborated threat was real, they took it seriously enough that Rubio has been guarded by a security detail for several weeks in both Washington and Miami.”
USA Today: “Rubio’s office maintains a spreadsheet of hundreds of political prisoners or human rights victims from more than 30 countries… The senator himself adds to the list when he comes across news accounts of particularly moving examples. He directs his office to advocate for some of them using back-channel communications with the State Department. More prominent dissidents might be strategically featured in hearings or floor speeches, often timed to coincide with a prominent anniversary, or the president’s trip to a country with a documented pattern of human rights abuses. On occasion, he’s had the opportunity to make his case directly to Trump and other world leaders.”
David Nather: “It’s Marco Rubio. He went on a mini-tweetstorm on Wednesday night, saying he needed things like more hospital money for Florida and the ability to waive Medicaid spending limits if there’s another outbreak like the Zika virus. Yesterday, he told reporters he got some of what he needed, but he claimed he was still undecided on the bill.”
“Rubio is not going to be the vote that kills Affordable Care Act repeal. But if you’re a senator who wants maximum attention for your priorities, now’s the time to get it.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been tweeting Bible verses every day since May 16, Politico reports.
“Almost all of them come from the Old Testament, and specifically the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is notable in that is presents a fairly consistent view of the world: The righteous are rewarded, and the wicked are punished. In the understanding of Proverbs, everyone gets what is coming to them; behavior is directly linked to reward or punishment. This worldview has social consequences: Those who succeed in life must be more righteous than those who struggle.”
“Some of the statements in Proverbs look strikingly similar to those made by modern-day conservative policymakers… In short: Proverbs is probably the most Republican book of the entire Bible.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.