Marco Rubio, a well-known Latino politician from the great state of Florida, was once considered by many to be the future of the Republican party. He currently resides as one of Florida’s U.S. Senators and was one of many who vied for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2016, consequently losing to Donald Trump.
Since President Trump was elected in 2016, Marco Rubio has been, at best, a lukewarm supporter of the nation’s forty-fifth commander in chief. He has jumped on and off the proverbial “Trump Train” many times since that memorable night of November 8th, 2016. Regardless of if you like the President’s rhetoric, statistics show that he is doing great things for the country, and lukewarm Senators do not help further that cause, .
For one of the first and foremost examples of lackluster support for the President, one doesn’t need to look further back than last Thursday, March 14th. For this is the day that 12 Republican U.S. Senators, AKA “The Dirty Dozen”, (dubbed this by commentator Mark Levin) betrayed the United States of America by putting personal interests ahead of National Security. One Senator Marco Rubio was, unfortunately, on that list.
On March 14th a resolution was put to a vote by the Democrats in Congress to try to overturn the President’s declared National Emergency at the southern border. President Trump subsequently vetoed that bill and upheld his National Emergency declaration, but the yes votes by GOP Senators were a slap in the face to his administration; a betrayal, if you will.
The declaration, a statement made to highlight the urgency of the growing problem that is illegal immigration, is also being used as a constitutionally legal tool to secure additional funds for the southern border wall. Some good references for constitutional legality can be found here, here, and here. These are funds that Congress had already appropriated for related issues but refused to designate for border security, not because border security isn’t necessary, but because they hate President Trump.
SEE BELOW TWEETS AS REPUBLICAN “DEFECTORS” DRAW PRAISE FROM THE LEFT:
Another fun fact about Marco Rubio is that, as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2010, he pledged to not support amnesty and focused strongly on national security/border security, and these issues were clearly key to winning his Senate seat.
The conservative Shark Tank blogger, Javier Manjarres, asked Rubio here in 2009: “Are you pro-amnesty for illegal immigration?”
No, no. Never have been. In fact, I’m strongly against amnesty for a number of different reasons. The first is, I always use the example of the speed limit. If you say the speed limit is 70, but you don’t ticket people until they reach 80, well then the speed limit is really 80, it’s not 70. Amnesty is the same thing. The most important thing we need to do is enforce our existing laws. We have existing immigration laws that are not being adequately enforced. Nothing will make it harder to enforce your existing laws if you reward people who broke them.”
Rubio also said:
“I will never support – never have and never will support – any effort to grant blanket, legalization, amnesty to folks who have entered or stayed in this country illegally.”
So with strong statements like the one above, one might be surprised to hear about a bill that Marco supported called The Gang-Of-Eight bill, which essentially was an immigration reform bill which involved both parties and offered amnesty. He later tried to backtrack and say that he was never really for the bill but that it “wouldn’t have passed anyway”, as if that’s a reason to ever support a weak immigration bill in the first place.
SEE TWEET BELOW FROM 2013 WHERE SARAH PALIN CALLS RUBIO OUT FOR FLIP-FLOPPING:
So far you have a Republican politician, U.S. Senator and former Presidential candidate who has turned on the President, flip-flopped multiple times, and shown himself on more than one occasion to be very weak on National security. Without good National security, nothing else will really matter because eventually, our values and culture will be destroyed. Good border security highlights a bedrock conservative position that can’t be treated as an “a la carte” option to be a strong leader in the party.
If this information doesn’t have the GOP concerned just yet, his flip flop on gun rights and gun control stances might be an eye-opener. Even though Marco Rubio has always run his campaigns on being a strong supporter of the second amendment, and is actually in the top 10 list of recipients of money from the NRA, he has shown that he has the tendency to be weak on our rights. He thinks that gun legislation shouldn’t be based on our constitution but on particular events like the tragic Parkland school shooting. In the video below you can see him speak about new gun control ideas based on knee jerk reactions.
SEE VIDEO BELOW
In 2018, Marco Rubio announced new control ideas and held a town hall meeting with students. He discussed an idea where law enforcement could confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens, simply because a friend or neighbor thought they shouldn’t own them for one reason or another. The more research you do the more it seems as though you may never get a true consistent stance on the issue from him, which only serves to make both the Democrats and the Republicans uneasy. It seems like his changes and unpassed bill proposals highlight why it depends on who he’s talking to as to what he believes. More gun control proposals can be seen here.
SEE TWEET BELOW:
Shifting focus once again, global trade policies are another issue that the Senator has seemed to err on the side of weakness. He has been a strong critic of President Trump’s strong trade policies and negotiations since the Presidential election. A major one to mention is the ongoing negotiations with China and the tariffs that have ensued. Senator Rubio has come out strongly against the President’s tactics and style.
But President Trump has had much success with his strong worldwide negotiations. Even in this very recent article from a newspaper that isn’t exactly known for being “pro Trump”, (President Trump refers to them as the “failing New York Times”) there is news of great progress with China showing them caving to our pressure and wanting to make more fair deals for the United States. These negotiations bring more wealth back to our country, which helps with things like the national debt, as well as more good paying jobs for our citizens. Why would Rubio be against such successes? Is he beholden to special interests that he is willing to put before the needs of the voters who put him in office?
Perhaps it’s time for a change in the air. Perhaps the GOP and independent voters in Florida will recognize that, although no politician is perfect, they deserve one who keeps his promises, supports the President of his own party, and maintains consistent views that people can count on. Will we see a challenger emerge to put the Senator out of work? Only time will tell.