ATLANTA (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is downplaying his rivalry with Jeb Bush after the third GOP debate, instead focusing his criticism on Democratic favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But Rubio’s testy exchange with his former mentor helped define Wednesday night’s two-hour event, and it could help reshape the GOP race as Rubio tries to capitalize on Bush’s ongoing struggles.
Bush, the former Florida governor who helped guide Rubio as a rising state legislator, told his one-time protege during the debate’s opening act that he should resign from the U.S. Senate to campaign, rather than continue to miss votes.
“What is it, like a French work week?” Bush said.
Rubio rebuffed him, saying, “My campaign is going to be about the future of America; it’s not going to be about attacking anyone else on this stage.”
He repeated the higher-road theme Thursday, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he has “admiration” for Bush and wants only to underscore policy differences between the two.
Bush was scheduled to campaign Thursday in New Hampshire, which his aides have identified as his top priority among early voting states. The son and brother of presidents, Bush maintains a financial advantage, mostly due to the “Right to Rise” Super PAC backing his bid. But he’s mired in single digits in most polls and recently announced pay cuts for his campaign staff. Rubio is widely seen as a likely beneficiary of Bush donors and supporters should they defect.
The senator’s aggressive night — along with multiple instances of candidates blasting CNBC’s debate moderators and the debate in general — overshadowed the two men who are leading many national polls: businessman Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
In his Thursday interviews, Rubio took veiled shots at the two outsider candidates who have never held public office. “This campaign gives everybody a chance to learn about these issues and express themselves. … We haven’t seen that sort of discussion from some of the candidates,” Rubio said. “That doesn’t mean they can’t or they won’t. I know that I have.”
But he saved his biggest barbs for Clinton.
On CBS’s “This Morning,” Rubio stuck to his claim in the debate that Clinton and other Obama administration officials lied about the nature of the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, when Clinton was secretary of state. The attack killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.
A central Republican argument is that Obama, Clinton and others did not identify the attack as a terrorist act in order to protect the president as he sought re-election.
“It was clear from the very early moments of that attack that it was not a spontaneous uprising,” Rubio said Thursday. “It was a planned attack.”
In fact, the day after the attack, President Barack Obama called it an “act of terror,” a phrase he would repeat several more times. Clinton, in her testimony last week before a House panel, said the intelligence community was receiving conflicting information in the hours after the attack and she was concerned about demonstrations in capital cities in other countries over an inflammatory video. Clinton also said the suspected Libyan militant accused in the attacks, Ahmed Abu Khattala, has cited the video as a factor.
David Axelrod, Obama chief political strategist in 2012, said Thursday on CNN that Rubio and other Republicans continue to peddle “mythology” about the attack. “There was great concern about what happened,” in Libya, Axelrod said of the Obama administration and re-election campaign. “But there was no great concern about the politics of that at the moment.”
Regardless, Clinton remains an obvious foil for Republican hopefuls trying to appeal to conservative voters.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning targeting Clinton. “I’m tested. I’m ready, I’m mature, and I’m a fighter,” he said on CNN. “I’m the kind of person you’re going to want on the stage, you’re going to need on the stage to take on Hillary Clinton next November.”
Carly Fiorina, a former technology executive, argued on CNN that Clinton’s and Obama’s economic policies hurt women. Fiorina, the only woman among the GOP contenders, said she’s best positioned to make that argument in a general election.
Several candidates also continued to accusing CNBC’s debate moderators of not focusing on issues that matter.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee explained why he called attention to the “Donald Trump tie” he was wearing when he was asked a question about Trump. Huckabee told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that the question was “silly.” So, he recalled, “I said, ‘Let’s make this even sillier.'”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), meanwhile, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that voters missed serious discussion “with all this clown stuff.” But Graham said blame also rests with the Republican National Committee, which set the debate schedule and selected host networks. “The RNC is off their game,” Graham said.
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