Rubio on Jeb: ‘There Appears to Be an Air of Desperation in His Attacks’

Friday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) argued that attack ads coming from his opponent former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) show “an air of desperation.”

Partial transcript as follows:

HEWITT: Now Senator Rubio, the last political question, then I want to go to substance only, has to do with Governor Bush. And you noted, and many people have remarked, that the Mike Murphy-run superPAC, which is a Jeb Bush supporting superPAC, has dumped millions against you. Are you surprised or in any way shocked that the path by Murphy PAC is to just level you?

RUBIO: Well, again, I mean, I don’t think anything surprises me anymore in politics. It obviously has a way of changing some people. And look, if someone decides we’re not going to win, so let’s just take everybody down with us, I mean, they have a right to make that decision. That’s not the campaign I’m running. There are policy differences between us. We can discuss those. And I think that’s something that the voters deserve to know about And I have continued to be willing to discuss those policy differences. But in the end, I think that what we need to remind ourselves is we’re all going to be on the same team here, and the goal is to keep Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders out of the White House. And if I’m our nominee, I will win. And the Democrats know that, and so I think they are enjoying seeing, you know, me taking on these millions of dollars in attacks. But we’re going to be fine. We’re going to get through it. I think voters have a pretty good radar for this sort of thing.

HEWITT: Do you think that is Jeb Bush, Governor Bush’s theory, we are going down, let’s take everyone with us?

RUBIO: Well, you’ll have to ask him whether that’s his theory. I can only tell you that you know, there appears to be an air of desperation in some of these attacks. And look, again, the 1st Amendment protects speech, and when you run for office, you know, this is part of it. That’s fine. We’ll work through it. And we feel very optimistic and really good about the support and the momentum that we’re gaining in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

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