Rubio Criticizes Trump for Puerto Rico Tweets — Not Spending Time ‘Trying to Get the Response Right’

During an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said President Donald Trump’s tweets about his administration’s response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria were wasting time and energy instead of “trying to get the response right.”

Partial transcript follows:

JOHN DICKERSON: Speaking of the government, the president has been quite critical of the mayor of San Juan. What do you make of that?

MARCO RUBIO: I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it to be honest with you because right now, having lived through four hurricanes, nothing like what Puerto Rico’s facing, you know, our desire is to be a voice and a force for positive results, helping people. I truly believe that if we don’t get ahead of the curve there bad things are going to happen. Some have already happened, unfortunately. Because storms are terrible things. Especially in an area like Puerto Rico where people have been without electricity-

DICKERSON: But–

RUBIO: -now for over a week. A food issue, et cetera. But I do think every minute we spend in the political realm bickering with one another over who’s doing what, or who’s wrong, or who didn’t do right is a minute of energy and time that we’re not spending trying to get the response right. And so I think when this is all said and done we’re going to have time to stop, and look back, and say, “Should things have been done differently?”

I think everyone involved in the response has things they could have done better. But right now I hope we’ll stay 100 percent focused on what needs to be done to get the people of Puerto Rico help. And then we’ll have plenty of time in the future to have these debates about who didn’t do the right thing or what could have been done better.

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN