On “Fox News Sunday” when asked about his supporters former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Cresent Hardy being stumped when asked to list any of his accomplishments, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) chalked it up to them signing up at the last second.
Partial transcript as follows:
WALLACE: Let’s talk about your record. This week, a Nevada congressman, Crescent Hardy, endorsed you. But like Rick Santorum, the former senator before him, he had some trouble listing any accomplishment of you during your time in the Senate. Here he is.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Is there one thing you could name over the last year that you’ve seen firsthand on The Hill that he has done that demonstrates presidential character, to be able to get things done?
CRESCENT HARDY, NEVADA CONGRESSMAN: On the Hill, I have not seen that. He’s been running for a presidential race most of this year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Senator, why can’t officials who support you, who come out to endorse you, name a specific accomplishment of your time in the Senate?
RUBIO: Well, in fairness to these folks, right, they’re signing up at the last second. They’re inspired by our message. They want to be a part of our team. We haven’t provided them, you know, all this information. I’m more than happy to tell you about my record. I’m very proud of it.
WALLACE: Incidentally, maybe you ought to start doing that, huh?
RUBIO: For example, we passed sanctions — yes, well, we are, and we do, but we, obviously, you can’t make people read something. And these are last minute things. It’s not fair to them.
Here’s the bottom line, I’m more than happy to talk about our record. And I mean it’s — it’s — number one, I’ve worked in the Senate where for four out of the last five years nothing happened because of Harry Reid. And yet, despite that, I actually worked with Bernie Sanders, who I don’t agree on anything, but we were able to work together to bring V.A. accountability. You can now fire senior executives at the V.A. because of my work.
There are now additional sanctions on Hezbollah because I got the Senate to pass that unanimously, but the way. We passed the Girls Count Act, which goes after human trafficking by — by leveraging foreign aid from the United States government to ensure that all kids around the world are getting birth certificates so they don’t fall prey to modern day slavery.
We led the effort to deal with the Obamacare bailout fund before anyone was talking about that. We were out there leading the effort on that. And today the Obamacare bailout fund is gone.
WALLACE: Well, what —
RUBIO: We helped impose sanctions on human rights violators in Venezuela.
WALLACE: Senator, one thing —
RUBIO: And I’m very proud of what we’ve done despite the fact that Washington isn’t doing anything.
WALLACE: Senator, one of the things that you don’t mention, and I think everybody would say was your biggest accomplishment, was the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill that was passed in 2013. Let me ask you a question, was that a good bill? Was that a reasonable compromise on the immigration problem?
RUBIO: Not — not as a final package. And I said that at the time, Chris. And if you go back — and we’ll provide you that — you’ll see that throughout that debate in the Senate, I kept saying over and over, this is the best we can do here in this Senate, run by Harry Reid, but this is going to have to change when it gets to the House. It’s not strong enough. I’ve said that repeatedly. That’s how the process works. You know that.
WALLACE: But — but you said you supported — you said you supported the bill when — after passage. And you said during the — the fight that it had important reforms that conservatives had been working for, for years. I mean you voted for it.
RUBIO: It did. Well, sure, because it’s the best we could do in a Senate run by Harry Reid. And we did get the Democrats to agree on a lot of things conservatives have pushed for, but it wasn’t enough. And I warned about that repeatedly. I said, this is now going to go to the House and they’re going to make it even stronger.
But here’s the good news, when I’m president of the United States, we’re not going to do it that way. I don’t need to do it Harry Reid’s way. We can do it our way, which is, we’re going to enforce our laws and we’re going to secure our border first. And until we do that, nothing else is going to happen on immigration.
WALLACE: Finally, let’s talk about Super Tuesday. I don’t have to point out to you, you have not won a state yet. In the polls of all 11 states who are people — will go to the polls on Tuesday, you are trailing. If you go through Super Tuesday and you still haven’t won a state, can you still be a viable candidate?
RUBIO: Oh, absolutely. First of all, Super Tuesday is going to award a lot of delegates, and we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates. Here’s the bottom line, you need 1,237 delegates to be the Republican nominee. Donald Trump will never have that number of delegates. I don’t care how long I have to work. I’ll go to all 50 states and every territory. He will never get those delegates. I am going to get those delegates, and I will be the Republican nominee.
WALLACE: But you — you could go 0-15 and you could still be the nominee?
RUBIO: And we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates this week.
WALLACE: You could still be 0-15 and — and — and be the nominee?
RUBIO: Because we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates. Sure. And that’s not the plan, by the way, but sure. I mean absolutely we can because we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates. And we’re going to pick up a lot of delegates next week. And then come March 15th, I expect this race will be significantly narrowed. More Americans will now know the truth about Donald Trump after we’ve spent two weeks banging away on it, and people will see what they’re about to fall con to, and then we are going to start winning states when the states start awarding all of their delegates, and that includes Florida. We feel very optimistic about that, now more than ever especially.
WALLACE: Senator Rubio, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Safe travels on the campaign trail, sir.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.