Republican presidential candidate Florida Senator Marco said that he didn’t say Chris Crane “wasn’t an ICE officer. I said he was not an ICE official. He was not advocating on behalf of ICE” and that he “worked with the agency. We worked with him. He gave us a list of recommendations, many of which I fought for” while stating that it’s “absolutely true” Breitbart News is “not a credible source” on Friday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.
Rubio was asked, [relevant exchange begins around 4:50] “I just want to talk about one thing you said to Neil Cavuto about this ICE official Chris Crane, who was the head of this union. You said he wasn’t an ICE officer, he was a head of union, but he actually was an ICE officer who had critical things to say about you.” Anchor Bret Baier then read from the response to Rubio’s comments by former President of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Palinkas where Palinkas said, “Chris Crane is an ICE officer, first. That’s his job. There’s no distinction… We are not a separate entity as union officials—we are employees of the federal government… That’s a negotiated item so that we can represent [officers] in their job functions.”
Rubio then said, “First of all, Bret, I didn’t say he wasn’t an ICE officer. I said he was not an ICE official. He was not advocating on behalf of ICE. He was advocating on behalf of a federal government labor union that represents those officers. And I have incredible admiration for the ICE officers, and for what they’re doing. But when he talks about the criticisms that he made, he wasn’t doing it on behalf of the agency. We worked with the agency. We worked with him. He gave us a list of recommendations, many of which I fought for, some of which had nothing to do, but he just wanted more kind of labor union stuff. I have nothing against him. But I was just correcting the record about what he said.”
Baier then played a clip of Rubio talking to Cavuto where he said, “Number one, that’s not true, and he’s not an ICE official, he’s a head of a union, and it’s being reported on a website that’s not a credible source.”
Rubio then stated, “I said he’s not an ICE official. He wasn’t speaking on behalf of ICE. The question from Neil made it sound like he was a representative of ICE the agency, that was advocating for specific public policy. He was representing the union. On the issue of the website. It’s absolutely true. This is the same website that said that because one of my employees has a relative that works for Fox News, you guys were giving me the questions to the debate. Did you give me the questions to the debate Bret when you moderated the debate?”
Baier responded, “That would be a no.” Rubio continued, “You didn’t. And that’s what they claimed, exactly. And so that’s what I was questioning was the credibility of the website. And as far as immigration is concerned, look, go back to Donald Trump. Donald Trump supported pathway to citizenship. He’s the only one running for president that’s ever hired illegal aliens, and he’s the one importing [a] workforce from abroad instead of hiring Americans. He’s a con man. And if he’s changed his position on those issues, he can start by hiring Floridians to work at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, instead of hiring foreigners, from abroad, to take those jobs away from Americans.”
When asked if he would support the Gang of Eight bill “if the politics was all lined up?” He answered, “As president, absolutely not.” Rubio added that the bill was the best that could have been don in a Democratic run Senate and that he said so at the time, and that when he’s president, immigration reform won’t have to be done that way.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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