In a report earlier this year, the Times said campaign managers for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney flagged Rubio’s spending record while vetting him as a possible vice presidential running mate.
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On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Rubio said his card use had “been coming up for five years, so it’s not a new issue”, and said he would release the relevant statements “probably within a few weeks”.
The risk for Rubio, who has acknowledged “a lack of bookkeeping skills”, is that the credit card may become a symbol of a larger pattern of financial challenges in his recent past, including a brush with foreclosure on a second home in 2010 over late mortgage payments and the recent liquidation of a retirement account that prompted a large tax penalty.
“But there’s an even more basic question about Rubio’s Amex use, whether he should have been charging personal expenses to the corporate card in the first place”. Nevertheless, Rubio supporters & his marketing crusade argue in that he spent considerably lower than previous Florida Home speakers & in that Rubio isn’t concealing monetary errors.
According to the statements, Rubio made nine purchases from florists – totaling $709 over the two years – as well as food and hotel charges, which included almost $1,800 for food or lodging at Walt Disney World properties.
“I used to hate Darth Vader, now I kind of feel a little bit sorry for him, because now I know what he went through to get to that point”.
So far, Rubio has successfully batted away probing questions from the media, presenting himself as the son of immigrants who never enjoyed a silver spoon and has often barely scraped by as he made his way through law school and then up the food chain of Florida politics. It was American Express. He has stated that he misses votes that are meaningless. “I mean, he is a disaster with his credit cards”, Trump said during a news conference at Trump Tower in NY.
It remains unclear what the statements might contain, a campaign spokesperson from Rubio said the campaign had planned all along to make those records public.
“Both Marco Rubio and Chris Christie were perceived as doing well in the debate and have seen their numbers climb substantially from where they were in September”.
The disclosures appear to show Mr. Rubio paying American Express whenever he used the card for personal reasons. “A charge card, you have to pay off at the end of the month”.
Yesterday, he released nearly two years of American Express credit card statements from the time he served as speaker-designate and then speaker of the Florida House, a position that sent him on fundraising trips around the state and country.
“Each time, I identified the charges and paid the costs myself, directly to American Express”, he wrote.
But Rubio has been withholding them at least since 2010, when the same issue came up in his U.S. Senate race.
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“I think they’re going to slug it out for a while”, Cruz said, predicting a battle between Rubio, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and others. The Republican party of Florida covered $3,343.58 for the trip.
