The most sustained attack on his qualifications came from New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who said that Rubio had never been involved in any “consequential decision where you had to be held accountable”. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
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In December of 2015, on Fox News, Rubio criticized a speech by Obama on the threat of ISIS by saying, “People first of all are scared because they sense the threat, it continues to grow, and the president doesn’t know what he’s doing”.
Dressed in cardboard and tinfoil robot costumes, two reps from Democratic super-PAC American Bridge greeted Rubio fans at his first rally of the day, a pancake breakfast in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
“The fact is that what we need to do in this country is not to make the same mistake we made eight years ago”, he continued, comparing Rubio to President Obama.
Christie called Rubio’s words a “memorized 25-second speech”, prompting Rubio to go on the attack, ripping Christie for presiding over nine N.J. credit downgrades and how he had to be “shamed” to leave the campaign trail and return to N.J. during the recent blizzard.
When Rubio started the line again, Christie pointed out the repeated comments: “There it is”.
Rubio stared mutely back, looking flummoxed, Christie told close aides moments later, according to one Christie adviser who was in the room. “The memorized 25-second speech”. Is that one of the skills you get as a United States Senator ESP also? “I think Congress would pass a plan to finish the border, guest worker, pay a fine, a path to legalization, and not citizenship”, he said.
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“What Gov. Christie was trying to do was to knock Marco out, to kill him dead”. Marco Rubio argued Garden State residents had to “shame him into going back” to New Jersey from his campaigning in New Hampshire to deal with the snowstorm. “As far as that message, I hope they keep running it and I’m going to keep saying because it’s true”.
