Marco Rubio said Wednesday he’s “not entirely proud” of his personal attacks on Donald Trump and wouldn’t have launched them if he could do things over again. 
 
 “In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day it’s not something I’m entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again I wouldn’t,” he said during an MSNBC town hall. 
 
 Close video What will Marco Rubio do if Donald Trump nabs nomination? Marco Rubio claims he has no interest in joining forces with front-runner Donald Trump and running as his vice presidential candidate. But If Donald Trump indeed scores the Republican nomination, will Marco Rubio let bygones be bygones and at least… share tweet email save Embed 
 
 Rubio’s sudden shift to aggressively attacking Trump one week before the Super Tuesday primary contests saw the candidate mock Trump on the debate stage and during nearly every one of his stump speeches following. The attacks took a personal turn, with Rubio making fun of Trump’s tan, his hair and ultimately the size of his hands — a veiled jab at Trump’s manhood — at a rally shortly before voters went to the polls that week. 
 
 The strategy won him wall-to-wall media coverage but did little to cement Rubio as the anointed alternative to Trump. Indeed, it appears to have hurt him, as he struggled to overcome Ted Cruz during the Super Tuesday contests and his support has since cratered, resulting in disappointing finishes in primaries across the nation over the past week. Some Republicans have criticized Rubio for “damaging the image of the Republican Party,” as major Republican donor Fred Malek put it on MSNBC this week. 
 
 Rubio’s comments Wednesday were an implicit acknowledgment that the strategy didn’t work, and he has since shifted away from personal attacks on Trump in favor of more policy-focused fare. But he insisted that it was “appropriate” to point out that Trump is “portraying himself as something he’s not,” a central focus of his argument against the GOP frontrunner. 
 
 RELATED: Marco Rubio’s campaign is on life support 
 
 Trump has been dismissive of Rubio’s attacks, telling reporters at a press conference Tuesday that “hostility works for some people — it doesn’t work for him.” But on MSNBC Wednesday morning, he was asked about the possibility of a Rubio pick. 
 
 “Sure, sure and he’s got talent. I just don’t want to say that yet,” Trump said. 
 
 Rubio, however, insisted at the MSNBC town hall Rubio said he had no interest in playing second fiddle for Trump or any other GOP candidates. 
 
 “I’m not looking to be anyone’s vice president,” Rubio said. 
 
 Pressed directly is he would tell Trump “no” if asked to being his running mate, Rubio responded, “absolutely.” 
 
 This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com. 

 HIALEAH, Fla. — If Marco Rubio had hoped to revive his flagging candidacy with a stadium-sized show of force here in this Cuban-American and Republican stronghold near his Miami home, he fell far short on Wednesday. 
 
 The entire Rubio rally at Ted Hendricks Stadium stretched no farther than the 20-yard line of the football field, including the media section. The grandstands sat empty as Rubio tried to reassure increasingly restless supporters that he is still in it to win it in 2016, at least in Florida. 
 
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 The scoreboard said it was the fourth quarter (time left: 20:16), but with Rubio down in the polls to Donald Trump and fading with only six days to go, the crunch felt even more acute than that. The 80 yards of empty green expanse staring back at him was an especially stark visual reminder at a time when Trump is drawing crowds of thousands. 
 
 “The game’s not over ’til it’s over,” former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart tried to warm up the crowd, quoting Yogi Berra. 
 
 But after devastating losses in four states on Tuesday, finishing no better than third in Mississippi, Michigan, Idaho and Hawaii, the bad news for Rubio continued to pile up on Wednesday. 
 
 New polls showed Rubio far behind Trump in his home state. Influential GOP activist Erick Erickson called on him to drop out and get behind rival Ted Cruz to stop Trump. Trump was on TV talking about delivering a “knockout” blow next week. Cruz was campaigning in Rubio’s Miami backyard, threatening to siphon off Cuban-American votes. And news broke that Jeb Bush, Rubio’s mentor-turned-rival, was meeting not just with Rubio, but with Cruz and John Kasich this week as he considers whether to endorse one of them in the GOP primary, and if so, which one. 
 
 Amid it all, Rubio and his campaign continued to aggressively fend off talk that he would quit altogether before Florida votes on March 15. Rubio told the Hialeah crowd to ignore such chatter. 
 
 “You tell them you heard from me: They are lying to you,” Rubio said. 
 
 The Rubio comeback plan appears to rest almost entirely on Rubio’s persuasive skills, as his campaign team exposes him to as much free national media as it can. On Wednesday, Rubio recorded a special hourlong town hall for prime time with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and sat for a full-hour interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. 
 
 Rubio fell back on some trite political truisms to defend his diminished position in Florida, telling Kelly at one point, “The only poll that counts is the one they’re going to take on Tuesday.” 
 
 Rubio also expressed regret Wednesday for the first time for attacking Trump with personal insults before Super Tuesday. “That’s not who I am,” he told Kelly. 
 
 “I want my kids to be proud of me,” Rubio added, “I don’t think that reflected well on my faith.” 
 
 But he blamed the media, in part, for giving Trump’s tirades and media events so much free air time. He noted he got live coverage of his rallies for the first time when he began tossing insults. “That’s how sad this has gotten,” he said. 
 
 Rubio’s best, and perhaps last, chance for a turnaround comes on Thursday when the four Republican finalists will debate in Miami. Even his staunchest allies say he needs a strong performance to build any type of momentum ahead of March 15. 
 
 “For those of us who have known Marco Rubio for a long time, he’s struggling for the first time to find his voice,” said Adam Goodman, a veteran Florida Republican strategist who is currently unaligned in the race. 
 
 All the tumult comes as many of Rubio’s top donors, those who raised at least $27,000, are descending on South Florida in the next two days for a long-planned strategy summit. Most have not abandoned him but say his leash extends only through Tuesday. 
 
 “If anybody can do it, Marco can do it,” one donor said, citing Rubio’s come from behind Senate victory in 2010. 
 
 Indeed, Rubio continues to try to bank cash for the long haul even as his status past next Tuesday is unclear. He has a fundraiser scheduled on Friday in Naples, at the home of Cindy and Ned Lautenbach. And on Wednesday he invited supporters to a Washington, D.C., fundraiser at the Homer Building on the evening of March 15 — the day Florida votes — with a host committee of his squadron of congressional endorsers, including 14 senators. Co-chairs are asked to raise $8,100 for the event. 
 
 As Rubio’s Hialeah rally wrapped up, he didn’t exit the stage but stayed for the taped interview with Kelly before the crowd. 
 
 Her first question captured his predicament. “Are you preparing to drop out?” she asked. 
 
 Anna Palmer contributed to this report. 
 
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 MIAMI — Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said he had come to regret what became one of the most sensational moments of his campaign: his schoolyard taunting of Donald J. Trump. 
 
 Mr. Rubio said the episode — in which he ridiculed the real estate developer as small-handed, orange-faced and wimpy — upset his children and was something he would not do again. 
 
 “At the end of the day, you know what? It’s not something I’m entirely proud of,” Mr. Rubio said at a town-hall-style event for MSNBC that was taped on Wednesday here at Florida International University. 
 
 “My kids were embarrassed by it and I, you know, if I had to do it again I wouldn’t,” Mr. Rubio added. 
 
 The question came from a young man in the audience who asked the senator bluntly, “How can you sacrifice basic Christian principles” with such personal and gratuitous attacks? 
 
 Pressed by the host, NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mr. Rubio was more reflective than he tends to be in most public appearances, saying that he thought that Mr. Trump had degraded the tone of the entire presidential race. 
 
 “I don’t want to be that,” Mr. Rubio said, referring to someone who mocks and insults. “If that’s what it takes to become president of the United States, then I don’t want to be president.” 
 
 Mr. Rubio said he was not, however, embarrassed for attacking Mr. Trump on his business record, which the senator has said is riddled with instances of defrauding working-class people. 
 
 “Not on the other charges, not on the other things,” Mr. Rubio said. “This time the stakes are not a worthless $36,000 degree at Trump University. The stakes are the greatest nation on earth.”
– Marco Rubio's presidential campaign is widely seen to be in its dying days—but the Florida senator says he's not interested in signing up with any others. During an MSNBC town hall on Wednesday, Rubio said he's "not looking to be anyone's vice president" and that he would "absolutely" say no to Donald Trump, who had said earlier in the day that he would definitely consider Rubio, if he dropped out this week. Rubio also shot down the idea of teaming up with Ted Cruz to defeat Trump, describing it as "House of Cards stuff." "Those kinds of things rarely work," he told the town hall. "I can just tell you I'm a candidate for president." During the town hall, Rubio admitted that he was ashamed of how his attacks on Trump had descended into playground taunts about tiny hands, the New York Times reports. "My kids were embarrassed by it and I, you know, if I had to do it again I wouldn't," he said. Rubio—who failed to pick up a single delegate in Tuesday's GOP votes—said he felt "very positive" about winning Florida on March 15, though polls show him well behind Trump in the winner-take-all state. Politico reports that at a Wednesday evening rally at a football stadium in Hialeah, Fla., the crowd only stretched as far as the 20-yard line. (See plenty of photos here.) He stayed after the rally for an interview with Fox's Megyn Kelly, whose first question was: "Are you preparing to drop out?"