Marco Rubio falsely accused
Marco Rubio didnât actually call for his party to surrender to President Barack Obamaâs immigration strategy Wednesday â but the recriminations were quick for the GOP senator anyway. âRubio Foldsâ blared the headline on the Drudge Report, linking to a newspaper story that suggested the Florida senator was running away from the Republican strategy of tying immigration riders to a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. Story Continued Below Except the GOP senator didnât explicitly say that during a press gaggle Wednesday in Las Vegas, according to a transcript provided by his office. Like some other Senate Republicans, the likely GOP presidential hopeful admitted that his partyâs strategy had little hope of succeeding, and he reiterated GOP leadershipâs position that the party cannot blow its first major legislative deadline and let DHS funding lapse on Feb. 27. But he didnât call for Republicans leaders to pass a clean DHS bill â stripped of immigration language â as Democrats are demanding. Regardless, a couple of headlines later the story had spread like wildfire, from Las Vegas to Florida to Drudge and The Huffington Post. So Rubioâs chief spokesman, Alex Conant, shot down any notion that Rubio was joining Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and calling for leadership to proceed to a bill with no riders. The media narrative was wrong, his aides said. âSenator Rubio does not support a clean DHS funding bill that does not repeal the presidentâs unconstitutional executive order on immigration,â Conant wrote in an email. According to the transcript, Rubio told reporters what anyone on Capitol Hill has seen firsthand: The House-passed bill funding DHS and blocking President Barack Obamaâs immigration policies canât pass the Senate due to a Democratic filibuster. And Obama would veto it, anyway. âWe have to fund Homeland Security,â Rubio said. âLook, Iâm in favor of any measure that has a chance of succeeding that could stop the new order, but the truth of the matter is the presidentâs not going to sign it, and we donât have the votes to pass it in the Senate. We canât let Homeland Security shut down.â Rubio didnât suggest how exactly Congress could try to avert a shutdown next week. But House and Senate Republican leaders havenât laid out a clear strategy on that front either. Rubioâs remarks echo his party leadership. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has scheduled a fourth doomed vote on the House bill for next week but has conceded that the Senate is âstuckâ on it. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas has repeatedly said in interviews that there will be no shutdown. And almost every Republican has repeatedly blamed Democrats for the impasse, just as Rubio did on Wednesday. âUnfortunately, so far the Democrats refuse to give us the votes necessary to go on the bill,â Rubio said. âBy the rules of the Senate, you need 60 [votes] to begin debate and without the 60 votes to begin debate, they wonât even give us the 60 votes to begin debate on the topic.â