President Obama openly mocked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in his home state Thursday for condemning Donald Trump’s behavior, but saying he’ll vote for him anyway in November.
At a campaign stop in Miami, Obama noted that Rubio said the country “can’t afford” to trust Trump with the nuclear codes because he’s so “erratic.” Rubio, he said, also called Trump a “dangerous con artist who made a career out of sticking it to the working people.”
“Now that begs the question, since we’re in Florida … why does Marco Rubio still plan to vote for Donald Trump?” the president asked. “There has to be a point in which you have to stand for something more than just party or more than just your own career.”
He said voting for Trump after saying he’s too dangerous to lead the nation is the “height of cynicism” – a sign of somebody who will “say anything, do anything, pretend to be anybody, just to get elected.”
Rubio has faced criticism from many conservatives for running a hamfisted campaign in which he was mocked for repeating his answers during the debate, and then trying to mimick Trump’s attack style by cracking jokes about Trump. Rubio lost his home state to Trump during the primaries, and then, after saying he wouldn’t run for the Senate again, changed his mind.
Obama raised a host of deal-breakers against Trump that he said would cause most voters, regardless of party, to abandon a presidential nominee, including Trump’s failure to release his tax records. He told the crowd that “we might not stand with them if they don’t pay up,” or if they were caught, as Trump was, bragging about sexually assaulting women.
“Trump tried to run away from comments that were on a recording and the [debate] audience started laughing when he said he really respects women,” Obama told the audience at Florida Memorial University, recalling an awkward moment from Trump during Wednesday night’s presidential debate.
While Obama said he understood why GOP lawmakers abandoned the Trump ship after the recording came out of Trump talking about groping women with Billy Bush, he said he wondered why it took those Republicans so long.
Obama saved some of his most colorful criticism for Trump’s repeated praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strength as a leader on the world stage.
“If you’ve made a career of idolizing Ronald Reagan, then where were you when your nominee for president was kissing up to Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer?” Obama asked. “You used to criticize me for even talking to the Russians, but now you’re ok with your nominee having a bromance with Putin?”
Obama also echoed Biden’s comments from earlier Thursday when he called Trump’s refusal to concede the election if defeated at the polls a threat to the democratic process.
“That is not a joking matter – that is dangerous,” he said. “When you try to sow doubt in people’s minds about our democracy … then you are doing the work for our adversaries because our democracy depends on knowing your vote matters,” he said.
He cited one unspecified study that he said found, that out of one billion votes cast, there were only 31 proven cases of voter fraud.
“You’re much likelier to get struck by lightening that have somebody commit voter fraud – you’d win the Power Ball [lottery],” he said.
