In a Thursday speech, Sen. Marco Rubio proposed a plan to modernize the United States military while taking shots at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama in the process.
Rubio, who spoke at Granite State Manufacturing in New Hampshire, panned a potential Clinton presidency as a “sequel” to Obama’s, saying it will be a continuation of “weakness” and “retreat” in the White House.
The Florida senator talked extensively about the modernization of various aspects of American defense, including doing away with the cuts put into place by sequestration and beefing up the military, advancing cybersecurity technology and in missile defense.
“We have today leaders at the highest levels of our government who believe that the world would be better off with a weaker, less engaged America,” Rubio said. “Leaders who make national security decisions based on politics rather than on strategy; and leaders who fail to recognize that in today’s global economy, foreign policy and domestic policy are truly and increasingly inseparable.”
“These outdated leaders come from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Their policies have undermined American strength — and that has led to the discouragement of our allies, it’s emboldening our enemies, and, unfortunately, it’s also endangering our people,” Rubio said. “Hillary Clinton would write the sequel to President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.”
Rubio, who currently sits below Donald Trump and Ben Carson in polling, went on to lay out his plan, which calls for a budget baseline of what former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed in 2012 before sequestration went into effect, adding that all aspects of defense need to be upgraded consistently going forward.
“I will never send our troops into a fair fight; I will always equip them with the upper hand and the technological edge,” Rubio told the New Hampshire crowd. “If I become president, the days when a father and a son and a grandson all fly the same plane will be over.”
“If we do not return to the bipartisan tradition of American strength — and return to it soon — the tide of danger and discord that has swept the world in recent years will grow stronger,” Rubio said, “and that tide will eventually drag down our economy, wash away our influence and bring danger to our shores that we will be unprepared to meet.”
The GOP contender currently sits atop the Washington Examiner’s latest power rankings with only four days until the next Republican debate in Milwaukee.
