Fox News’ Megyn Kelly said this week that it was “shocking” to watch Marco Rubio’s debate performance over the weekend, and said he appeared to be “too terrified” to abandon his talking points.
“I’ve heard some people say that it wasn’t that Rubio, it isn’t that he’s a robot,” she said Tuesday evening in a radio interview on Kilmeade & Friends. “It’s that he’s too cautious. You know, and he may have just been too terrified to deviate from message.”
Rubio appears to have taken some damage this week after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hammered away at him during a GOP primary debate Saturday evening hosted by ABC News.
The governor accused the senator of being too scripted, and highlighted the fact that Rubio repeatedly accused the president of knowing “exactly what he’s doing,” and that everything the commander in chief has done in the last seven years has been by design. Rubio repeated the line multiple times Saturday evening as he tried to fend off Christie’s criticisms, but this appears to have only made the governor’s point.
Kelly suggested that this could be chalked up as a positive trait, suggesting that the Florida lawmaker demonstrates messaging discipline, but she said it mostly hurt him.
“[I]t was a shocking thing to see. It was shocking. I understand, he wanted to make the point, Barack Obama knows what he’s doing … blah, blah, blah, you heard all that. But, there’s no question that while they all repeat themselves on the campaign trail, all of [the candidates] do, what we saw with Marco Rubio the other night was a shocking moment,” she said.
“It was. It was as if he could not get himself off of that one line, even when under withering scrutiny and being mocked for repeating himself and sounding like a robot, he still [did] it two more times after that. And I don’t know why he did that. I still don’t know the answer to that. But there’s no question that it was a moment that for some people that they’ll have difficulty getting past,” she added.
Rubio performed poorly Tuesday evening in the New Hampshire primary, coming in fifth behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and billionaire businessman Donald Trump, and many media think it is because of his debate performance Saturday evening.
(h/t Andrew Kaczynski)
