Florida senator Marco Rubio would not say Tuesday whether he still believes Donald Trump should not be trusted with the country’s nuclear weapons codes.
“I’m not talking about the presidential race today,” Rubio told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “I’ve answered that so many times.”
Rubio has answered the question many times, but not always the same way.
During the presidential primary in February, Rubio called Trump an “erratic individual” and said that he “absolutely” believed Trump was “dangerous” and could not be trusted with U.S. nuclear codes.
From May until early June, Rubio maintained that, despite his endorsement of Trump, he stood by the nuclear codes comment.
“I stand by the things that I said,” Rubio told CNN’s Jake Tapper in early May. “But I’m not going to sit here now and become his chief critic over the next six months.”
In early June, following Trump’s racial attack on a federal judge, the Florida senator again stuck to his criticism of Trump’s temperament. “I stand by everything I said during the campaign,” he said.
But then in a June 26 interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, Rubio suggested that Trump somehow could be trusted.
“You said you didn’t trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes. Do you trust Hillary Clinton with the nuclear codes?” Dickerson asked.
Rubio criticized Clinton’s foreign policy but didn’t answer the question. When Dickerson repeated it, Rubio replied: “I think there’s a process for the presidency. And once you assume the office, no matter who holds that office, I think that the reality and gravity of it always weighs on these people. It’s a very difficult issue to face. So, I would hope that I can trust no matter who wins with the nuclear codes.”
It’s not clear whether anything has happened this summer to cause Rubio to reassess his judgement that Trump is unfit to be commander-in-chief, or how Trump might become fit enough to have access to the nuclear codes if elected. Rubio was clearly in no mood to address those issues on Tuesday.
