NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday outlined an activist conservative agenda for the White House that would seek to undo or reverse President Obama’s signature accomplishments.
The Florida Republican isn’t an official presidential candidate and signaled that he might not make a decision about 2016 until late spring. But in an interview with the Washington Examiner, Rubio said he would enter the Oval Office with a plan to junk Obama’s major domestic and foreign policy achievements, and move to re-establish Republican policies that the current administration either extinguished in 2009 or has stalled since GOP midterm victories in 2010.
Specifically, missile defense installations in Europe secured by President George W. Bush but canceled by Obama in deference to Russia would be back in play. Indeed, Rubio said that he would expand missile defense into Eastern Europe beyond the Czech Republic and Poland to counter Vladimir Putin and reinvigorate NATO. Rubio said he would review the nuclear arms treaty Obama signed with Russia and not be bound by any agreements with Cuba or Iran.
Rubio said flatly that Obama’s foreign policy was failing because the president approaches world affairs from the mistaken position that “America, and American engagement, is more often the source of our problems than the source of our solutions.”
Rubio has ramped up his political travel and fundraising in recent weeks, even missing Senate votes to spend time with campaign contributors and voters in the early primary states. On Friday morning, the senator was scheduled to join conservative activists in National Harbor, Md., near Washington, D.C., and address the annual winter gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a must-stop for any Republican presidential candidate.
Domestically, Rubio said he would move ahead with a major overhaul of the health care system now governed by Obama’s Affordable Care Act statute, while reforming U.S. border security and immigration compliance services.
Rubio indicated that he would immediately call for passage of legislation to secure portions of the border that remain “largely” unprotected; implement new enforcement tools, including an entry-exit system to track visa overstays; and modernize employment verification to discourage the hiring of illegal immigrants.
“Once that system is in place and functioning, I believe that that’s the key that opens the door to, one, modernizing our legal immigration system towards a merit-based system; and two, dealing with those who are here illegally but have been here for a long period of time and have otherwise not violated our laws,” Rubio said. “If we prove to people that future illegal immigration will be under control, the American people are going to be very flexible and responsible about how we deal with those who have been here for a long period of time.”
The senator declined to get too specific on his health care reform agenda, saying that he has a blueprint for repealing and replacing Obamacare in the works and isn’t yet ready to reveal details. But Rubio said he favors a market-based system that offers more choice, lower prices and better quality care. However, the Floridian conceded that Americans would have to migrate from Obamacare insurance plans to new coverage options defined by his proposal.
“There will have to be a transition period towards the system that I have discussed but ultimately I believe that if people are allowed to control pre-tax dollars, or tax credits, to purchase insurance of their own choice, it won’t be hard to get people to transition away from these current plans towards that,” Rubio said. “Many [Obamacare] plans are going to face long-term problems, anyway.”
Rubio has impressed Republican insiders with his communications skills and command of domestic and foreign policy issues, particularly at a time when Americans are anxiety ridden over the rise of the Islamic State, an expansionist Russia and belligerent China, among other international challenges. Conservative activists and likely primary voters are equally impressed, although some have lingering concerns about Rubio’s immigration polices.
If there’s any knock on Rubio, it’s his resume.
He’s 43 years old and a first-term senator with limited executive experience, a background similar to Obama’s — and one which was used against Obama over the years by many Republicans — when he moved into the White House in 2009. But Rubio dismissed those concerns, saying the job is about judgment; he has it and Obama doesn’t, particularly on the issues that matter most in electing a commander in chief.
“I have a record of making judgments on issues like foreign policy. So if I decide to run for president of the United States, I’m prepared to make that argument, as I would be if I ran for Senate,” Rubio said. “The reason why President Obama is a bad president isn’t because he’s young or because he’s a senator, it’s because his ideas don’t work.
“People interested in my experience need to know that I didn’t just arrive in January of 2011,” he added.
Before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2010, Rubio spent nine years in the Florida House of Representatives, eight of those as a member of the Republican leadership, including two as speaker of the House. Rubio noted that as speaker he was responsible not just for his party’s legislative agenda but for the administrative functions of the Florida legislature’s lower house, including hundreds of employees and a significant budget.
