Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush didn’t get into it in Tuesday night’s debate — unlike the last Republican debate — but that doesn’t mean they won’t anytime soon.
During back-to-back morning show appearances Wednesday following his strong debate performance, the freshman Florida senator addressed a New York Times report from Monday that Bush’s super PAC is set to spend $20 million to “damage Mr. Rubio’s reputation and halt his sudden ascent in the polls.”
“Obviously if we’re attacked, we’re going to respond. But ultimately we can’t control other people’s campaigns if they decide that attacking us is the way forward, they have a right to make that decision,” Rubio said on “The Today Show.” “It’s wrong. It’s not going to change my campaign.”
However, on “CBS This Morning,” Rubio said his campaign would carry on operations as usual.
“I admire him (Bush) greatly, I have tremendous respect and affection for him as a person. Unfortunately, over the last four weeks he has chosen to attack me but I’m not changing my strategy and reciprocate that,” Rubio said. “I’m not gonna change who I am or the campaign that I’m running.”
Rubio definitely isn’t backing down. His campaign released an ad on Tuesday with clips of Bush praising Rubio and even saying at one point he would make a good president.
Ahead of a possible attack from the former Florida governor, Rubio’s campaign also is fundraising.
“Jeb’s plan is to spend $20 million dollars to ‘damage Mr. Rubio’s reputation.’ Not just talk about how they differ on the issues but to actively try to destroy Marco’s reputation. And they’re bragging about that? How is that the kind of ‘joyful’ campaign that Jeb claimed he wanted to run?!?!” a fundraising email from Rubio’s campaign said.
In a RealClearPolitics average of polls, Rubio has leapt to third place, with 11.8 percentage points. Bush, however, has fallen to fifth place with 6 percentage points.
