Marco Rubio may have mixed it up with his mentor and Republican presidential rival Jeb Bush on the debate stage Wednesday, but his tune was different on the morning talk shows.
“I still have tremendous admiration for him both as a person and what he did as governor of Florida,” Florida’s freshman senator told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie Thursday morning after Wednesday night’s GOP debate. “I’m not going to talk bad about Gov. Jeb Bush. My campaign is not about him.”
“It isn’t going to change my feelings and my views about him,” he added of the former governor of Florida, who attacked him during the debate for missing congressional votes.
The attack by Bush backfired, as Rubio was able to jab back and win the tussle. Rubio Thursday morning reiterated that he is still a dedicated senator, despite past comments that he was focused on running for president over his day job.
“For me its an incredible honor to serve in the U.S. Senate,” he said on NBC, noting that constituent service is something he enjoys “very much” about being in the Senate.
“We serve real people every day,” he added. “And we enjoy doing that service and we’re going to continue to do it.”
On CBS’s “CBS This Morning,” Rubio again declined to talk bad about Bush, saying the differences between the two will be seen in terms of their policy.
“I’m going to continue to tell people who I am, what I’m for. There are policy differences between us, we’ll discuss those. Americans deserve to hear those. But I’m not going to change my campaign,” he said. “Jeb is my friend, I have admiration for him. I’m not running for him. I’m running for president.”
He also jabbed at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on CBS.
“That was a serious hearing about a serious issue. As far as taking her on if I’m our nominee, we’re gonna be the party of the future and the Democrats will be exposed as the party of big government ideas from the past,” he said on CBS about Clinton’s testimony in front of the Benghazi committee.
He added that Clinton and the White House were able to change the narrative of the Benghazi attacks, which left four Americans dead, and use them in a positive light for President Obama’s re-election campaign.
Rubio also took a shot at CNBC and their chosen moderators for Wednesday night’s debate, saying the questions they asked were bland, if not useless.
“I thought it was a wasted opportunity and quite frankly that’s what made it unfair, not just to the candidates but to the American people,” he said.
What a good debate performance will do for Rubio is to be seen.
Currently, he is in third place in a RealClearPolitics average of polls with 9 percent. Donald Trump and Ben Carson are place in first and second, with more than 20 percent each. Bush is in fourth place with 7 percent.
