For Florida Sen. Marco Rubio the time is now to start building on the momentum he gained after Thursday night’s GOP debate performance in Houston. He has crisscrossed the South trying to put the pressure frontrunner Donald Trump by calling him a “con artist.
” Trump was a remains on the attack calling Rubio a “choke artist” and also keeping the robot narrative going. On Friday, Rubio highlighted the fortune that Trump inherited and accused him of treating workers shabbily during his career as a real estate tycoon. “Unlike Donald, I didn’t inherit hundreds of millions,” Rubio said. “He calls me a choker. He’s a con artist.
He spent 40 years sticking it to the people he claims to be fighting for.” Rubio citing Trump’s wins in early state primaries and his longstanding lead in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination, Rubio said the Republican Party was on the verge of being hijacked by someone who doesn’t share the core beliefs of its conservative base. “If this pattern continues the conservative movement in the Republican Party will be taken over by a con artist portraying himself as the fighter of the ordinary person fighting for the working man,” Rubio said. “But he spent years sticking it to the working people.”
Sen. Rubio needs to pull off an upset in either Tennessee or Georgia on Super Tuesday and he is pushing hard to get that first win. Rubio can’t afford a win in Texas by home state Sen. Cruz and to be shutout in the rest of the 11 states voting on Tuesday. Meanwhile, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush who dropped out of the 2016 GOP Presidential race after losing to Donald Trump in New Hampshire has not rushed to endorse his friend Rubio.
Rubio said he spoke with Bush Monday and that the two politicians plan to meet in the near future, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
While Rubio has not asked for his former mentor’s endorsement, he said the pair had “a nice conversation” and emphasized that he respects Bush. “He’s just decompressing from this election,” Rubio said Tuesday. “And trying to get going again in the rest of his life. But we’ll meet and talk soon enough.”
Once considered the favorite to win his party’s nomination, Bush struggled throughout his campaign and failed to gain popularity, despite a record-breaking amount of donations from establishment Republicans to both his campaign and his super PAC, Right to Rise USA. As his poll numbers remained stagnant and he got into fights with GOP front-runner
Donald Trump, Bush often attacked Rubio, and many of the negative ads run by Right to Rise targeted the Florida senator.
But don’t look for Bush to endorse Rubio before Super Tuesday and it may not come before the big March 15th Florida primary. Bush insiders are still a bit hurting from Rubio decided to run at the same time for his mentor thought it was his time.
