During his failed presidential campaign, Marco Rubio tried to draw attention to some of Donald Trump’s more obvious flaws as candidate, including Trump’s reliance on racist politics and the scandal surrounding “Trump University.” Three months after ending his national campaign — Rubio won a grand total of one state — the Florida senator is feeling some vindication. Politico reported yesterday:
Joining the chorus of Republicans condemning Donald Trump over his rhetoric toward a federal judge’s Mexican heritage, Marco Rubio offered a cutting remark: I warned you. […]“I don’t defend what he says, and all I can tell you is I ran for president and I warned you this is what was going to happen,” Rubio told WFTV’s Christopher Heath. “I consistently said if he became the nominee, we’d face these sorts of difficult choices we now have.”
The Politico report added that Rubio believes Trump’s racism towards U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel doesn’t reflect well on the Republican Party or “us as a nation,” adding that “some of the things he has said and done aren’t going to help” the party improve its relationships with Hispanics.
“There shouldn’t be any sort of ethnicity, religious or racial test for what kind of judges should hear what kind of cases,” Rubio said. “If you take that argument and expand it, you can make that argument about anybody in any circumstances. It’s wrong and I think he should stop.”
All of which sounds quite nice, right up until you remember that Marco Rubio endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign, his racism notwithstanding.
In case the Florida senator has forgotten, it was just two weeks ago that Rubio told the Washington Post he’s attending the Republican National Convention, releasing his delegates to his party’s presumptive nominee, said he’d “certainly be honored” to help Trump win the White House, and said of Trump’s candidacy, “I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president.”
The disconnect is jarring. “I warned you this is what was going to happen” is a compelling rejoinder for Trump’s Republican critics, but it’s not something a Trump endorser can credibly offer right now. It’s as if Rubio is effectively saying, “I told you that guy who you should definitely vote for was going to be awful.”
Postscript: Two weeks after saying he would go to the Republican convention to be “helpful” towards Trump, Rubio argued today that if he speaks at the convention, it won’t be in direct support of the candidate he’s already endorsed.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."