One day after treating Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to a fawning one-hour town hall with her biggest fans, on Tuesday, NBC’s Today took a more hardball approach with Republican contender Marco Rubio. Co-host Matt Lauer pressed the Florida Senator on his attendance record: “29% of the time over the last year you not in attendance when votes were taken in the Senate....Are you placing your own personal ambitions above your responsibilities to your constituents down in Florida?”
Rubio pushed back: “When you run for president – everyone’s that’s run for president in the past has faced this – there are times when you're not going to be there. Now let me tell you, we have cancelled events and traveled across the country to make votes, especially if we can make a difference or if it’s a high-profile issue of importance.”
Lauer repeated: “So you don't think you're putting your ambitions above the people of Florida?” Rubio declared: “No, my ambitions aren’t for me, my ambitions are for the country and Florida and that's why I'm running for president.”
Back in December of 2007, the left-wing website Daily Kos actually went after then-Senator Barack Obama for skipping numerous important Veterans Affairs Committee meetings in order to campaign for president. In an interview with Obama in January of 2008, just two weeks following that report, Lauer made no mention of the controversy.
At the top of Tuesday’s interview, Lauer touted Rubio’s recent rise in the polls, but quickly found the “bad news”:
Good news, the polls are up and bad news that makes you a target for some of your opponents. Let me tell you what some people are saying about you. Jeb Bush is telling people that when he was governor of Florida he led and you followed. Donald Trump has apparently sent you some kind of a gag gift meant to poke fun of the fact you have a tendency to perspire. From the other side, Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted, “Someone had to say it, Marco Rubio is no foreign policy whiz kid.” Flattered?
Rubio dismissed the criticism: “Yeah. I mean, look, this is what happens. When people are running for office, they’re looking for something that’s going to give them a competitive advantage and if they think talking bad about someone is going to give them that, then that's what they’re going to do.”
After grilling the Republican on his Senate attendance, Lauer tried to get Rubio to weigh in on the race for the next Speaker of the House and argued that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was not fit for the job:
...should Kevin McCarthy be the Speaker of the House?...You don't get a vote, but he made some very controversial comments recently which seemed to tie the work of the House Benghazi Committee to a political move to damage Hillary Clinton in the polls. Does that disqualify him from being Speaker of the House?
On Monday, fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie asked Clinton if the Benghazi Committee should be "disbanded" in the wake of McCarthy's comments.
Lauer then turned to the recent school shooting in Oregon and nudged Rubio to support gun control measures:
> If I say to you that a young man, 26-years-old, living in Oregon with a history of mental illness according to his own mother owned 14 guns, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
> So how would you lead on this issue? If you are the President of the United States, how would you lead so that issues and cases like the Oregon community college shooting do not continue to repeat themselves?
> So we have two issues, we’ve got “Why are people so violent?”, mental illness. You do not see guns as an issue at all?
Here is a full transcript of the October 6 exchange:
7:08 AM ET
MATT LAUER: Let's turn now to the race for the White House, and there's movement on the Republican side. In the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, that’s a national poll, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is now tied for third place. And what a coincidence, Marco Rubio, good morning.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO [R-FL]: Good morning, thanks for having me.
LAUER: Nice to see you, Senator, how are you?
RUBIO: Good.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Marco Rubio One-on-One; GOP Candidate Opens Up on Presidential Race]
LAUER: So you're one of the first people we've been able to see here in the last month or so where can I say you had a good September.
RUBIO: We feel good about it. I mean, we felt good about the entire campaign. It's a long road but it's a lot of fun to do this, to go out around the country and get to meet people and talk about the issues.
LAUER: Good news, bad news. Good news, the polls are up and bad news that makes you a target for some of your opponents. Let me tell you what some people are saying about you. Jeb Bush is telling people that when he was governor of Florida he led and you followed. Donald Trump has apparently sent you some kind of a gag gift meant to poke fun of the fact you have a tendency to perspire. From the other side, Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted, “Someone had to say it, Marco Rubio is no foreign policy whiz kid.” Flattered?
RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, look, this is what happens. When people are running for office, they’re looking for something that’s going to give them a competitive advantage and if they think talking bad about someone is going to give them that, then that's what they’re going to do. And as far as – I’m – apparently the water is very high quality water, it's top-notch water that he sent us, that Donald Trump sent us, so we're grateful for the gift.
LAUER: Let me ask you a serious question about your attendance, that’s been one of the topics people have hit you on lately. 29% of the time over the last year you not in attendance when votes were taken in the Senate.
RUBIO: Yeah.
LAUER: And I know you say you're running for president, but your record before that wasn't great either. Are you placing your own personal ambitions above your responsibilities to your constituents down in Florida?
RUBIO: No, in fact, majority of the job of being a senator is not walking on to the Senate floor and lifting your finger on a non-controversial issue and saying which way you're going to vote. The majority of the work of a senator is the constituent service, the committee work, and that continues forward unabated. When you run for president – everyone’s that’s run for president in the past has faced this – there are times when you're not going to be there. Now let me tell you, we have cancelled events and traveled across the country to make votes, especially if we can make a difference or if it’s a high-profile issue of importance.
LAUER: So you don't think you're putting your ambitions above the people of Florida?
RUBIO: No, my ambitions aren’t for me, my ambitions are for the country and Florida and that's why I'm running for president. And I honestly believe that if I can become elected president we can begin to fix some of these issues that I've been so frustrated we’ve been unable to address during my time in the Senate.
LAUER: An issue coming up this week, should Kevin McCarthy be the Speaker of the House?
RUBIO: Well, I don't opine on the leadership races of the other body in the process. I know Kevin, but I don’t know him well. I’m going to let House members decide who the next Speaker is.
LAUER: You don't get a vote, but he made some very controversial comments recently which seemed to tie the work of the House Benghazi Committee to a political move to damage Hillary Clinton in the polls. Does that disqualify him from being Speaker of the House?
RUBIO: Well, I don't think it disqualifies him. But let me just say, I think it's a bad idea to opine on the leadership races of the other body. They’re gonna get to choose the Speaker of the House. They know him better. There's a campaign going on over there for that office. We'll let them choose the Speaker and we’ll work with whoever it is.
LAUER: If I say to you that a young man, 26-years-old, living in Oregon with a history of mental illness according to his own mother owned 14 guns, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
RUBIO: That his family shouldn't have allowed him to do it, that he should have been reported to authorities, that there should have been more mental health services available for someone like that. What I know is this, many of the proposals that are out there now on gun control would not have prevented that had attack or some of the others we've seen in the past. Unfortunately, in cases of mental illness or in the cases of someone who just wants a gun to carry out a crime, they’re not going to follow the law.
LAUER: So how would you lead on this issue? If you are the President of the United States, how would you lead so that issues and cases like the Oregon community college shooting do not continue to repeat themselves?
RUBIO: Well, a couple points to make on this. Number one is, we need to start examining why it is that people are taking violent action, not what they are using to go commit the violent act with. And we have two issues in this country, one is mental illness, which we need to begin to address more seriously as opposed to stigmatizing it or some cases trying to put it aside, and that’s a societal thing that we need to confront as a society and a country. And the other, of course, is why have we become so violent as individuals? What is it that's leading people in this country who are not mentally ill to do the sort of drive-by shootings and things that we’ve seen?
LAUER: So we have two issues, we’ve got “Why are people so violent?”, mental illness. You do not see guns as an issue at all?
RUBIO: Well, guns are what they’re using to commit the violence. And again, in many of these cases, the laws that are actually being proposed would not have prevented them. For example, these were not assault rifles, these were handguns that he had purchased. The same was true in a previous attack just a few weeks ago. The laws that many are proposing would have done nothing to prevent these attacks.
LAUER: Let me ask you one little thing before you leave. In a recent interview, a former Clinton campaign manager said that the ticket that worries the Democrats the most is Rubio/Kasich or Kasich/Rubio.
RUBIO: I like Rubio/Kasich better or Rubio/someone else. But look, we have a very talented bench of people running on the Republican side. We're fortunate to have that. You know, the Democrats are still struggling to come up with one.
LAUER: Would you agree to be part of that ticket in either direction?
RUBIO: Well, I want to be the top of the ticket, that's why we’re running for president. I feel good about our campaign.
LAUER: Senator Marco Rubio, it’s good to have you in the studio with us.
RUBIO: Thank you.
