Marco Rubio fires back at NBC host: 'The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory'
Florida Senator Marco Rubio went toe to toe with NBC host, Kristen Welker, when asked if he would concede to the 2024 election results 'no matter what.'
Sen. Marco Rubio, R.-Fla., sparred with NBC host Kristen Welker over whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election "no matter what happens."
"No matter what happens? No! If it’s an unfair election, I think it’s going to be contested by each side," Rubio said.
Welker attempted to elicit a further response from the Florida Republican with versions of the same question, prompting Rubio to reply, "You’re asking the wrong person. The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000. Every single one."
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Sen. Marco Rubio fired back at NBC's Kristen Welker over 2024 election results. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images | William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)
Welker went on to play a clip of Rubio certifying the 2020 election before questioning the senator on the public’s ability to be confident in this year’s election results. "Democracy is held together by people with confidence in the election, and their willingness to abide by its results," Rubio said in the 2021 clip.
The NBC host asked, "By your own definition, are Donald Trump’s claims undermining Americans’ confidence in democracy?"
"What undermines elections is when NBC News, and every major news outlet in the country in 2020, censored the Biden laptop story, which turned out to be true… You couldn’t even talk about it on social media, they would deplatform you," Rubio said.
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Migrants gather outside the Roosevelt Hotel, where dozens of migrants camped out as they tried to secure temporary housing on Aug. 2, 2023, in New York City. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Rubio’s sentiments echoed those of South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott when interviewed on "Meet the Press" earlier this month.
"If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country," Scott told NBC. "At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump."
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Sen. Marco Rubio questions Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate subcommittee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 22, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Rubio, a potential vice presidential candidate for former President Trump, was also asked about his level of support for the former president’s plans to use the military to deport illegal migrants.
"We cannot absorb 25, 30 million people who entered this country illegally. They’re here illegally, what country on earth could tolerate that," he told Welker. "We’re going to have to do something dramatic to remove people from this country that are here illegally, especially people we know nothing about."
"This is not immigration, this is mass migration, this is an invasion of the country," Rubio added.