A.G. Gancarski
Sunday saw U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio on both “Face the Nation” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” discussing Russian election interference and global human rights.
For those looking for evidence of how Rubio might — as he promised on the campaign trail — serve as a “check” on President Donald Trump, these interviews offer hints.
____
Regarding Russia, Rubio made the case that the Senate Intelligence Committee should carry the ball.
“Our job in the intelligence committee has been to look at this entire episode for the purposes of counterintelligence in particular and then arrive at the facts, put them out in a report, and move on from there,” Rubio said.
“That’s what we’re endeavoring to do in a bipartisan way and again, the best way to do that is not to litigate it in the press, but to do our work and put the report in a way that is credible so no one can deny its credibility and no one can say that we went into it already having made up our minds,” Rubio added.
As well, Rubio noted his uniquely personal “concern about Russian interference.”
“Back in October I was running for re-election and it looked like my race was going close. I may have been the only Republican in the country running for Congress who refused to discuss WikiLeaks, use it against my opponent or use it against Secretary Clinton because I said it was the work of a foreign intelligence agency. I said it then, I believe it now. I think our report will lay that out and any other facts pertinent to that,” Rubio said.
___
Also on Sunday, Rubio tweaked the Trump administration’s trip to and kowtowing to Saudi Arabia and other regimes with human rights issues, saying the Trump team “believe[s] that on the countries that are cooperative with us on other issues — like Saudi Arabia, like Egypt — we should privately confront them on the issues of human rights. That you’ll get a better result that way.”
“Now, I have a different take on it. I believe that human rights are important for us to speak about publicly … that these countries — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the like — are not sustainable in the long term if they continue to systemically violate the rights of their people,” Rubio added.
