Marco Rubio says Democrats ‘don’t want to be seen’ taking on violent protesters

Sen. Marco Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio says Democrats don’t want to take on violent protesters because they are ideologically aligned.

The Senator, appearing on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning, gave his take on the latest iterations of violence in the streets of an American city, with Kenosha, Wisconsin the latest staging ground for what the Senator called a “terrible toxic brew happening in city after city.”

Despite the urgency of the situation, Rubio says Democrats are mute on riots and shootings, perhaps because it is in their political interest.

“I don’t have an answer to it,” Rubio said, “except to say they think or suspect the ideology of some of those people who are out there doing this aligns with theirs. They don’t want to be seen as taking them on.”

Rubio’s position is similar to that of Sen. Rick Scott, who said Tuesday that Democrats won’t take on the protesters because the party wants their votes.

Through a large part of his segment, Rubio urged Democrats to join Republicans in condemning the ritualized destruction of public property.

“I think it should be a consensus position in this country that burning things down, attacking courthouses, shooting at police officers, rioting, arson, vandalism, none of these are appropriate responses to whatever complaint you have about our society,” Rubio said.

“It’s all terrible. You never want to see anyone shot and hurt that way,” Rubio said. “I think we also need to wait to know all the facts about that incident and not jump to conclusions in one direction or another.”

“In the meantime, I think we should all be in agreement that no one should be tolerating, celebrating, supporting, or allowing riots or people from these armed groups to show up no matter what their ideology might be,” Rubio said. “Rioting and showing up with these guns into the street there to sort of act as a militia is not acceptable behavior.”

“It’s not appropriate for anyone, I don’t care if you’re coming from the left, the right, or whatever, to take to the streets, attack innocent people and burn things down, and attack police officers and try to burn down a courthouse. It’s not an appropriate response and we should all be on agreement on that.”