Marco Rubio says Joe Biden can’t tell the truth about secret migrant flights

Image via A.G. Gancarski

Florida’s Senior Senator expressed concern Thursday over flights containing undocumented immigrants landing in Jacksonville and other cities and White House silence on the subject.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio took questions on the Fox Business Network about why the Joe Biden administration won’t disclose more information about a series of flights earlier this year that dispersed border crossers throughout the country.

“Because it’s unpopular and they don’t want to admit to it, that’s why. That’s why they do it under the darkness of the night on these charter flights without advising local authorities, and that’s the ones we know of, by the way,” Rubio said of the “78 planes full of illegal immigrants” that allegedly landed in Jacksonville earlier this year.

Rubio distanced himself from factual accountability for the story itself, saying “that wasn’t me who was saying it, that was a local media outlet down there that found it and just looked at the last six months. There’s more flights than that. They’re probably still ongoing. And they haven’t notified anyone, talked to anyone about it.”

The Senator, as host Maria Bartiromo noted, spotlighted the story in a tweet Wednesday: “Biden secretly sent at least 78 flights carrying illegal immigrants to Jacksonville in the last 6 months. These people are out of control.”

The News4Jax story acknowledged that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement provided documentation of flights, but that there were questions about the documentation.

“Not all of the records News4Jax received made sense. One flight came from Ireland, for example, and another involves the National Guard. News4Jax has asked the state to clarify,” the news outlet published Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis attributed the FDLE documents to “a reliable and confidential source who provided information about numerous flights coming into Jacksonville from various locations transporting what was believed to be potential illegal immigrants.”

In comments earlier this month, the Governor suggested sources from inside the federal government were divulging this information.

“I know when we initially got wind of this, it wasn’t through normal channels. It was people in the federal government who were effectively leaking this to us so that we have a heads up on it,” DeSantis said.