Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) defended the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last week, saying that the justices “clarified what the law is.”
Rubio, one of former President Trump’s top contenders to be his running mate, said that Trump is being politically targeted when asked Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he was “comfortable” with the Supreme Court’s ruling. He later appeared to back the high court’s ruling, which said presidents are given broad immunity for official acts when in office.
“Well, first of all, I’m uncomfortable with the fact now that we have a president who targets political opponents. That’s what’s happened under Joe Biden,” Rubio said. “When Donald Trump was president, I can’t think of a single prominent Democrat who was chased around, persecuted, prosecuted.”
“It’s funny to me to read these people and hear these people out there warning about all the horrible things they ridiculously claim Donald Trump is going to do if he becomes president again,” he added.
Rubio echoed a familiar argument by Trump and his allies who have suggested, without evidence, that President Biden is the driving force behind some of the former president’s legal woes.
CNN’s Dana Bash pushed back on Rubio’s statement, noting that the Justice Department has targeted Democrats under Biden’s administration, including Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).
“Well, they only go after Democrats that don’t do everything the Democrats want them to do,” Rubio responded.
He then said that justices just clarified the existing law before reiterating that Trump and his allies are being targeted.
“And that is you cannot go after presidents for official acts, and there’s a presumption of immunity for quasi-official acts or semiofficial acts or exactly the terminology they used on it, not — they were pretty clear about that,” Rubio said.
“You look at what their efforts and what they have done in the courts to persecute and prosecute Donald Trump, they have tried to bankrupt him, they have tried to silence him, they have tried to jail him, they have gone after his allies every single day,” he added.
Rubio is one of the vice-presidential hopefuls for the former president. Trump has said that he has chosen his running mate, but has yet to make the formal announcement.
