Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continued his war of words with Sen. Marco Rubio Tuesday by going after his “pathetically weak” positions on immigration.
Trump, who made the comments to radio host Laura Ingraham, argued that Rubio’s stance on the issue “ends his shot” at the GOP nomination, adding further that Rubio also doesn’t have the “gravitas” to pull off a victory.
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“Well, I’m going to be nice. I’ll be a little bit nastier as time goes by I think, but I’ll be nice,” Trump started off. “Rubio is not going to be the one. It’s not going to happen. Doesn’t have the gravitas. It’s not going to be Rubio and, frankly, that would be the wrong one in this case.
“Rubio is very, very weak on illegal immigration. A member of the Gang of Eight, which said basically, ‘Come on in folks. Just come on in.’ Extremely strong on amnesty. I don’t think it can be him,” Trump said, before calling him “pathetically weak” on the issue. “In my opinion, that ends his shot, but there are other reasons. He doesn’t have the gravitas.”
Trump said that the illegal immigrants he plans to deport “are never coming back,” which signals a change in position for the real estate mogul who has said repeatedly in the past that non-criminal illegal immigrants would be fine to come back to the U.S. legally. This is a position Rubio seized upon Monday night, where he told the Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker that everyone in the GOP 2016 race has supported a form of amnesty, including Trump.
“Everybody running for the nomination for the presidency on the Republican side supports legalizing people who are here legally,” Rubio said at the WSJ’s CEO Council in Washington. “Donald Trump wants them to leave before he legalizes them,” Rubio said. “And then he’s going to legalize them and bring them back in. Everyone else has supported in the past or supports now legalizing through some criteria people who are in this country illegally.”
According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Trump (24 percent) and Rubio (12 percent) sit first and third, respectively, in national polling. However, Rubio continues to top Trump in the Washington Examiner’s latest power rankings, which see the Florida senator leading the field.
