Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) found a friendly audience to air his grievances about Republican frontrunner Donald Trump Saturday, as the Conservative Political Action Conference crowd repeated booed CNN correspondent Dana Bash during a question and answer session.
After his speaking slot at the event, Rubio took issue with Bash asking questions about the billionaire real estate mogul. When Bash pressed him about his recent campaign jabs about Trump’s hand size, the candidate said he was only hitting back.
“Where I grew up, if someone keeps punching someone in the face, eventually someone’s going to punch him back,” Rubio said.
Earlier, after Bash asked Rubio why he thinks Trump has became the party’s frontrunner, Rubio fired back.
“I think you’re one of the reasons why,” he said. Rubio backtracked a bit, clarifying he wasn’t referring to Bash in particular but about the media at large, and pointed out that two of the first three questions Bash asked were about Trump.
“That’s fair, that’s fair, but he is the frontrunner,” Bash said, as the crowd wildly applauded Rubio.
Rubio responded, “But even before he was the frontrunner, Donald would offend someone personally, he’d make fun of a disabled reporter, or attack a woman journalist, and he would dominate news coverage.”
Conservatives on Twitter seized on the exchange as evidence of the media’s hypocrisy.
Bash suggests Rubio is problem w/ vulgarity of campaign. Unfreakingbelievable. Rubio says sometimes bullies need to be punched back. Cheers.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) March 5, 2016
CNN rewards, ceaselessly, Trump’s clownishness. Now Dana Bash hounds Rubio for getting in the mud with him.
— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) March 5, 2016
Why is Dana Bash deposing our candidates at CPAC?
Would Dems do this at one of their conferences?
What the hell is the matter with us?
— John Nolte (@NolteNC) March 5, 2016
Watch video of the question and answer portion of the event, posted online by the Rubio campaign:
