Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) struggled during a Thursday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to defend his endorsement of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) presidential campaign.
Santorum was asked three times to give a reason that swayed his opinion to the freshman senator after Santorum suspended his own campaign on Wednesday.
Host Joe Scarborough asked Santorum to “name (Rubio’s) top accomplishment.”
“My feeling on Marco is someone who has tremendous potential, tremendous gifts,” he said. “If you look at being a minority in the U.S. Senate in a year when nothing got — in four years when nothing got done, I guess it’s hard to say there’s accomplishments.”
“Tell me what happened during those four years that were an accomplishment for anyone,” he added.
When it was pointed out that Republicans took majority control of the Senate after the 2014 mid-term elections, Santorum still danced around a specific action by Rubio.
Santorum said Rubio had been running for President for most of the time Republicans have had their majority, and before that, the Senate was in gridlock.
“The first four years, he was in the minority and nothing got done,” he added.
Santorum told Fox News on Wednesday he didn’t “endorse lightly.”
Scarborough again asked for specific moment that turned Santorum’s opinion. Host Mika Brzezinski pushed further, “Jeb Bush ran Florida. Donald Trump built a company. Marco Rubio… Finish the sentence.”
Santorum said Rubio was elected as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, which is a position selected by colleagues. He also said it was unfair to lay the lack of results from a “feckless Congress” at the feet of Rubio.
“It’s a bogus argument,” Santorum added.
Scarborough fired back: “It’s actually not a bogus argument. All I’m asking is a simple question.”
Here’s the exchange, from MSNBC, below:
.@JoeNBC asks @RickSantorum 3 times: Can you name Rubio’s top accomplishment in the Senate? Here’s his answer. https://t.co/87024wzg4C
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 4, 2016
Two creeps (Scar & Frothy). Interesting trick: Frothy manages to be way creepier than the ex-Congressman with the dead intern in his office.
Maybe he’s hoping a President Rubio (shudder) would give him a job, so he wouldn’t have to go back to producing execrable fundagelical movies nobody wants to see?
ROFL. Santorum went on the show not expecting the single question anyone could possibly have of him at this moment.
Santorum: Rubio is a copy of our great christian hero, George W Bush. He is young, clueless and has no belief system. All he needs to do is pick Dick Cheney as his VP choice and our country will be set. We will have tax breaks, wars etc and blame it on traitor democrats.
Other than remaining upright and breathing what accomplishments have there been?