On his radio show Monday, Rush Limbaugh addressed criticisms of Sen. Marco Rubio's performance at Saturday's Republican presidential debate and defended the Florida senator’s point.
During the debate, Rubio argued several times that “anyone who believes that Barack Obama isn't doing what he is doing on purpose doesn't understand what we are dealing with here” and that the president’s policies are the result of a deliberate effort to chip away at America’s standing as a global superpower rather than the result of incompetence.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio speaks during the Republican presidential debate Saturday at St. Anselm's College Institute of Politics in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
“At appearances in New Hampshire all day yesterday and even this morning, he is still out saying it,” Limbaugh said before playing a montage of Rubio repeating the line at the debate.
Rubio was criticized for his repetition of the point, most notably by rival candidate Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), who called Rubio’s argument a “memorized 25-second speech.”
Limbaugh, however, defended Rubio for making the point. “The real question is: Why are these other guys not saying it?” he asked.
Limbaugh argued that Rubio’s point isn’t a “belief” or a “theory,” but the “knowledge that Obama is doing this on purpose.”
“Why does Chris Christie make fun of it? Why does Donald Trump poo-poo it? Trump, I have to leave out of this, out of this theory. But Trump also — just for the record — said he thinks Obama's an incompetent boob, doesn't know what he's doing. Christie's point is: Obama's incompetent, he doesn't know what he's doing because he's inexperienced, just like Rubio doesn't know what he's doing because he's inexperienced — it's Barack Obama Two in that Rubio would be an inexperienced senator elected president, we don't want to do that again."
“Rubio's point,” Limbaugh continued, is that “Obama's not incompetent, he's not inexperienced, he's doing exactly what he wants to do and none of these Republican moderates will go there. You want to know why? You want to know why? You want to know why they cannot agree that Obama is doing this on purpose? It's very simple. They cannot agree that Obama is doing it on purpose, they do not dare say that Obama is doing it on purpose, because they have all worked with Barack Obama.”
“When you have worked with Obama, when you have asked Obama to come to your state, and when you have embraced Obama and done everything you can to get assistance from Obama, well, you can't turn around and then say Obama is purposely trying to transform the country because it makes you look like an idiot,” Limbaugh said. “So you have to fall back on the idea that it's unintentionally, just incompetent, just a boob, and we can't elect anybody else as inexperienced as Obama was because we're going to have the same mess.”
“There’s not a single Republican in this field who would — by virtue of inexperience — make the mistakes Obama is making because Obama is not making mistakes. Obama has an agenda. And I think the real important question here to ask and answer is: Why won’t anybody but Rubio and Cruz say it?”
Listen to Limbaugh’s remarks below:
