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Sen. Marco Rubio clarified his view on the 11 million immigrants, who are in the United States illegally. The day after a presidential debate, which exposed a continuing divide in the Republican Party on immigration, Rubio told NPR on Wednesday that he favors a path to citizenship for some, though the prospect would be very distant. "If you haven't been here very long, or you're a criminal, you will be deported," Rubio told NPR's Morning Edition. "Otherwise, you will have to come forward, pass the background check, learn English, pay a fine, because you violated the law, start paying taxes,...

During last night's Republican presidential debate, Rand Paul criticized Marco Rubio's "plan for $1 trillion in new military spending" as "not very conservative." Rubio responded by inaccurately describing Paul as "a committed isolationist" and declaring (twice) that the United States needs to be "the strongest military power in the world." But Rubio did not explain why a bigger Pentagon budget is necessary to accomplish that goal. After all, the U.S. already devotes much more money to military spending than any other country. Paul said "we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined." According to the latest...

Rubio: 'We need more welders and less philosophers' At Fox Business Network's Republican presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) argued that increased vocational training and other measures would be more effective at helping American workers than raising the minimum wage. (Fox Business Network) During the fourth Republican debate, Marco Rubio picked up a point touched on by Rick Santorum in the undercard debate earlier in the night. 'Welders,' Rubio said, 'make more money than philosophers.' Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler looked at the idea, but we thought it could use a visual. Using data from the Web site PayScale, we...

The two candidates appear to be on a 2016 collision course , and at Tuesday’s debate Cruz foreshadowed the attacks his campaign plans to unleash on Rubio. MILWAUKEE — Search the transcript of Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate and you'll be hard-pressed to find Ted Cruz uttering a single unkind word about his 'good friend' and primary opponent Marco Rubio. But read between the lines, and you'll find that Cruz foreshadowed some of the attacks his campaign plans to unleash against Rubio this winter. Without calling out his Senate colleague by name, Cruz twice took subtle digs at Rubio during...

Sen. Marco Rubio clarified his view on the 11 million immigrants, who are in the United States illegally. The day after a presidential debate, which exposed a continuing divide in the Republican Party on immigration, Rubio told NPR Wednesday he favors a path to citizenship for some, though the prospect would be very distant. "If you haven't been here very long, or you're a criminal, you will be deported," Rubio told NPR's Morning Edition. "Otherwise, you will have to come forward, pass the background check, learn English, pay a fine, because you violated the law, start paying taxes, and you'll...

Events over the past few months including the rising popularity of nontraditional, anti-establishment presidential candidates, an insurgency within the House of Representatives leading to the early retirement of John Boehner, and a politically detrimental showdown with Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, have the Republican establishment visibly shaken. On the congressional front, party Golden Boy, Paul Ryan, probably sacrificed his future dreams of the Oval Office to take over the party’s highest leadership position. A move that may not be good for the party long-term, but salvaged what could be saved of the party’s leadership. Further complicating its image problem is the...

Democrats and the GOP Establishment have lost control of the political process. They can’t count on the mainstream media to do their bidding because of the rise of alternative media. There’s also the problem of conservative Republicans pushing back, not apologizing for their views, and not being able to control elections. As the Kentucky governor’s race showed, Republicans win big if they stick to issues the conservative base supports: pro-life, anti-same-sex marriage, and Tenth Amendment principles. Matt Bevin has said he will tell the EPA to “pound sound” if the agency rules against Kentucky’s coal industry. "The powers not given...

(snip) In 2006, Rubio released a book called "100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future." In the book's section on healthcare, Rubio decried the fact that "more than 3 million Floridians lack health insurance and may face barriers in accessing needed health services." As a solution, Rubio pressed to expand government-run healthcare programs and create an insurance exchange -- both core tenets of Obamacare. (snip) The Florida GOP spent roughly $575,000 to promote Rubio's book, according to the Palm Beach Post. Rubio also set up a nonprofit to promote it. The book's promotion of themes echoed by Obama could intensify recent...

If there was any doubt that one of the storylines to watch in Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate will be the intensifying battle between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, it should be gone after a sequence of events that entangled the two campaigns Monday night. After the New York Times reported that the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise USA has filmed an attack video claiming Rubio's hard-line stance on abortion makes him unelectable and its top strategist has shown a willingness to unleash as much as $20 million worth of ads targeting the Florida senator, Rubio's campaign tried to...

Aides to Jeb Bush and the super PAC backing him are so freaked out and betrayed by Sen. Marco Rubio's rise in the Republican presidential polls and Bush's decline, they are setting aside up to $20 million to sink Rubio's campaign and previewing an attack ad criticizing Bush's former protege as too extreme on abortion to get elected president, report Maggie Haberman and Michael Barbaro at The New York Times, citing at least three people "privy to" discussions and preparations in the Bush camp. Bush and Rubio are facing off in a Republican debate on Tuesday, and given how poorly...

The Marco Rubio campaign is making the most out of the blockbuster story in today's New York Times about the Jeb Bush campaign about to go nuclear on Rubio. Specifically, Right to Rise, Bush's super PAC, is apparently ready to spend $20 million in attacking Rubio. "Part of running for president is you have to put your big boy pants on and get vetted on the issues, so we know we don't have a dud candidate running against Hillary Clinton," Right to Rise chief strategist Mike Murphy told the Times. Forget whether the strategy makes any sense - who could...

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said he tried to produce the most conservative immigration bill that was possible in a Democratic-controlled Senate, and he thought a GOP-controlled House would make it even better, but that a lack of trust in the federal government helped doom the 2013 push on the issue. “I live in a state that’s deeply impacted by immigration, and I was trying to make a difference,” Mr. Rubio said on Monday evening’s “Hannity” program on Fox News. “I was trying to produce the most conservative bill possible in a Senate controlled by Democrats and had hoped a...

"As revenge for their 'boy' becoming his own man, Mike Murphy intends to destroy Sen. Marco Rubio." Here is something you need to know to this morning - Jeb Bush's Super PAC ads have been terrible. They have not helped Jeb Bush at all. In fact, more Republican primary voters say they would never vote for Jeb Bush than say the same about Donald Trump. Here is something else you should know - Team Bush premised his strategy on keeping Sen. Marco Rubio out of the race. Bush announced early that he intended to run, then stockpiled his Super PAC...

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 4m4 minutes ago Marco Rubio is totally weak on illegal immigration & in favor of easy amnesty. A lightweight choker - bad for #USA! Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 6m6 minutes ago Marco Rubio couldn't even respond properly to President Obama's State of the Union Speech without pouring sweat & chugging water. He choked! Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 8m8 minutes ago Marco Rubio is a total lightweight who I wouldn’t hire to run one of my smaller companies - a highly overrated politician!

Republican senators are coming around to the view that Jeb Bush is unlikely to win the party's nomination for president and that freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) is the most viable prospect for the general election. Rubio has had plenty of support among Beltway pundits since the outset of his campaign but Bush's poor performance in the last Republican debate, together with his declining poll numbers, have begun to shift sentiment in even the upper echelons of the GOP's establishment. "Marco's in the driver's seat. There's a lot of disappointment in Bush's performance," said one Republican senator, who requested anonymity...

The La Raza-backed Rubio-Schumer immigration bill would have granted amnesty to the illegal alien population and would have expanded immigration levels beyond all known historical precedent— issuing 33 million new immigrants on green cards in the span of a single decade, permanently transforming the U.S. electorate and economy. Every immigrant with a green card could in turn bring relatives to the United States, collect welfare, and eventually vote and thus cancel out conservative ballots. “He was not only totally committed— he was in that room with us, with four Democrats, four Republicans… for hours a day, week after week after...

With the recent revelation that Senator Marco Rubio has been receiving, and is actively soliciting, funds from billionaires with vastly different agendas from those voters who elected him in 2010, many are questioning how he would act if he were elected president. With the departure of Scott Walker from the Republican cast of candidates seeking their party's nomination, and with the virtual disappearance of a presence in the polls by establishment candidate Jeb Bush, it was no surprise that Rubio's star began its ascendancy. As Paul Singer, one of Rubio's wealthy donors, wrote, Rubio "is the best explainer of conservatism...

Rep. Steve King,an influential conservative who represents Iowa's Fourth Congressional District, is warning Americans and Iowans that a massive amnesty for all of America's illegal aliens may be unstoppable if Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is elected president. "With Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as Speaker, we have this big question about what amnesty might be not in this Congress but with the next president," King said on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel with Breitbart News’ Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon. “I have apprehension about that.” King says he thinks that the final battle ahead of Iowa's caucuses...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio can run away from immigration legislation as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination, but Sen. Chuck Schumer says he can't hide from it. As he has risen in the polls, Rubio has methodically sought to distance himself from the comprehensive immigration bill he coauthored more than two years ago. But Schumer, the veteran New York Democrat, is dragging him back into the fray, shining a spotlight on one of the 44-year-old's biggest vulnerabilities with the right as top Democrats seek to undermine the GOP senator's surging candidacy. "He was not only totally committed -- he was...

GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Wednesday he'll release in the next few weeks all of the statements detailing his use of an American Express card he shared with the Republican Party of Florida. Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House, had the party-issued card from February 2005 to November 2008. During his successful 2010 bid for U.S. Senate, news broke that Rubio had charged items such as grocery bills, plane tickets for his wife and repairs to the family minivan to the card. His spokesman, Alex Conant, said Wednesday that those expenses were for party business, and that...