Rubio Addresses Conservative, Tea Party Critics, Then Presses On With His Disastrous Bill

Matt Lewis has some choice quotes and video from Sen. Marco Rubio’s Senate speech earlier today.

“I have received numerous emails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists,” he said at the beginning of his remarks.

“To hear the worry, anxiety, and growing anger in the voices of so many people who helped me get elected to the Senate, who I agree with on virtually every other issue, has been a real trial for me,” he confessed.

But he said he told them that he would go to Washington to “fight to stop what is bad for America,” and that what we have now is, in fact, hurting America. ”I simply wasn’t going to leave it to Democrats alone to try to figure out how to fix it.”

So, going by the evidence, he chose collaboration with Bob Menendez and Joe “Unfettered Path” Biden instead.

Rubio wasn’t done.

And he assured them he would continue to fight along side them for “real tax reform, lowering the debt, balancing our budget, reducing regulations, rolling back job-killing environmental policies and repealing the disaster of Obamacare,” and to defend “the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.”

Passing the immigration bill makes all of those battles more difficult for Republicans to win. All of them. Over time, his immigration bill hands the Democrats power for a generation. When that happens, ObamaCare will seem quaint compared to what they’re likely to come up with.

I don’t know how the man who ran on a strong border security platform and is now trading that away for empty promises from Chuck Schumer gets any sleep at night. Maybe they’re not the same man after all.