Rubio sides with Trump, celebrates Texas bus incident

'Here's the thing they don't know," Marco Rubio told a Trump rally. 'We do that in Florida every day.'

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is publicly applauding the recent incident in which Texas supporters of President Donald Trump surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus. 

The aggressive caravan of at least 100 trucks adorned with Trump 2020 flags has ignited an investigation by the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety. 

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Rubio, speaking at a Trump campaign rally in Opa-locka Florida, said, “I saw yesterday a video of these people in Texas. Did you see it? All the cars on the road, we love what they did.” 

“But here’s the thing they don’t know,” Rubio noted. “We do that in Florida every day.” 

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He added that the drivers in the caravan, as well as previous boat parades, were “all great patriots.” 

On his show Monday night, which featured former Ohio Governor John Kasich, CNN anchor Don Lemon targeted a few comments toward Rubio. “Imagine your family was on that bus, your wife and kids were on that bus,” he said, asking, “You’re encouraging that? … What is wrong with you? There were people on that bus whose lives were in jeopardy.” 

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Kasich, who has publicly backed Democratic nominee Joe Biden, said that Rubio’s comments were “shocking” and that he was “stunned.” 

Kasich said that Rubio, like many other politicians who stump for Trump, get “caught up in the enthusiasm” of his rally crowds. 

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While running against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2015 and 2016, Rubio called Trump a “lunatic,” a “con man” and a “dangerous” and “erratic” candidate. Yet, four years later, he has voted with Trump policies 90 percent of the time.

In a tweet Sunday night, Trump defended the caravan, saying, “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong. Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”

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A recent Newsweek article notes that the Trump supporters involved in the caravan coordinated the event in a private Facebook group called “Alamo City Trump Train.” According to the report, messages with the group suggest that members of the group were armed. 

Snopes found that posts within the group also featured comments related to the controversial far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that “ruling elites” are part of a satanic cult involved with sex trafficking. 

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