Marco Rubio in Fox News Sunday interviews during 2015


On Foreign Policy: Opposes nuclear deal with Iran; but supported deal in 2012

Q: Back in 2012, you supported President Obama's negotiation of a nuclear deal with Iran. Now, you say that if you're elected president, that you might revoke any deal he makes. You said, "I don't want it to come across as a sort of saber rattling person, because I'm not. Have you seen the movie 'Taken', with Liam Neeson? He has a line and this is what our strategy should be. We will look for you. We will find you. And we will kill you."

A: Who would not be in favor of a deal if it would be a deal that Iran would allow themselves to walk away from any sort of enrichment or reprocessing? But that's not what the deal is. We now know what the outlines of the deal are and they're much worse than anybody anticipated. And in terms of saber rattling in our approach to terrorism: When you give these radical groups safe havens, whether it's in Syria or Iraq or Libya, they use those safe havens to carry out attacks against Americans and our allies, and increasingly here in the homeland.

Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls May 17, 2015

On Immigration: Comprehensive immigration reform is politically infeasible

Q: Back in 2013, you were one of the authors of the comprehensive immigration plan, which included a tough border enforcement, crack down on employers, but also a path to citizenship. Here's what you said back then in about the 11 million people in this country illegally. But after it passed the Senate and ran into trouble in the House, you bailed on comprehensive immigration reform. How come?

RUBIO: It's not that we bailed. It's that we don't have the votes to pass it. In fact, we have less votes for comprehensive immigration reform today than we did two years again when that passed, because of the last election, because of unilateral actions the president took through executive order, because of a border crisis, because of minors. So I still believe we need to do immigration reform. I still talk about that on the campaign trail. I outlined it in my book, "American Dreams." The problem is, we can't do it in one big piece of legislation. The votes aren't there.

Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls May 17, 2015

On War & Peace: No mistake to invade Iraq in 2003; we thought Iraq had WMDs

Q: Back in 2003, when asked if the Iraq invasion was a mistake, you said, "I don't believe it was; the world is a better place because Saddam Hussein doesn't run Iraq." After finding that there were no weapons of mass destruction, would you, if you knew that, have been in favor of the Iraqi invasion?

RUBIO: Well, not only would I have not been in favor of it, President Bush would not have been in favor of it. And he said so.

Q: So, it made sense to invade Iraq in 2003, but now you say it was a mistake?

RUBIO: That was not the same question. The question was whether it was a mistake. And my answer was it's not a mistake. I still say it was not a mistake, because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it was governed by a man who had committed atrocities in the past with weapons of mass destruction.

Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls May 17, 2015

The above quotations are from Fox News Sunday interviews during 2015
(Chris Wallace interviewing candidates for 2015 and 2016 races).
Click here for other excerpts from Fox News Sunday interviews during 2015
(Chris Wallace interviewing candidates for 2015 and 2016 races)
.
Click here for other excerpts by Marco Rubio.
Click here for a profile of Marco Rubio.
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Page last updated: Nov 30, 2021