THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FOR 'THIS WEEK' ON JANUARY 10, 2016 and it will be updated.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: Let’s take this now to Senator Marco Rubio, who joins us from Miami this morning. You saw those projections right there, Senator Rubio. Thank you for joining us. What do you make of them and what do you need to do to overtake Donald Trump and Ted Cruz?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing now. Look, there’s al to of voters in these early states, particularly in Iowa but also in New Hampshire, that are going to make their decision very late. They’re still shopping. You can se it; you can sense it in your conversations. We’ve gotten some people that are starting to make firm commitments, but there are others that are still looking.
Look, the three weeks for an Iowa caucus-goer is a long time, and they’re going to be very careful about making their choice. They have only one vote; they know the important role they play; and we feel very, very confident about where we stand and where we’re going to be when this is over.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You heard those Iowa voters. Some concerns about your experience, one voter calling you Obama II. And that attack has been picked up by Chris Christie, Governor Christie, who’s also hitting on your experience. He’s made a point about you in a pretty graphic way this week. Let’s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: These guy’s been spoonfed every victory he’s ever had in his life. Is that the kind of person that we want to put on the stage against Hillary Clinton? I don’t think so. So pat him on the head, and then cut his heart out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Cut your heart out? What do you make of that?
RUBIO: Well, look, Chris doesn’t want to have a debate about his record. I -- you know, it’s not personal, but Chris’s record, for a Republican, is what we not need. He’s a supporter of Common Core. He’s personally given a donation to Planned Parenthood. He’s a supporter of gun rights, that’s why -- gun control. That’s why he got into office to begin with, was to run for gun control.
I mean, the last thing we need in our Republican nominee is someone who agrees with Obama and Hillary Clinton on many of the key issues before this country.
So he doesn’t want to have a debate on those issues so he says these sorts of things.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But what do you -- what do you make about that?
RUBIO: The bottom of line is --
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you make about experience that --
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you’re coming -- coming from the voters worried that you don’t have the experience, or that you could be another Obama?
RUBIO: Well, first of all, Obama’s not a failure because he was a senator. Obama’s a failure but he’s had seven years of presidential experience and he’s still making enormous mistakes, so clearly it wasn’t experience. It was his ideas and his ideologies are flawed.
But the broader point is it is true there are people running for president that have lived longer than I have, but there is no one running as a Republican for president who has more experience, has shown better judgment, or has better understanding of our national security issues than I do. And that’s the number one job of a president, is to be the commander in chief. And none of these other people running are more experienced on that issue or have shown better judgment, especially over the last five years, than I have.
And so I’m confident that as we continue to make that argument, the people who are troubled by that, will move on and come to support it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: you’re getting hit pretty hard by Ted Cruz on the issue of immigration, taking on your support of that bipartisan Gang of Eight compromise in the Senate. And this week, a new issue cropped up, an article in "The Daily Beast". And here’s the headline. It says "Marco Rubio in 2004: Cheap College for Undocumented Immigrants."
They’re talking about in the Florida statehouse, you co-sponsored legislation to provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. What was your thinking then? And do you -- do you stand behind that position now?
RUBIO: Well, first of all, a lot of these attacks are exaggerated. I don’t support amnesty. I think there has to be real consequences for violating our laws. I continue to support, and have supported and sponsored, the largest border surge in American history, 20,000 new border agents, 700 miles of fencing and walls, a mandatory e-verify system, entry/exit tracking system to prevent visa overstays.
On the bill you talked about, it was a very narrowly drafted bill. You had to have a certain GPA, you had to live in the U.S. a long time, you had to graduate from a Florida high school. It was very narrowly tailored to high performing students who found themselves in a situation where they were brought here by their parents when they were five, didn’t even speak another language except English, and therefore couldn’t attend college because they were being charged like they were from out of state. They still had to pay for college, but they paid for what people paid when they lived in Florida.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you stand behind that --
RUBIO: They had to be high school graduates of Florida.
Yes, of a narrowly tailored bill like that, absolutely. In fact, the Florida legislature came back years later, after I had left the legislature, and passed it with a vast majority of Republicans voting for it and a Republican governor. Find it. That’s different -- we didn’t legalize anybody. That’s the issue here.
And the truth is, when it comes to Ted, he has changed his position on immigration all over the place. I mean, he used to be against birthright citizens -- or he used to be for birthright citizenship; now he says he’s against it. He used to for legalizing people that were here illegally. Now he says he’s against it. He used to be for a 200 percent increases in green cards, doubling them; now he says he wants none. And he said he used to be for a 500 percent increase in guest workers. And now he says he wants zero.
So this is not consistency; this is calculation as he’s changed his position on these issues as we get closer to election day.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve also engaged in the national security debate with Mr. Cruz, saying the USA Freedom Act reforming America’s surveillance capabilities, that he supported, is going to make it harder to protect the homeland. Here’s what you said this week:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: If ISIS had lobbyists in Washington, they would’ve spent millions to support the anti-intelligence law that was just passed with the help of some Republicans now running for president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: That language about lobbyists for ISIS is pretty tough, but the bill was also supported by Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte, and almost two dozen memebers of Congress who support you. Are they all in league with lobbyists for ISIS?
RUBIO: No, but they’re named for two things: the names you just mentioned supported it not because they thought it was a good idea, but because if nothing passed, it would’ve expired. And second, they’re not running for president. We’re running for commander in chief here. And no, we should not have a commander in chief that wants to weaken our intelligence programs.
But my quarrel with Ted on these issues of national security are not limited just to the intelligence bill. If it was just that you can have an honest disagreement. We are already cutting military spending --
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you stand behind that language? Lobbyists for ISIS?
RUBIO: Absolutely. There is no doubt that groups like ISIS will benefit from us having a diminished intelligence capacity. We are now at a moment in this country where we don’t just need to keep the authorities we already have, we need to add to these programs.
Look at what happened in Philadelphia on Friday. That was a terrorist attack. The White House refuses to call it a terrorist attack. The attacker says I did this for ISIS. I’ve been inspired by ISIS. And we have a White House that refuses to acknowledge it as a terror attack. It was a terror attack. And this is the kind of threat we now face in this country. We need additional tools for intelligence.
And my last point I want to make about this: I never believed Edward Snowden was a good public servant the way that Ted Cruz once said, that he had done a public service for America. Edward Snowden is a traitor. He’s a -- he took our intelligence information and gave it to the Chinese and gave it to the Russians. We cannot afford to have a commander in chief who thinks people like Edward Snowden are doing a good public service.
STEPHANOPOULOS: President Obama made a brand new bid for background checks on gun sales this week. And one of your recent ads said that President Obama’s plan would take away our guns. The president took on this argument this week. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATESTEPHANOPOULOS: The conversation has to be based on facts and truth, and what we’re actually proposing, not some, you know, imaginary fiction in which Obama’s trying to take away your guns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Fact checkers have called you out on that as well. Where has the president called proposals for taking away guns? He has not done that?
RUBIO: Well, his proposal for everything is to -- is to infringe on the Second Amendment. There’s a terrorist attack in San Bernardino; before even the facts are known he immediately jumps and says, we need gun control.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But take away our guns?
RUBIO: This is what he always resorts to. Well, if he could he would. Obviously he knows he’s constrained by the Second Amendment so what he tries to do is chip away at it every chance he gets.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you can see --
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: And he wants this debate to be about -- George, if he could he would. And let me tell you what he’s trying to do. He is trying to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens by continuing to put new restrictions on our gun rights.
Let me give you an example. He says he wants -- Barack Obama says he wants this debate to be about fact and truth. Good. Let’s have it about fact and truth. Here’s the fact and here’s the truth: none of the attacks that he is talking about, none of these horrible, horrifying tragedies that have occurred that he cites as the rationale for these measures that he’s taking, not a single one of them would have been prevented by anything he’s proposing. And the reason why is because killers and criminals do not care what the gun laws are. They are not going to go to someone that conducts background checks. They will continue to get their guns the way they have always gotten their guns: from the black markets, stolen guns, et cetera.
So this is absurd. And the only people that are going to follow this law are law-abiding people. This is nothing but an effort from the left to continue to chip away at the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, Senator, we heard this news overnight that Sean Penn, the actor, interviewed the Mexican drug leader, El Chapo, a few months back and had follow -- several follow-ups, interviews. The Mexican authorities are now investigating. Do you have any problem with what he did?
RUBIO: Yes, I’m not -- look, I think Sean Penn is not someone I spend a lot of time thinking about. I didn’t even know he was still around. I think he made movies a long time ago or something. I don’t -- he interviewed El Chapo, we I’ll guess use the interview that he had in order to find him. That’s -- the Mexicans did, that’s fantastic. I hope they extradite El Chapo to the United States.
And, you know, if one of these American actors who have benefited from the greatness of this country, who have made money from our free enterprise system, want to go fawn all over a criminal and a drug trafficker in their interviews they have a constitutional right to do it. I find it grotesque.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Rubio, thanks for joining us this morning.
RUBIO: Thank you.
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