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Rubio pins new label on Trump: 'Con artist'

By Eliza Collins

Marco Rubio has a new line of attack against Donald Trump — con artist.

The Florida senator followed up his feisty debate performance on Thursday night by trying out the new insult, and he’s really trying to make it stick. Rubio used it no fewer than five times during an interview with CBS’ “This Morning.”

“A con artist is about to take over the conservative movement and the Republican Party, and we have to put a stop to it,” Rubio said. “He is wholly unprepared to be president of the United States.”

On the "Today" show on NBC, he kept up the attack.

“I mean, this is unreal. Again, this guy is a con artist," Rubio said. "He’s always making things up. No one holds him accountable for it. You have a guy who is being sued right now for fraud for Trump University. I’ve had stories written about my driving record. We had red light camera tickets. I have some guy go back and write a story about how when I was 18 I got arrested or cited, I should say, for drinking beer in a park after hours. He’s being sued for fraud, for defrauding people. Here’s a guy who had to pay a judgment for hiring Polish workers illegally to build Trump Towers.”

Rubio was relentless on Thursday night, dumping a virtual opposition research folder on Trump’s head as he sought to slow the mogul’s momentum going into Super Tuesday.

After Trump delivered three consecutive and decisive wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, fears have spiked that the businessman could be running away with the Republican nomination. While Rubio had been content so far to sit back and laugh at Trump’s antics from afar, he’s upped the heat this week. On Thursday night, he cranked it way up.

The Florida senator ripped into Trump for starting a “fake university” he said duped people into borrowing tens of thousands of dollars, for manufacturing his clothing line overseas, for building his empire on the back of his inheritance, for being anti-Israel, and for hiring undocumented immigrants.

While Ted Cruz often faded on the stage, Rubio showed the ease and verbal dexterity that eluded him during the pre-New Hampshire debate that resulted in a bunch of Marco-bots chasing him around on the trail.

But the big question is whether it’s too little, too late. Jeb Bush managed to briefly resurrect his campaign with a “chaos candidate” attack line against Trump, but he ultimately faded and dropped out of the race.

And both Rubio and Cruz are trailing Trump by double digits in many of the dozen states set to vote next Tuesday.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Rubio pushed back against the idea that his anti-Trump push won’t help much at this point.

“I don’t believe that. I think it’s important for people to understand they have a choice to make. Look, if this pattern continues, the conservative movement in the Republican Party will be taken over by a con artist portraying himself as the fighter of the ordinary person fighting for the working man — but he’s spent years sticking it to the working people,” he said.

When asked why he didn't start attacking Trump earlier, the senator responded: "I would prefer not to get into this situation where we’re attacking one another, but the cover he’s getting from the media these days is extraordinary." The media wants Trump to win the nomination, Rubio said, so that Hillary Clinton can win the general election.

“They’re holding back and as soon as he’s the nominee they’ll open up the floodgates and hit him with a bunch of stories. It’s important for Republicans and conservatives to be aware of what is happening," he said.

Rubio adviser Todd Harris told reporters on Thursday night that more attacks would arrive in the coming days and weeks, and he also defended the timing of Rubio’s newly strong anti-Trump posture.

“Well, look, when you have 16, 17, candidates in a race you’re playing like seven-dimensional chess and if you take on one candidate aggressively, you don’t necessarily accrue the benefit of that. We felt like this was the exact right time,” he said.

The super PAC supporting Rubio got the ball rolling on Friday, releasing two new ads. One ad from Conservative Solutions PAC titled “Knows Nothing” hits Trump on comments he’s made about foreign policy.

“Marco Rubio is a recognized foreign policy expert and Donald Trump praises Putin. Doesn’t know what our nuclear weapons triad is. Says he’ll be neutral between Israel and its enemies,” the ad says. “Trump claims he knows about China because there is a Chinese bank in one of his buildings. In today’s world we can’t have a president who knows nothing about foreign policy.”

The other ad called “Fools” uses a Trump quote from his victory speech following a win Nevada — “I love the poorly educated" — in an attempt to show the businessman as a shameless profiteer.

On Friday morning Rubio also projected confidence that he would beat Trump in Florida despite a Quinnipiac University poll that shows Trump with a 44-28 lead.

“We will win Florida. I know our state very well. It is not going to vote for someone like Donald Trump,” he said to the CBS hosts.

Trump fired back Friday morning using his medium of choice: Twitter.

"Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a chocker! Mr. Meltdown."

"Lying Ted Cruz and leightweight chocker Marco Rubio teamed up last night in a last ditch effort to stop our great movement. They failed!"