Tirade

Rubio grows hoarse on anti-Trump tirade

By Nolan D. McCaskill

A hoarse Marco Rubio amped up his anti-Donald Trump tour on Monday, vowing to lose his voice if he has to in order to win the Republican nomination, and scolding the mogul for his apparent reluctance to disavow white supremacists.

“You may not be able to tell, but this is not my normal voice,” Rubio told an Alcoa, Tennessee, crowd ahead of Super Tuesday, adding that his voice sounds as deep as Barry White’s. “We’ve been working hard for you, and if it means that by the end of tonight I don’t have a voice and I have to whisper how strongly I feel about the future of our country I’m willing to do it.”

Rubio's laser-focused attacks on Trump come as the real-estate mogul is embroiled in his latest controversy, after he declined to disavow the support of the Ku Klux Klan and former Grand Wizard David Duke on Sunday. On Monday, though, the businessman said he could hardly hear the question and blamed CNN’s “lousy earpiece.”

Rubio, labeling Trump unelectable after his vacillation regarding the KKK and Duke, said Republicans can’t afford to “nominate someone who refuses to criticize the Ku Klux Klan or distance himself from an avowed racist like David Duke.”

“I don’t care how bad the earpiece is, Ku Klux Klan comes through pretty clearly,” he added.

After ridiculing Trump on Sunday for his “small hands” and alleged spray tan, Rubio took a more serious tone as he continued to go after the billionaire’s record.

“As a candidate I have offered serious ideas and serious proposals, unlike Donald Trump, who won’t tell you where he stands on these issues because he doesn’t care where he stands on these issues. To him, it’s ‘we’ll figure it out when we get there.’ We cannot elect the dog that caught the car,” Rubio said, before pointing to his own plans on tax reform and entitlements, among others.

The Florida senator’s intensifying rhetoric toward Trump and increased direct attacks comes after Rubio unleashed on Trump in last Thursday’s Republican debate. It also comes ahead of Super Tuesday, when roughly a dozen states will cast votes, likely winnowing the field and showing the clearest picture yet of who has a viable path to the nomination.

“I’ve gotten a lot of emails and phone calls and texts after Thursday night’s debate — a lot of people saying thank you for finally standing up to the bully,” Rubio recalled, before describing Trump as more of a “big talker,” an attention-getting media manipulator and a “con man.”

“He’s done a good job of convincing people that he, a guy who has spent his life cheating the little guy, is somehow a champion for the little guy,” Rubio said. “But I’m not fighting for me. I’m not standing up for myself. I want you to understand, I’m trying to stand up for you.”

Rubio said the media wants Trump to win the GOP nomination “so they can descend on him like the hounds of hell. They will shred him to pieces, and then they will get Hillary elected.”

“We have a chance in this election to go in a different direction from the one we’re headed now, and it is the direction that I’m offering you,” Rubio told his supporters. “It is a direction that I ask you to vote for. It is not one that asks you to act on your fears and on your anxieties, for I know that they are real. It is a direction that asks you to embrace your hopes and your dreams for a better future.”