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Rubio bots hot on Marco's trail

Supporters of Marco Rubio got a little rough with protesters dressed as robots on Tuesday.

A video posted by the liberal group Americans United for Change on its YouTube channel Tuesday showed people holding "New Hampshire is Marco Rubio Country" signs, with one man using it as a shield to block Aaron Black, the man in the silver robot costume, holding the "#RobotRubio" sign from getting any closer to the candidate as he arrived at a Manchester school.

Another person is seen grabbing the man's arm as Rubio's supporters chant, "Marco! Marco! Marco!"

"You know, I don't know what their major malfunction was, but I must have seriously pressed their buttons," Black said in an interview with POLITICO, during which he made more robot puns as he stressed more seriously that the episode was "really unfortunate."

"There's no need for it to get physical. It's just a shame," Black said.

Another protester in the video, Eddie Vale, the vice president of the liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, sports a cardboard box with the group's website address and the words "MARCO TALKING POINT 3000."

Vale, the vice president of the group, tweeted photos Tuesday morning of the group's encounter with Rubio's staff.

Rubio staff begin shoving me pic.twitter.com/oJDy0Miihc — evale72 (@evale72) February 9, 2016

In another, he tweeted a photo of Kevin McAlister, the group's deputy communications director.

Kevin after they ripped his costume off pic.twitter.com/vzhOiQXsEV — evale72 (@evale72) February 9, 2016

A later photo from The Associated Press showed Black being held back from a smiling Rubio, who was visiting a polling site at a Bedford high school. Black was later seen being escorted by security, passing by Rubio spokesman Alex Conant, out of the Radisson hotel in Manchester. Black told POLITICO that he was standing by Rubio staff members talking to people as he held his #RobotRubio sign.

Rubio has been roundly criticized after repeating the same line four times that "Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing" during last Saturday's debate, facing increased scrutiny of his particular wording in speeches. On Monday night, Rubio repeated essentially the same phrase twice in the same minute about the difficulty of raising children in a modern society.

Hadas Gold contributed.