Sen. Marco Rubio quietly returned to his hometown of Miami when a demonstrator found him and tried to confront him on video about why he won’t appear at a town hall. | GETTY | Getty Rubio skedaddles from demonstrator over skipping town halls

MIAMI — With liberal-leaning protesters hot on his trail, Sen. Marco Rubio skipped raucous town halls that have bedeviled his Republican colleagues this week as he headed to Europe.

Here’s what Rubio kept under wraps: he quietly returned to his hometown of Miami on Wednesday night — only to run Thursday morning right into camera-wielding protesters who wondered why he was ducking the public.


First, a union activist found Rubio at a political science class he co-teaches at Florida International University, where Rubio couldn’t get away. In the second instance, at a hospital event that was closed to the press and public Thursday, the senator had a different reaction.

Rubio skedaddled.

“Senator, I thought you were in Europe?” the demonstrator asked Rubio in a video first posted by Miami New Times, which obtained the footage from a union member.

“What?” Rubio replied without breaking stride, prompting the young man to refer to “Missing” posters that activists have begun circulating about Florida's junior senator.

"I saw all these missing child posters all over town,” the unidentified man asked. “Are you going to host a town hall? I’m glad you’re ok.”

Rubio: “Good to see you, man.”

“Are you going to host a town hall? We need to hear from you, Senator,” the demonstrator replied.

Rubio kept walking.

Rubio’s office has previously said that he wouldn’t attend the town halls because they’re stocked with liberal activists, who oppose President Trump’s immigration policies and Republican efforts to dismantled Obamacare. One group held a town hall in Tampa Wednesday night that featured a cardboard cutout of Rubio.

The demonstrator asked Rubio if he intended to go to a Miami town hall on Thursday, but Rubio refused to say as he hustled away.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Rubio and his office announced he was leaving the country to meet with “heads of state and senior government officials in Germany and France, two countries with upcoming elections who are facing concerns about Russian interference.

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Appropriations Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Rubio is conducting this official oversight trip to discuss the U.S./E.U. relationship, NATO operations, counter-ISIS activities, foreign assistance programs, and Russian aggression in Europe.”

The notice wasn’t posted on his official Senate website, but his office has since posted more details about the trip. His office said he was joined by other members of Congress and his wife, Jeanette.

On Wednesday night, his office refused to say when Rubio would return to the United States. On Thursday, after Miami New Times posted its video, Rubio’s office acknowledged that he had arrived back home the previous night.

While Rubio has been averse to speak publicly about his plans to end Obamacare or to attend town halls, some of his Republican colleagues have been more open.

In Arkansas, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton faced a large meeting of protestors but thanked them for participating in the democratic process. In Florida, U.S. Reps Dennis Ross and Gus Bilirakis faced hostile crowds, but U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis skipped them.

At FIU, one of the demonstrators noted that all of the Miami-area members of Congress have ducked the public and refused to host town halls.

“Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, no town hall. Carlos Curbelo, no town hall. Mario Diaz-Balart, no town hall,” one demonstrator said. Earlier, he noted that even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had time for a town hall.

Rubio, with Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera at his side, took the time to debate another man about Obamacare. Rubio said Obamacare doesn’t give people enough choices and, instead, he said he favored Health Savings Accounts.

“I want us to have as many choices as possible,” Rubio said. “I want you to be able to control your healthcare spending and use it to purchase any kind of health insurance you want. And if you don’t have enough money to pay for it on your own, then you get a tax credit, the ability to fund an HSA.”

Rubio has been stressing the need for more choice and fewer regulations in healthcare since and before he was Florida’s House Speaker, from 2007-2008.

None of Rubio’s reforms or rhetoric made much of a dent in Florida, however. Florida had one of the highest rates of uninsured individuals. Only after Obamacare mandated and subsidized more health insurance coverage did more Floridians get insured.

In talking with his critics, Rubio said he didn’t want to change Medicare for those currently on it. But he said the system needs to be reformed because it’s going “bankrupt.”

But one demonstrator questioned whether Rubio knew what it was like to not have health insurance.

“You get government healthcare. So you’re taken care of,” the young man said. “It’s us that are not taken care of.”

UPDATED with more details on his Rubio's remarks to a demonstrator at Florida International University, where the senator teaches a class, and more details about his travels to Germany and France.