WASHINGTON _ Former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn on Monday endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for the GOP presidential nomination and said Donald Trump was "perpetuating a fraud."

Coburn, a Republican who was Oklahoma's most popular political figure when he resigned in early 2015, said Rubio was the only Republican candidate in the mold of former President Ronald Reagan.

"While some are offering a message of victimization and helplessness against Washington, Marco understands that ‘We the People’ are not the establishment and the elites in American society.

"We need a president who will reawaken our belief in the American idea and not merely complain about how things are but challenge us to dream of what could be."