Democratic congressman challenging Rubio for his Senate seat says: ‘I don’t know how he can look himself in the mirror’

Hours after a leaked video emerged in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women without their consent, Florida senator Marco Rubio condemned the Republican nominee’s comments as “vulgar, egregious [and] impossible to justify”.

Donald Trump forced to apologise as sex boast tape horrifies Republicans Read more

But as Republicans fled from Trump en masse on Saturday and in many cases called on him to step aside, Rubio did not rescind his endorsement of the former reality TV star. Rubio has avoided campaigning alongside the nominee, a notable absence from Trump’s multiple appearances in Florida in recent months, and has no plans to campaign with him before election day.

To Patrick Murphy, the Democratic congressman challenging Rubio for his Senate seat, the senator’s silence raises questions about his character.



“If he wasn’t such a coward he would stand up immediately and withdraw his endorsement,” Murphy said in an interview with the Guardian late Saturday.

“It speaks, unfortunately, to who he is as a person. For Marco Rubio to continue putting his own political ambitions in front of what he knows is best … I don’t know how he can look himself in the mirror after these comments and think it’s OK.”

In the video from 2005, which emerged on Friday, Trump boasted that when approaching beautiful women he could “grab them by the pussy” and kiss and grope them because he is a star.

For Rubio, who endorsed Trump despite the two sparring bitterly in the Republican presidential primary, the routine of distancing himself from the real estate mogul’s controversial rhetoric is nothing new.

The senator constantly found himself rebuking Trump’s statements – whether on immigrants, Muslims or women – during his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination. Rubio similarly denounced Trump’s attacks on an American judge of Hispanic descent and the Gold Star parents of an Iraq war hero; but while seeking re-election to the Senate, Rubio has also openly advocated for electing Trump to the presidency even as he maintained prior criticisms that included not trusting his former rival with the nuclear codes.

And as other Republicans have struggled to walk the fine line between supporting Trump and fully embracing him, for Rubio the balancing act has appeared to pay dividends. He overwhelmingly defeated a challenge from the right in the Florida Senate race – critical to Republicans’ chances of holding on to an already precarious majority – and has run ahead of Murphy in most polls even as Trump has trailed Hillary Clinton.

A new NBC/WSJ/Marist survey released on Sunday showed a potentially tighter race, with Rubio holding just a two-point lead.

Trump’s latest comments could open a new front for Democrats in a race they recently signalled was no longer competitive by pulling back resources such as ad spending. The progressive group MoveOn.org released a new spot on Sunday, in which it played Trump’s comments about women against a side-by-side photo of him and Rubio.



“Rubio stood by Trump after months of indefensible behavior like this,” the ad read.



As other Republican Senate candidates, such as Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Joe Heck of Nevada, withdrew their support for Trump, Murphy pounced with an op-ed calling on Rubio to either rescind his endorsement of Trump or withdraw from the race.



Reached for comment, a spokeswoman for Rubio’s campaign said the senator was focused on recovery efforts following Hurricane Matthew and pointed back to his initial statement on Twitter. “No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private,” Rubio wrote late Friday.

On Saturday, the senator took an aerial tour of the damage caused by the storm but did not wade into the political fallout surrounding Trump.

Murphy told the Guardian he, too, had been occupied with the hurricane. But it was not a sufficient excuse, in his view, for Rubio to decline to weigh in further on Trump when dozens of Republicans in Congress had launched a mass exodus away from the nominee.

“The fact that he’s only going to tweet on this speaks volumes,” Murphy said.

“A lot of people are waiting for some strong actions or some strong words on this. I think he’s making a calculated decision about his political career and that having Donald Trump’s support will help him long term.”

Complicating matters for Rubio was the growing list of Republicans dropping Trump by the hour. Among them was Rob Portman, a senator from the battleground state of Ohio, who like Rubio has succeeded thus far in running a parallel race to Trump’s, absent the damage associated with the nominee’s toxic brand of politics.

“While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him,” Portman said in a statement late Saturday, while stating his intention to write in Trump’s running mate, Indiana governor Mike Pence, for president.

“I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency”.

Senator John McCain, facing a tough re-election battle in Arizona, also pulled his endorsement of Trump. Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who reluctantly backed Trump last month after declining to endorse him at the Republican National Convention in July, was reportedly reconsidering his decision.

Conventional wisdom holds that Cruz and Rubio will seek the presidency once more. Murphy, who has hammered Rubio for refusing to commit to serving a six-year term if re-elected to the Senate, told the Guardian his opponent’s calculus with respect to Trump had only to do with a second presidential bid as early as 2020.

“It’s hard to know who the real Marco Rubio is anymore,” Murphy said. “I just think he’s going regret it”.