Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioFlorida senators pushing to keep Daylight Savings Time during pandemic Hillicon Valley: DOJ indicts Chinese, Malaysian hackers accused of targeting over 100 organizations | GOP senators raise concerns over Oracle-TikTok deal | QAnon awareness jumps in new poll Intelligence chief says Congress will get some in-person election security briefings MORE on Thursday night defended the personal attacks he has lobbed at Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHR McMaster says president's policy to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is 'unwise' Cast of 'Parks and Rec' reunite for virtual town hall to address Wisconsin voters Biden says Trump should step down over coronavirus response MORE but said he wouldn't do anything that "Jesus wouldn't be proud of."

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In an interview after the GOP debate in Michigan, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly questioned Rubio about the vicious personal attacks that have emerged between the two candidates.

During the debate, Rubio called for his rivals to focus on policy, but the Florida senator tangled in several spats with Trump.

Rubio slammed the front-runner's candidacy as a scam and tied him to his controversial Trump University, which faces a class-action lawsuit alleging fraud.

“If I don’t do it, it’ll be because I don’t want to do anything, for example, that Jesus wouldn’t be proud of, to be honest with you,” Rubio said. “Or that my kids would look at and say, ‘I don’t want you to keep doing that.’”

“There comes a point where you have to stand up to someone and you have to be clear that if you want to make this about personal attacks, there’s a long list of personal attacks that could be made about you,” Rubio continued.

“If anyone deserves to be hit with that, it’s him. He’s literally spent a year doing that,” Rubio said.

Rubio guaranteed a victory in Florida's winner-take-all primary on March 15, shrugging off polls showing him trailing Trump by double digits.

“I just know the people of Florida, and I’ve won there before and we know how to win there,” Rubio said.

But he acknowledged that it will be a tight race. “It’s a unique state and a swing state for a reason even in our own party it is.”