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LARGO, Fla. – Senator Marco Rubio, in his strongest and most emotional condemnation yet of Donald J. Trump’s incendiary brand of politics, likened Mr. Trump to a third-world dictator who was leading the country dangerously close to a boiling point. And for the first time Mr. Rubio questioned whether he could support Mr. Trump as the Republican nominee.

“Most countries around the world that are failures are because they deposit their hopes in a person, a strong leader who comes forward and says ‘Put me in power. And I will make the country better,’” Mr. Rubio said in an interview Saturday with The New York Times.

“That’s exactly what he’s doing,” Mr. Rubio continued. “The rhetoric reminds me of third-world strongmen.”

As he campaigned in Central Florida three days before the primary that will most likely decide his fate as a presidential candidate, Mr. Rubio sounded at times as if he was in a state of disbelief about the turn the presidential race has taken.

“There’s going to be a reckoning no matter how this election turns out,” he said. “And I just don’t know if that’ll happen in time. I hope it does.”

“But you mark my words,” he added, his voice growing sharper. “There will be prominent people in American politics who will spend years explaining to people how they fell into this.”

Mr. Rubio began the day with a news conference condemning Mr. Trump for inciting supporters who have punched and beaten demonstrators.

“This is a frightening, grotesque and disturbing development in American politics,” Mr. Rubio said of the violence at Mr. Trump’s events, which reached such a pitch on Friday night in Chicago that the real estate developer was forced to cancel an event that had drawn thousands of people.

Mr. Rubio had previously said that if he were not the Republican nominee, he would support whoever was, even if it were Mr. Trump.

“I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee,” he said at the news conference, pausing to contemplate his words. “But,” he added, “it’s getting harder every day.”

Mr. Rubio spread the blame for the anger coursing through American politics – to the protesters, the media and the left, which he said too often tries to stifle dissent. But he reserved his harshest words for Mr. Trump.

“We are being ripped apart as a country,” he said.

Though Mr. Rubio has taken on Mr. Trump more directly and forcefully as his own campaign for president lost altitude over the last two weeks, he was never as forthright or as angry as he appeared on Saturday.

The toll of a long and difficult campaign was showing on Mr. Rubio, who has been facing growing questions and even doubts from some of his own supporters about whether he can continue in the race much longer.

At times he sounded almost despondent, questioning not just the ugly turn the presidential campaign has taken but the future of the American political system.

Mr. Rubio continued to vent when he took the stage at a campaign rally here outside Tampa on Saturday morning.

“I’m not sure what happens next,” he dolefully told the crowd of about 200, a smaller gathering than he had been drawing just a week ago. “No matter what our political differences may be, who wants to live in a country where everybody hates each other?”