Marco Rubio wants us to believe that all of that money flowing his way from the millionaires and billionaires funding his super pacs and political campaign don't have a bit of influence on his agenda.
And once again we can give Meet the Press host Chuck Todd the award for the false equivalency of the day for conflating the Clinton's charity with a political pac and treating them like they're the same thing with the framing the questions for Rubio. We all know you're never allowed to ask someone about Republicans behaving badly without the appropriate "but the Democrats" thrown in there as well, which is exactly what Todd did here.
TODD: Your, something like more than half of the money that's been raised on your behalf, some super pacs, some in your personal campaign, come from about less than ten donors total. What do you owe those donors? How is is that you don't, you say you don't owe them, people make this argument. Aren't they going to expect something in return?
RUBIO: I don't think so. First of all, I can't even deal with those donors because they're involved with the super pac and I can't coordinate with any outside groups. Second, I've always been clear my entire time in politics, whether it was in the city mission is West Miami, the state legislature, Speaker of the House, running for Senate or now for president. I have an agenda. It's a consistent agenda. People buy into my agenda. If they like what I say , they donate. If they don't, they don't. They go with somebody else.
TODD: So Norman Braman whose been a friend of your family, huge donor, he doesn't get special access in the White House?
RUBIO: No. I mean, he's my friend obviously and somebody that I'll deal with on a personal level. Norman Braman's never asked me to do anything for his business interests or anything else.
TODD: So let's take you at your word. Should Republicans then take the Clintons at their word about the Clinton Foundation?
RUBIO: Well, I think the concern about the Clinton Foundation that many people have is the influence of outside, foreign donors that are given to that, especially at the time she was Secretary of State.
TODD: But their argument is essentially a similar argument. This is for charitable causes. This is for rebuilding Haiti. This is for AIDS, to stop AIDS in Africa and you know, that's not... that does not have an influence.
RUBIO: So I think the concern there is when you have a foreign entity donating millions of dollars to a foundation for a family while someone is the sitting Secretary of State and then you can link that to decisions that were favorable to interests in those countries, there's a concern raised.
TODD: How do you prevent that happening in your administration. Are you going to have a... are you going to build a firewall have this trust but verify?
RUBIO: I think the best way to do it is know what you stand for and say this is what I'm for, this is what we're going to do and quite frankly, you do it irrespective of whether someone donated money to your campaign or not. And that's just the way I've always governed myself. I have never allowed financing issues in a campaign to determine where I stand on an issue.
And if you believe that, I've got some swampland down in Florida to sell you.
