States of america. This is an msnbc special town hall with senator marco rubio. From Florida International university in miami. Here is chuck todd. And good evening, and welcome to the msnbc town hall with republican senator marco rubio of florida. Were here on the campus of Florida International university in miami, home of the fiu panthers. Lets go, panthers. Huh . Dont tell my friends a little north of here what i just said. Anyway, the question that in this is a critical moment for senator rubio to date. Hes won just 2 contests out of 24 in the race for president which makes tuesdays primary in his home state of florida absolutely critical to his chances. So lets get started and welcome the senator from florida, marco rubio. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. [ applause ] all right. You happy when youre home . Yeah. Are you happy when youre home . Oklahohome, home. I teach at fiu. Some people got as in here. You a tough grader . No, theyre voters. Wow, the real trick, right . Always get the professor whos running for office. All right. Lets get started with stuff that you probably dont want to talk about. It was a tough night last night for you. Yeah. Youve only won 2 con tests out of 24. You have a lot of even friends of yours saying theyre not sure why youre going to keep going. Ive heard that from the press. I understand that. The bottom line is this, first of all, running for president is tough. It shouldnt be easeasy. Second of all, it is true we havent done as well in some of the states that we want the ed. Florida is going to award 99 delegates all at once. You can win more delegates in florida than arocross five or seven states in an apportioned process. Even if i had done really well in all the previous states, if i had not done well in florida, it would be trouble for our campaign so we need to win here, thats our priority. Were focused on it like a laser. Were going to win. We feel really good at it. You at a point [ applause ] you have said a vote in the state of florida, vote for ted cruz or john kasich is a vote for donald trump. Is that your attitude in ohio . Are you telling your supporters, vote for john kasich in ohio . No, im telling you in florida why not . Shouldnt that be the strategy . Ill let kasich say that to you. In florida, the only one who has a chance of beating donald trump is me. Now, if [ applause ] if you like donald trump, that doesnt matter, but if you dont want donald trump to be the nominee, even if youre a supporter of ted cruz or even if youre a supporter of kasich, you vote for marco rubio because a vote for anyone other than me is a vote for donald trump. Im the only one that almost a million votes are are in. Im the only one who has any chance of beating donald trump in florida because if he gets floridas 99 delegates we have a different conversation next wednesday about the state of the republican race. Do you think youre struggling in florida because youre retiring from the senate . A couple things in florida, number one, its a big, big state. No one can run a fulltime president ial campaign in florida and run one in new hampshire, iowa, south carolina, the other states we were invest in. Second of all, its a state largely been operating off the National Media and the National Media, to be fair, has given donald trump ten times as much coverage than any other republican candidate combined. Its had an impact. Were working on reversing that now here in florida. Its going to be a hard work, but you know what, ive been in tough races before. Its an election. You have to earn these things. Let me tell you, running for president is not nearly as hard as being president so you better hope your president went through a trial in the campaign, because being president is even harder. You know, the other thing im wondering about this is [ applause ] that as much of the personality of donald trump gets in the way, there isnt an id youlogical difference. The two of you have two different definitions of conservatism. You know, his is sort of an older version of it, small c conservative, less intervention, tighter borders, skeptical of trade deals. Youre more of you look at america as a world power, sort of being at the center of the world a little more open to intervention. Obviously a little more open to immigration. Little more open to trade deals. Thats really the debate inside the Republican Party that, perhaps, republicans just want to go back to an older definition of conservatism and not yours . I think you give donald trump too much credit in terms of ideological stand. Hes all over the place about these issues. Its largely about an attitude, not about policpolicy. If theres one thing hes consistent on, going back to 87. Except for his own businesses where he makes everything overseas. The thing i would say to you about it, im a Ronald Reagan conservative. I grew up in the era of reagan. My view of conservatism is shaped by that experience. Its not an interventionist position. It is the belief that the world is a better place when america is the strongest country in the world. Look, in the absence of American Global leadership, there is no other nation or institution that can play that role and the result is chaos, and the evidence of it is every sector of the world today faces chaos. The absence of American Leadership in the asiapacific region led to the chinese taking over the south china sea, North Koreans aggression. Natos reduction in capability inviting Vladimir Putin to be more aggressive. Lack of American Leadership in the middle east resulted in the vacuums that exist in syria, in iraq, increasingly in libya. Theres a consequence for the lack of American Leadership. Youre seeing it all over the world. Some might argue its too much intervention that created, that sudden that that created i heard that in some cases. Its not accurate. Libya, the uprising was caused by the libyan people. Gadhafi was on his way out. The choice we had to make, did we let it go for two years . The same has been the case in syria. In the case of iraq, that was the withdrawal, the premature withdrawal by barack obama that left maliki in charge, allowed him to go hard after the sunnis and the sunnis welcomed isis in as liberators. Not anymore but they did initially because they viewed the shia government in baghdad as a puppet of iran. Youve been harsh on donald trump. We put together a montage. Ive been harsh . Ill go anywhere to speak to anyone before i let a con artist get ahold of the Republican Party. I mine, hes so thin skinned. So erratic. And to think youre going to make someone like that commander in chief, i want people to think about that. I think the problem here is donald trump is not really a republican. Hes not a conservative. I mean, donald trump basically has policy positions that are indistinguishable from democrats. Do not give into the fear. Do not give into anger. Do not give into sham artists and con artists. Trying to carry out is a scam to take control of the office of the presidency of the United States. [ applause ] i guess my question is, how can you support a con artist . Just because you any regret on the idea that you will support donald trump as the nominee . You call him a con artist, scam artist. I think its indicative of how bad i think Hillary Clinton would be or Bernie Sanders to even condetemplate that. You think theyre con artist, though . I think Bernie Sanders is a socialist which he admits. I think hk hk Illary Clinton is unqualified to be the president of the United States, mishandled her email server and donald trump the bot tom line, i dont wat him to be the nominee. If anyone else, if john kasich was where donald trump is now, if jeb bush is where donald trump the race is over. Would you be out of the race if this were john kasich thats the point. The point is no matter what i say today about supporting or not supporting the nominee, theres a significant percentage of republicans that are not going to vote for donald trump. That is why hell get destroyed in the general election. Thats what will happen. Its one thing to say youll support him. Should we assume theres no way you could be on a ticket with a con artist . You put it that way. You are calling him a con artist. I cant imagine im not running for Vice President , not looking to be anyones Vice President. I want to be the president can you be shermanesque . If he offers it f donald trump offers you the slot, you will say no . Im not interested in being Donald Trumps or anybody elses Vice President. Thats not what im aiming at. You didnt answer the question. I dont want to be Vice President of the United States. If donald trump asked you, youd say no . Absolutely. By the way, i am not running to be anyones Vice President. Im not looking to be anyones Vice President. I want to be the president of the United States or ill be a private citizen. Theres nothing wrong with being a private citizen. So i love public service, but its what i do. Its not who i am. Any thought theres been all these people that are trying to get you and ted cruz to somehow fuse together as a ticket to stop donald trump. You open to that at all . I said that in an earlier interview. Thats house of cards stuff. Looks good on tv, it doesnt ever work that way. Bottom line is, you know, this process is going to play itself out. We are focused on florida. So dont be surprised if we dont do well in some other states next tuesday because were not there. Were here. Wed like to pick up delegates in other states. We have good teams in other states. Were focus the on florida. My home state, 99 delegates. We do well here, well talk wednesday about the state of the race. I feel very positive about it. On that note, let me get some students involved in a couple of questions. Here. We got a lot of them, actually. Jose andreas. How are you, senator . Hi. My question is, how can you sacrifice basic christian principles like loving your neighbor, as we saw with recent verbal attacks on trump . You justified this by saying if anyone deserves it, its him. The bible says, we deserve hell, yet we still receive grace. As a christian as well, this question is important to me. Well, let me say on the policy issues i dont think that violates my faith because the result is righteous indignation. Were talks about the presidency of the United States. So youre going to elect the next commander in chief, someone that will have a real impact on the future of our country, representing themselves as someone who theyre not, its appropriate to the campaign to point thoet ouse out. Personal stuff, at the end of the day its is not something im proud of mind kids were embarrassed by it. If i had to do it again, i wouldnt. Not on the other charges. Not on the other things. When if cot comes to the fact h portraying himself as hes not, the stakes are not a worthless degree at trump university, the stakes are the greatest nation on earth. On that, i think im well within the reaches of my faith you regret the schoolyard stuff . You know why, because in the end what happened is, first of all, i think he had to be stood up to. I really do believe that. But that said, but that said, thats not the campaign i want to run. Took a toll on you. Well, i dont know about political toll. Im saying you didnt look comfortable doing, to be honest. He need to be stood up. This is a guy whos basically offended everyone for a year. Literally has mocked a disabled journalist, a female journalist, every Minority Group imaginable on a daily basis. It becomes use profanity from the stage. That said, yeah, i dont want to be that. If thats what it takes to become president of the United States, i dont want to be president. I dont think thats what takes to be president. I know its not what it takes. Its not what we want from our next president. If i had to do it again, i would have done that part differently. Not his record on business. Thats legitimate. The people need to know what they are electing is not who he says he is. Let me bring up adrian. Thank you, senator, thank you, chuck. You got it. Senator, you received money from Hedge Fund Managers like paul singer and megacorporations like the geo group, private prison corporation. How often are you influenced . None. My agenda in is writing. Im the only candidate who has an expentensive agenda online. When someone gives money to my campaign, theyre buying into my agenda, im not buying into their agenda. Its there to be held accountable to. Everybody in this race has contributors. Every issue in america has money on both sides of it. Everyone in this race, even donald trump who said hed selffunded loaned his campaign 17 million, he expects to be paid back by contributors. You have to be willing to say, look, heres my agenda and because of my jaeagenda there a people who dont support me. Multimillion dollar checks were written and used to try to defeat me in this campaign. Those people have interests. Some of them were Hedge Fund People as well. Ultimately i take a clear positions on issues. You can hold me accountable to where i stand. There are people that support it and people that oppose it. In america you have a firstamendment right to participate in the process that way. In addition, im sorry, chuck. Its okay. Candidates like Bernie Sanders dont receive any money from any Interest Groups unless its the people, people like sitting this room. So how would you compare yourself to Bernie Sanders . Theres no comparison, Bernie Sanders is a socialist and if you want to live in a socialist country [ applause ] i think if someone if you want to turn america into a socialist dedemocra knocmaxide election, fight you every step of the way. If you want to live in a socialist country, there are dozens of countries around the world you can move to. Im going to fight every day to keep america a Free Enterprise society so theres no [ applause ] quick before we go to break. If you could change one thing about the Campaign Finance system after going through all this, as a candidate, what would you change . I dont know. To be honest with you, i dont know. You think its broken . Well, look, theres a lot of money in politics. Heres the bottom line. If you look at whats happened in this campaign, the dominant feature of the Trump Campaign has not been that he ran a bunch of commercials. Hes been able to dominate thorrthor media. The head of cbs, may not be good for america but hes good for cbs because of ratings. I thnk thats true in every one of these networks. Theres millions and millions dollars of media thats out there. The other point id make, every time we tried to run a commercial, all these Media Outlets charge us. We have to raise money. You keep charging us to run commercials. That, i hear you. Theres no magic wand youd wave here. The First Amendment is so broad it allows people to run ads that are lying about me. Theyre allowed to do it. Speaking of television ads, i have to run a couple here. Take a quick break. When we come back, were going to do immigration, health care. Some real policy wonk stuff. Be right back. burke at farmers, weve seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. Even a stag pool party. party music splashing destruction splashing destruction burke and we covered it, october twentyseventh, 2014. Talk to farmers. 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To you recognize the underlying cause of ilLegal