Marco Rubio downplays questions about past finances
Sen. Marco Rubio on Wednesday admitted that if he could go back, he would have handled his finances differently when he was the speaker of the House in Florida. For several years, he used a Republican Party-issued American Express for both work and personal expenses.
"It wasn't a credit card," the 2016 presidential candidate insisted to reporters after a campaign event at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. "It was a charge card with American Express, and every month I would get a bill in my home, and I would review it. And if there was something on it that was personal, I would pay it. And if it wasn't, the party paid it."
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Rubio added that in hindsight, he should not have used the card that way.
"I just wouldn't have done any personal things on it," he said, "because I would have avoided all of that confusion that it's created in the minds of some."
That confusion has been fueled in part by other GOP candidates running for the White House who see a potential weakness for the Rubio campaign, which has been trending upwards in the polls since last week's CNBC debate in Colorado.
Donald Trump, for instance, said Wednesday that Rubio "has a disaster on his finances, on his credit cards." Rubio dismissed that comment as another example of Trump being Trump. "I don't know what he [Trump] said," Rubio said. "He's said a lot of things. I can't respond to everything he says. I wouldn't be able to run a campaign."
Pressed on Trump's negative comments, Rubio said the bombastic businessman was lashing out due to a slide in recent polls.
"When Donald Trump comes across a poll he doesn't like, he gets weird and he does these kinds of strange things. And that's fine... If that's the kind of campaign he wants to run, he's entitled to it. I'm going to continue to talk about the future of America."
Rubio also said that his campaign would release the rest of the financial statements in question but would not specify when, saying, "I don't know, in the next few weeks, but we will."