Rick Santorum struggles to name Marco Rubio's accomplishments
After former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday night, he threw his hat in the ring for Marco Rubio -- but he may not know exactly why.
In an interview with MSNBC early Thursday, Santorum struggled to name a single accomplishment of Rubio's during his tenure as a U.S. senator, pointing to his former rival's "potential" instead.
"My feeling on Marco is someone who has tremendous potential, tremendous gifts," Santorum said.
Santorum added that in recent years, "nothing got done" by any lawmaker in Congress.
"He spent four years in the United States Senate being frustrated like everybody else," he said. "You got a completely feckless Congress, and you can't say, 'well, he was there, and therefore, you know, it's his fault.'"
"I'm not being difficult here," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough interjected. "I'm just asking you to name one accomplishment."
Pressed twice more to identify a success of Rubio's Senate career, Santorum replied: "Well, I know he included something that went after insurance companies in the most recent omnibus, I know that he fought for that, to uh, to stop bailing out insurance companies. That's one thing I'm familiar with that I just saw recently."
Santorum was referring to Rubio's provision that would restrict the use of risk corridors, which were intended to protect health insurers from heavy losses in the first years of Obamacare, if they had too many very sick or expensive people to insure.
Growing more frustrated with the line of questioning, Santorum continued: "The bottom line is there isn't a whole lot of accomplishments [in the Senate], Joe, and I just don't think it's a fair question."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who appeared on Fox News on Thursday morning, took the exchange as proof of Rubio's lack of experience.
"No one -- not even Marco Rubio's supporters -- can name one accomplishment he has had in his entire career," Christie said.