Duval Times

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss the conviction of former President Donald Trump by a New York City jury. The full interview is available on YouTube and Rumble.

Regarding the conviction, Rubio stated: “Just walk out in real life. I’m not talking about the people sitting in air-conditioned studios in New York and in Washington, D.C. that are cheering over this and are giddy about all of it. CNN was on the air, and as they announced these verdicts, you can hear somebody on the set giggling and cheering and gasping. They were joyful about what had happened. But take those people aside, and the average person says: ‘They’ve convicted him of a felony because he categorized a payment to his lawyer as a legal expense? That’s a felony?’ People look at that [and think], ‘The whole thing is nuts.’”

Rubio criticized various aspects of the trial process: “The judge was an open Biden supporter. His daughter is a Democratic operative. The jury, of course, was selected from Manhattan. The DA promised to put Trump away while he was running for office before he knew what he was going to charge him with. Add all these elements, and then the way the trial was conducted…. No doubt, this will go through the appellate process. There are probably some federal constitutional rights that were clearly violated here."

He also suggested that Trump's political future might benefit from this conviction: "Put that aside, I think Trump benefits from this. I think they elected him president last night."

Reflecting on broader implications for American politics, Rubio remarked: “What does this mean to our country? What this means to our country is that we now live in a United States of America that looks like the countries I have visited over the years and that we have lectured for years about rule of law—a place where the court system is weaponized, used to go after political opponents and the people who work for them with a very clear message: ‘If you stand in our way, we are going to make your life a misery.’ Trump has the means and resources to pay for lawyers and fight this thing. Most people out there, myself included, [do not]. If I were charged and facing all of this, it would bankrupt me.”

He concluded with concerns about potential misuse of judicial power: “That’s what I think we need to fear now. There are plenty of Democrats—Soros, left-wing Marxist prosecutors—prepared to charge people on the right with crimes in order to get them out of politics, and that’s a very scary place to be. I never thought I would live in a United States of America that had that feature of its politics. That’s where we are now. That’s the line these people have crossed.”