Twitter night owls enjoyed an entertaining twitter rant from Sen. Marco Rubio late Monday evening, as the Florida Senator railed against irresponsible, poorly sourced media reports.
Starting after 11 p.m. Eastern Time, Rubio posted a link to a Washington Post article discussing possible running mates for presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump.
MORE: Rubio Won’t be Trump’s Veep – Or Call Him
“Funny to read about unnamed ‘people close’ to me who claim to know my thinking on future plans,” he tweeted. “They just make it up.”
Rubio continued, targeting both the “unnamed sources” in the stories who “often claim to know more than they really do because they enjoy status of being perceived as ‘in the know’” and “reporters desperate for content.”
Rubio also attacked another WaPo article that claimed he “hated” being in the Senate, tweeting that those were “words I have NEVER said to anyone.” Sounds like that “longtime friend” cited as the source in the WaPo story might not be such a great pal after all.
Rubio then mocked this type of poorly-sourced reporting with several more tweets about his plans for Tuesday:
Rubio’s frustration with the media is far from a new phenomenon. Back in April, a Rubio quote was taken out of context and spawned multiple news stories claiming that Rubio was “warming” to Trump, and that Republicans should avoid dividing the party with a contested convention. As Hot Air’s Allahpundit correctly pointed out, the full context of Rubio’s remarks made it clear he was not “articulating his own personal opinion,” but rather “presenting this as an argument that Team Trump could (and will) make to the delegates.”
Earlier, back before Rubio suspended his presidential campaign, a CNN story with one anonymous source claimed that “Rubio advisers” were telling him to drop out before the Florida primary. This report contradicted everything that credible reporters had been hearing from Rubio’s people for weeks prior, who had all been unanimously consistent that he would stick it out through his home state’s primary.
Not only was the CNN story “utter nonsense,” as Rubio’s communications director Alex Conant described it, CNN had not even contacted the campaign for a comment before posting the story. Conant went on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer later that day and lambasted the network for failing to check with the campaign.
The mind-boggling part about these stories is that it should not be so hard to get it right, but it appears that all too often, the magnetic pull of a preferred narrative is stronger than the journalistic obligation to make a few phone calls and check a few facts.
In an exclusive for Heat Street earlier this month, I reported that Trump’s claims that he had spoken to Rubio about the VP job after winning the Indiana primary – and that Rubio had been “very nice” and “very supportive” – were completely false, a story that we were able to get after reaching out to multiple people actually in Rubio’s inner circle, associated with both his Senate office and Presidential campaign.
Three separate sources told me that not only were the reports about Rubio wanting to be Trump’s running mate “absolutely false,” the two men had not actually spoken recently, as Rubio had been busy on an official Congressional trip to the Middle East.
Heat Street’s reporting was confirmed as accurate by additional Rubio insiders and by the Senator himself, when he appeared on Jake Tapper’s CNN show, rejecting media reports claiming that his “advisers” had been pitching him to the Trump campaign as “impossible.”
Rubio’s interview with Tapper set off another round of buzz, mostly for Rubio’s statements that he would honor the pledge the Republican candidates had all signed to support the eventual nominee. This “support” was never phrased in terms of an actual endorsement (an admittedly trifling difference) and Rubio also made it clear that he would be campaigning for other conservative candidates around the country, but not for Trump (a far more significant distinction).
What the media failed to report was one of the biggest motivations for Rubio to avoid making public statements that violated the pledge: keeping control over his delegates to the Republican National Convention. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who suspended his campaign after losing the Indiana primary, has notably toed a similar line as Rubio, acknowledging that he signed the pledge and refusing to say he won’t support Trump.
Any chance of wresting the nomination away from Trump at the convention in Cleveland is the longest of long shots, but if those opposed to the idea of Trump as the figurehead of the Republican Party are to cling to that tiny glimmer of hope, then Rubio and Cruz both need to hang on to their delegates.
2016 might very well be a lost cause for #NeverTrump Republicans, but Rubio did hint he was looking to 2020. He tweeted that he had said “10,000 times” that he “will be private citizen in January,” but then sarcastically noted that it was “nearly impossible for someone not in office to ever become a successful candidate for President.” Trump has never held elected office and Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic nominee, served as Secretary of State and represented New York in the U.S. Senate, but does not currently hold office.
Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker.