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Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined the Guy Benson Show to discuss the post-election process, the need to pass additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and the proposed withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan. See below for highlights.
On the post-election process:
“I believe the President of the United States has the same rights as any candidate running for office to avail himself of all the rights that come with election law just like Stacey Abrams did. She went to court, they fought…she went to federal court, and to this day still claims she won the race in Georgia. The President has a right to go to court and make these claims. He has a right to recounts as the law calls for. And, ultimately, these states will, according to state law, on different days, have to certify the results of the election — they are not certified yet. And then, ultimately, those states will send electors and the electoral college will elect the next president. That’s how our system works.
“And so my argument the entire time has always been at a minimum we should want this to happen because it’s the law, and we are a nation of law and order, and because that’s how you get public confidence. There’s no doubt that there were things that happened. We saw in Georgia for example where some votes weren’t even counted… Let the system play itself out… This will all work itself out the way it has for over 200 years in this republic.”
On the need to pass additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP):
“Here’s what’s happened — we tried. We actually included [PPP] in the Republican bill that the Democrats voted against. We’ve tried to pass it on the floor as a clean, stand-alone PPP, a new round to help small businesses — and we’re going to try again. It is not the details of it because if you gave us twenty-four hours to reach an agreement with my democratic counterparts on a PPP second tranche — we would get that. The policy differences are not big.
“The issue here is very simple, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are saying you either spend $2 trillion dollars or something close to it and do all of these other things or we do nothing at all. They will not allow PPP to happen on its own. That’s the stance they have taken, that is the stance they have taken now, and the result of that is as we get into November or December, there are states and communities that are announcing restrictions.
“Retailers for small business, the months of November and December are key months. It is where they make a substantial percentage of their year-long revenue. They are going to be closed for that period of time and some of them are going to disappear. Some of them barely survived the first wave — are barely hanging on now. They are going to get wiped out. These are family businesses — third or fourth generation in many cases — and the jobs that come along with them are going to be wiped out as well. That’s the real world implications of it. We are going to keep trying. I wake up every day desperate to get something done because I personally know people who will not exist as a business two months from now if we don’t help them.”
On the recent announcement that the U.S. will withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq:
“Number one, let me just say that our troop levels there are not 100,000. They’re really low now — I think they’re close to 5,000 as is — and coming down anyways. At this point, I think that that conflict and our presence there at some point has to end.
“My only concern is the following. Number one, if it ends too soon or you don’t do it the right way, the actual Afghan government will collapse quickly. And they’re already struggling to hold on as it is facing the challenge of the Taliban… My concern is if you do it too soon and the government collapses, you better get all your equipment out of there. Because I don’t want to read a headline six months from now that the Taliban or Al-Qaeda are driving around on Humvees and armored vehicles that we left behind because we left too soon.
“And the other [concern] is, I want to know what the plan is for going after Al-Qaeda if there’s an Al-Qaeda leader hiding somewhere in Afghanistan or in the region. [If] we have the ability to go get them, stop them, disrupt them, capture them, or eliminate them now, and we leave, are we going to have the ability to do that later? Because no matter what happens in Afghanistan, we still have to have the ability, if we know where an Al-Qaeda or other terrorist leader is, to go in and get them before they take action and kill Americans.”