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ORLANDO, Fla.— Sen. Marco Rubio slammed his Democratic opponent for the 2022 midterm election, Rep. Val Demings, saying if Floridians want someone who votes “100% of the time” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be their next senator, they should vote for her, and if they don’t, they should re-elect him.
Rubio, R-Fla., during a recent interview with Fox News at CPAC, slammed Demings, D-Fla., as a lawmaker who has “done nothing.”
“She has been in Congress for six years. She’s done nothing. She’s named a post office,” Rubio said, noting he has been named the “most effective Republican senator” by a number of educational institutions, while detailing his record.
Sen. Marco Rubio walks to a Senate Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol on Oct. 7, 2021. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“I was the author, I passed and helped implement and wrote the Paycheck Protection Program to VA accountability bills, the child tax credit expansion – which I was directly responsible for,” Rubio said. “I’ve got a record of doing things that are real and make a difference.”
“She’s an ineffective member of Congress and a puppet of Nancy Pelosi,” Rubio said. “She’s voted with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time. That’s why Chuck Schumer wants her in the Senate, because he knows, no matter what she believes or has said in the past, when he asks for her vote on something, she’s going to give it.”
Rep. Val Demings speaks during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 29, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
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He added: “So, I think if people want Nancy Pelosi to be their next senator, they should vote for Val Demings. If they don’t, then they should vote for me.”
Meanwhile, Rubio landed the endorsement of sheriffs from 55 of Florida’s 67 counties.
Demings spent nearly three decades in law enforcement, rising through the ranks to become the Orlando Police Department’s first female police chief. In 2020, she was seriously considered as then-presidential nominee Joe Biden‘s running mate.
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When asked why they endorsed him over a former officer, Rubio said: “When she was dying to be picked as the vice president for Joe Biden, she turned her back on police officers; when they were being attacked and criticized and descended upon and they were being described as some sort of racist Gestapo – she was on TV criticizing police officers, saying that the Minneapolis proposal to defund the police was a thoughtful idea.”
“She turned their back on them and now, the consequences of that are playing out,” Rubio said. “Now, we have this rampant crime wave in America, so, she’ll try to backtrack on that a little bit.”
He added: “I think she’s not going to fool the sheriffs in Florida.”
Sen. Marco Rubio speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 25, 2022, in Orlando, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Demings, though, fired back, telling Fox News that “unlike lifelong politician Marco Rubio, I have an actual record of fighting crime and making our communities safer.”
“As Orlando chief of police, I worked with my fellow officers to bring down violent crime by 40%,” Demings told Fox News. “It’s shameful that lifelong politician Marco Rubio dare question my commitment to the men and women I served with for 27 years.”
She added: “These attacks are disgraceful, but I would expect nothing less than a career politician to play the only game he knows: politics.”
Demings’ campaign also pointed Fox News to her condemnation of the “Defund the Police” movement, as well as the introduction of “The Protect And Serve Act Of 2018,” which sought to enhance federal penalties for anyone who knowingly attempted to harm law enforcement officers.