Rubio Calls for Bipartisan Consensus on Dealing With China

The Joe Biden administration should follow a "bipartisan consensus" when it comes to dealing with China, Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

"There's one change here in the last four years that's been pretty dramatic, that there really aren't very many voices left saying we should keep things the way they were with China," the Florida Republican said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "I think there's broad agreement now that there has to be a rethinking of it."

However, he said he's concerned that the administration may say the right things but not be truly committed to dealing with China, and that there will be people who are appointed or put into positions who aren't "real believers" that the United States and China are locked into this "strategic competition."

Worldwide, though, countries are concerned about how China does business and about their supply chains being vulnerable.

"They're taking their own steps," Rubio said. "They're smaller than us, their economies are smaller, so they have to balance that with not being completely cut off because it would hurt their economy, but they do want U.S. leadership — 5G is a great example of it."

Meanwhile, Rubio said he's still concerned that Democrats will push to pack the courts, and called for support for a constitutional amendment he's proposed to make the number of justices now on the court permanent.

"Taken to its absurd conclusion, if a new administration every time they come in they don't like the composition of the court, they'll just keep adding justices," said Rubio. "We could at some point have 25 members of the Supreme Court — that would be absurd — but that's the direction we can head here if we don't put a stop to it now."

Rubio also spoke out against Biden's order to cancel the Keystone pipeline.

"The left of center and far left people, they campaign and talk about 'I care about working people, I care about jobs, we want to help them,' and so forth," said Rubio. "Getting rid of the Keystone pipeline will do nothing for the environment, but getting rid of it will upset our Canadian allies and put 11,000 families on the unemployment line at a time when it's hard to find work," said Rubio. "They had no problem, at the stroke of a pen, putting 11,000 people out of work."

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