Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, ridiculed the deviations between then-candidate and now-President Joe Biden, explaining to the National Conservatism Conference on Monday that the reasons for the difference are – if expressed during the campaign – he would not have been elected.
"I think it's telling that the agenda promoted by the candidate Joe Biden is very different from the one that's being pushed by President Joe Biden," Rubio said via a livestream video conference to the three-day gathering in Orlando, Florida.
"Candidate Joe Biden, for example, promised a return of competency and professionalism; President Joe Biden delivered chaos: Historic calamity on the southern border, humiliating and deadly debacle in Afghanistan, stranded cargo ships off the coast of California, and the skyrocketing prices of literally everything."
Rubio was slated to join in person but was affected by the ongoing American Airlines flight cancellations.
He began declaring Biden is governing differently than he campaigned because he knew from the outset his actual ideas were unpopular with majority of ordinary Americans – as opposed to those managing society on a day-to-day basis.
"The problem is they have power beyond the numbers," Rubio said. "They happen to be the people who run our schools and our universities, our tech companies, our large corporations, meetings, boards, the entertainment industry; they are the most generous donors and enthusiastic activists in one of our two major political parties."
By singling out this class of "managers" as distinct from the wider population, Rubio drew heavily on the work and writings of many of the conference attendees and other conservatives.
"I am here to tell you big business is not our ally in the fight against socialism," he said. "Yes, they come running for help to conservatives when the Left threatens to raise their taxes; they come running for help when workers decide they want to unionize. But on most days, they're either cultural warriors or rocking boats in the language of free-market capitalism."
The senator culminated by offering tangible policy positions to address these economic woes – including requiring companies to disclose to investors about their employee training policies and to the public about how they are building up American capital.
Unlike colleague Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who appeared in person earlier, Rubio stressed America is entering a period where it could be irreversibly transformed without adjusting for the new generation.
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