Marco Rubio On Election Eve in Florida

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Show:

Duane Patterson

Monday, November 7, 2016

 

Audio

 

(Snip)

 

HH: Last night, I was asked on MSNBC by Brian Williams what is the meta story of this election, and I came back with the J.D. Vance book, Hillbilly Elegy that I think a lot of Americans feel that the connected class has everything working for it, and that their kids don’t have a chance. I’ve read An American Life, your autobiography. I actually know you’re about as opposite of the connected class as anyone who has gotten to the Senate in recent years. But do you think my critique is what’s going on, that people just feel that it’s a rigged game for their kids? They can’t get the advantages that once were open to anyone?

 

MR: Well, I think they feel betrayed. They feel betrayed by elected officials who ran for office and seem insulated from the problems in our country. They feel betrayed by the media, who exhibits clear bias. They feel betrayed by institutions of higher education who are sitting on multimillion dollar endowments while charging record amounts in tuition. So our kids are buried under student loan debt. They feel betrayed in a system where for example, veterans struggle to fight off foreclosure, or people on active service aren’t getting paid enough. So we have veterans, you know, service men and women in this country struggling financially. Meanwhile, someone who just got here from another country because of their refugee status is getting thousands of dollars a month in benefits. I mean, the list goes on and on. I mean, people feel betrayed and angry, and I think that it’s true across the spectrum of both political parties. And I can’t blame them, to be honest with you. I think our challenge is how do we take that now and channel it into something that’s good. And I would say one more point. Americans are angry at each other. You’ve reached the point now where it’s not enough to disagree on an issue. I think both sides are guilty of this, although I think the left has perfected it, and that is the argument that they’re going to delegitimize you as a person. If you don’t agree with them on an issue, you don’t even have a right to have an opinion. You’re a bad human being. And that’s infected our political culture to a point now where people get angry. They think they can say whatever they want about each other, and that there aren’t going to be consequences. I don’t think we’ve ever had a political discourse like we do today in this country, and it’s going to make it harder to solve problems.

 

HH: Oh, the amplifications of the extremes via Twitter and other social media is genuinely gangrenous, and will have to figure out. You can’t, you know, the 1st Amendment is there for a reason, but boy, civility has got to find a way back in. Let me ask you, Senator, about Obamacare. It’s another reason people are upset. It is absolutely failed in many states where in North Carolina, for example, there’s one provider for 85% of the individual market participants. Their premiums went up 24% on top of a 30% increase last year. A lot of people have lost doctors and plans. How in the world is this going to get fixed in any kind of efficient and rapid fashion, because it’s actually getting people sick and dead?

 

MR: You can’t fix Obamacare. It has to be repealed and replaced with a system. I don’t want to go back to the old one. I think there’s a system that empowers the individual to control their own health care money whether it’s from your employer or whether it’s refundable tax credits, you control your own health care spending, and you can spend it on health care the way you want to spend it, whether it’s a health savings account, insurance from halfway across the country, whatever. I mean, you get to pick how you want to use it. But I don’t think Obamacare can be fixed. And you know, they keep everyone fixated on the premiums, and I think the premiums are a big problem. Don’t take your eye off the deductibles. The deductibles in most Obamacare plans are massive.

 

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