Marco Rubio Delivers Speech After Defeating Val Demings in Race For Florida U.S. Senate Transcript

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(Singing) [inaudible 00:00:09].

Gosh, it’s great to be here gathered in the Red county of Miami-Dade. First, let me begin, there’s so many people I can thank, all of you for coming tonight. I want to begin thanking our creator, God, for allowing me to be an American, a citizen in his greatest country, his only begotten son. And my faith is that God became man, his name was Jesus. He walked the earth, he’ll come again. And because of him, we will be able to live an eternal life. And obviously I’m grateful for winning an election, but I’m really grateful for all the blessings I’ve been given, the friendships, obviously the family, this extraordinary honor to represent this extraordinary state and the chance to be a citizen of the greatest country in the history of mankind.

(01:04)
So I’m going to tell you right now what the media stories are going to be. They’re going to be, “This is amazing, the Republicans won by 13 points, 15 points. It’s unbelievable. They won Miami-Dade County. They must be believing all those Cuban radio stations,” or whatever they come up with. Guys, you know what? Politics is really not that complicated because Americans are not all that complicated. We’re a diverse people, but we’re not a complicated people. What Americans basically want is what my parents wanted, it’s what all of you wanted, it’s what people want all over the world but have been able to fulfill here, they want to be able to have a job that pays a decent wage. They want to be able to live in a home that they own in a neighborhood that is safe. They want their kids to go to schools that teach the truth. They want to be able to retire with dignity, and they want all four of their kids to have a life better than the life they’ve had. This is not complicated, this is what they want.

(01:52)
Now here’s what happens, sometimes people get into politics and either they don’t know this or they forget it. And so what happens is some of these people go around saying, “Look, I’m sorry, you’re paying too much money for gasoline, but you have to suck it up because we have a UN Climate Conference that John Kerry’s going to be attending and we need to impress them. And so ride your bike, take the bus and forget about how much gas costs and stop being selfish.”

(02:17)
You know what happens when you tell people that? They vote against you, they vote against you. They go around telling people, “Listen, don’t worry, you can’t be complaining about crime. We can’t keep locking criminals up. We can’t keep arresting criminals. We can’t keep funding police officers, because the only way we can make up for whatever it is they think we need to make up for is not to put criminals in jail.” Crime soars, people feel unsafe. And you know what happens when you tell that to working people in this country? They vote against you.

(02:45)
And then they go and tell them, “Forget about our border, we don’t need a border. We care more about people that came from other countries.” And listen, nobody’s going to give this community a lesson about how bad things are in other places, but what country in the world can accept 6,000 people a day? And that’s what they’re asking you and everyone else to do. Meanwhile, we have veterans committing suicide, veterans who are homeless, veterans that have to fight with the VA. But no, they don’t care about that, all they care about is we have to be compassionate for people coming from all over the world, 6,000 a day, and put aside the interest of the American people. When you tell that to people, you know what they do? They vote against you. And this has been going on for far too long.

(03:23)
And then here comes election time and they roll out all their friends, every celebrity, every actor, we don’t have any actors really on our side. Do we have any actors? No actors that can get another movie, are going to be on our side. They roll out those crazy women on The View, they roll out Vogue Magazine, they roll out all these things to tell us how we’re supposed to vote and they think they’re going to fool… And then when people vote against them, they say, “Oh, it’s misinformation. You were confused.” No one here is confused. The people in this country are going to vote for the people that fight for people like them. They’re going to vote for people that are going to fight for people that care about being safe, that don’t want drugs coming across our border, that don’t want illegal immigration running rampant into our country, that don’t want to have to pay $4 for gasoline, that don’t want to have to pay 22% more than they used to for their groceries.

(04:07)
So when you see the results across this country tonight, that’s what it’s all about. The people who make this country great have been forgotten and have been left behind. And what I’m most proud of is that this community, Miami-Dade, and this state, Florida, a diverse state, you find people in the state from everywhere. You find people in the state from every background. And they have joined this incredible new movement, that isn’t just going to change the country, it’s going to change the Republican party. After tonight, the Republican party will never be the same and that’s a great thing for America and a great thing for Republicans.

(04:47)
It’ll never be the same because this is a party made up of people from every color, every race, every ethnicity, men and women. Yes, men and women, that exists. And you know what we call people who are Black and white and Hispanic and Asian and are men and are women and come from other countries, you know what we call them in Florida? We call them Americans. And that’s what they are, they are Americans. And if we are not going to fight for… Listen, I care a lot about what’s happening in the world, we’re impacted by what happens in the world. But my job, first and foremost, is to care about what’s happening in America because the best thing we can do for the world is make sure that America is strong and safe and prosperous, that is the greatest gift we can give our fellow men.

(05:39)
So these campaigns, I think, I believe, I believe, no, I’m sure, actually, I am the only statewide candidate in Florida that was outspent by my opponent. She has every right to raise all this money. They wasted a lot of money, and I’m glad they wasted it here and not in these other states that we have a chance to win. I’m the only one they raised more money against and I’m the only one that was outraised than outspent. And I’m fine with that, I’m a hundred percent fine because I knew that no amount of money, no amount of money was going to convince people to escape Marxism and socialism, that America should embrace Marxism and socialism.

USA, USA, USA.

No amount of money, no amount of money was going to convince people that somehow a country blessed with oil and natural gas should be begging Saudi Arabia for oil and natural gas and begging Venezuela for oil and natural gas. But we had a tough campaign, and I owe a lot, and there’s a lot of people I could thank, but my campaign manager, Mark Morgan, has done a great job. Where’s Mark? Mark? Great job, Mark. Hey listen, what did Alvar DeGalas say? [foreign language 00:06:43], remember that, that line? The translation there is, an American that goes to the Cuban party has to be out of his mind. But Mark has done a great job in an extraordinary and diverse state. We are a great state, thank you Mark.

(06:57)
And one of the things I’m proudest of in the Senate, look, I we’ve passed as many or more bills than anybody else, important bills. Every major bill in America that’s taken on China, for example, in the last four years have been mine. The Chinese government doesn’t like me. They’ve banned me. They sanctioned me. We had to cancel our vacation to Wuhan because they don’t like me. Expensive, they wanted to lock us in the hotel room apparently though.

(07:25)
But I’m very proud of everything we’ve done in our office because I have a great staff in our office. One of the things I’m proudest of is constituent service. People call us because they need help. I’m going to tell you right now, guys, please do not wait until the Friday before your cruise to get your passport, okay? But if you do, that’s why we’re there. And there’s so many people in our staff that we need to be grateful to, they do a great job and they’re led by a great leader, that’s my chief of staff, Mike Needham, who’s here. Mike, say thank you to everybody.

(07:58)
And of course he’s filming all this so that if things were to go wrong, he could say, “Look, you said this about me on that day.” Mike’s doing a great job, both Mikes are. And of course, look, I owe so much to my family. They are as much of public servants… These were once little kids, now two of them are voters. I think they voted for me. And I’m so proud of how fast they’ve grown up and who they’re going to be in their own lives. And obviously my wife Jeanette, who has been there every step of the way. You can’t do this without her. [foreign language 00:08:38] Miami-Dade. [foreign language 00:09:04].

(09:05)
I’ll close with this. On nights like this, we generally do these in hotels, and you’ve heard this story before, but I tell it because it’s important to understand. I was raised by parents that worked in hotels like this. Well, not like this, they had slot machines and stuff like that, but in Las Vegas. My dad was a banquet bartender in rooms like this. My mother was a maid, she worked at Kmart. They worked hard. And their story is really very typical of the American story. Frankly, in any other nation in the world, I would probably be doing the same job, and there’s nothing wrong with those jobs. But what makes this nation so special and unique is it is the one place on earth where people who work those jobs, like the people working here now, can go on to do other things. But even if they can’t, the one thing they can always do is give their kids the chance to do all the things they didn’t. And I think this is an American story that people everywhere in the country would understand.

(10:12)
But why I’m so proud to be from Florida, and particularly for Miami-Dade County, is because we have millions and millions of people in the state who have that story, who are the children or the grandchildren of people who lost everything, who once had dreams and hopes, but those became impossible, and the purpose of their life is to give their kids the chance to do all the things they never could. That’s why our parents really never die. That’s really why, on nights like tonight, they still live through us because we are the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams, of all the things they once wanted. You think that our parents and grandparents wanted to work double shifts late at night, weekends and holidays?

No. No. No.

They did it for us. And they did it because they knew that we lived in the one country on earth where that hard work could make their life meaningful and purposeful and through their children they could leave a legacy. Now, I’ve just described to you my story and I probably described your story, but what I’ve really described to you is the American story. And if we ever become a country where that’s no longer possible, then we’re no longer special. And so what’s driven me my entire life in public services is to protect that, because I inherited this country, I was blessed to be born here and I was blessed that my parents lived 90 miles away from here because if they had wound up anywhere else on this planet, there is no way I would be standing on a stage like this tonight speaking to each of you.

(11:33)
And now, the source of our greatness is not our politics. The source of our greatness is not our elections. The source of our greatness is not our government. The source of our greatness is not our military power, though we need it. And it’s not our wealth, though we celebrate it. The source of our greatness is our people, a special and unique people unlike people anywhere else on the earth. Because here, being an American is not a race, it’s not an ethnicity, it’s not where your parents are born. Being an American is the defining principle of our nation, that all men are created equal, all men and all women are created equal with rights that come from God, not from your leaders, not from your government, and not from your laws.

(12:24)
And our job, our job is to protect those rights. Too many people make politics our God, politics is not God. There’s only one God, and it ain’t politics. And the most important house in America is not the White House, it’s your house, because that’s where children are raised and values are formed and principles are instilled. And our job is to make sure we always protect the family. We always make it possible for parents to do for their children what my parents did for me and what your parents did for you. That’s the American story, it changed the world, it inspired the world. And if you don’t like this country, you’re free to leave. My office will even help you do the visa.

(13:08)
I’m not asking anyone to leave. All these actors always threatened to leave, none of them ever leave, none of them ever leave. After every… You’ll see it tomorrow on Twitter, “I’m leaving America because it’s become this terrible place,” but they never leave. A few move to The Bahamas, but that’s for taxes, okay? And that’s not for… And then they want to come back.

(13:34)
The point of the matter is, no one ever leaves, but you’re free to leave. But we’re never going to allow anyone to destroy it, because we have nowhere else to go. There is no other place like America. There’s nothing to replace it. And if America declines, China will be the greatest power on earth and we will never allow that to happen. I will never allow my children, you will never allow your children, we will never allow our children to inherit a world in which China is the most powerful country on this planet.

(13:59)
So elections matter and they’ll send a message, don’t ignore working people, don’t ignore tax paying people, don’t ignore law abiding people. When they tell you they care about these things, it really matters and they will reward leaders that pay attention to them and they will punish those who ignore them and put others ahead of them. But I hope the most powerful message that it sends is that no matter how much money you spend, no matter how many press conferences you give about the threat to democracy and all this other garbage, we are never going to abandon common sense. No amount of money is going to convince Americans that men can become pregnant and that America is not the greatest country in the world.

(14:46)
And so I hope tonight, maybe early tomorrow, depending on how long some of these states… They take forever to count. We know our vote, in one hour we already know who won. But anyway, these states will be counting. But what I hope is we’re all going to wake up tomorrow morning and all of you are, maybe even late tonight, and we’re going to learn that there is a new Republican majority in the United States Senate. And that’s not just important because of the numbers. Look, it’s going to be good not to have to worry every night that Joe Manchin’s going to change his mind, and now Joe Biden can do whatever he wants, depending on what he wants, if he can remember what he wants. So it’s good not to have to worry about that.

(15:34)
But the most important thing is we’re not just going to elect Republican senators, we’re going to elect new people with fire in the belly who know why they’re running, they’re running to save America. They’re running to fight for the working people of this country. They’re going to be up there to work and fight on behalf of the men and women that are the backbone of this great nation because we are going to do whatever it takes. That’s my commitment to you, I am more energized and excited about working in the Senate than I’ve been at any other time because I believe we’re here on the cusp of a new generation of leadership in this Republican party that will restore common sense, that will put hardworking Americans first and that will leave for our children what they deserved to inherit, the greatest country in the history of the world. Thank you guys. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.