On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio praised the resignation of acting Internal Revenue Service head Steve Miller before laying in to what he called President Obama’s “culture of intimidation.”
“First of all, I think the resignation is appropriate,” Rubio said. “I called for that on Monday, but it’s just the beginning. It’s not nearly enough. I think there should be prosecution of individuals who were responsible here in abusing their power. I also think it’s important for the president to be honest about the culture of intimidation that his administration has created here.”
“This is a president that as a late as last Monday was in New York City basically saying that he knows those Republicans willing to work with them but they’re afraid of their base or afraid of Rush Limbaugh — always ascribing ulterior motives to his opponents, always questioning whether there’s an honest disagreement or not.”
“There’s no honest policy disagreement with this administration,” Rubio continued. “And as a result it’s created this culture of intimidation that’s pervasive throughout the federal government. And I think all of this is a product of that. I really do.”
Host Chuck Todd said both sides engage in this sort of political hardball , but Rubio maintained this White House was unique in abusing its power.
“It goes well beyond that,” he continued. “It goes to the core of the following — you have campaign donors to Mitt Romney that are being attacked on Obama’s website and within a few weeks that individual is being audited — not once, but two — IRS audits. You have the evidence of the NLRB trying to muscle Boeing because they decided to move their plant.”
“This is not in isolation. This a string of events where you see administration and a federal government under this administration willing to use its power to muscle and to hardball people who don’t agree with them. And now it appears to include the Associated Press. So, there’s a problem here. One thing is politics as outlined and other thing is full time 24/7, 365-day-a-year political effort where everything is about politics. Everything is about destroying your opponent. Everything is about dividing the American people for your electoral gain.”