Marco Rubio blasts Dems for blocking police reform bill: 'politics' and 'electoral strategy'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told "America's Newsroom" that Senate Democrats do not want a police reform bill passed because they intend to spend the months leading up to the 2020 election “arguing that the Republicans are standing in the way."
Rubio said it's an "electoral strategy" by the Democrats to pass their own House bill and then blame Senate Republicans for failing to act. On Wednesday, the Republican-authored police reform bill, spearheaded by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., failed in a Senate test vote after Democrats opposed the bill on the basis it did not go far enough, an apparent impasse just weeks after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody led to calls for new legislation.
Rubio said Democrats will not “allow movement on a bill because they want the issue for the campaign.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“That’s what’s happening here,” he continued. “It’s clear to everybody.”
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asserted in an interview that Republicans are "trying to get away with murder, actually – the murder of George Floyd." Appearing on MSNBC on Wednesday Pelosi was asked whether she would apologize.
“Absolutely positively not,” she said in response. “The fact is people say I think you frankly in the press have given him far too much credit for a bill that does nothing.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I think it’s the kind of comment that if I made, or someone on my side of the aisle made about something, it would be nonstop wall-to-wall coverage,” Rubio told “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday reacting to Pelosi’s comments.
He then brought up “two points.”
The first, Rubio said is the fact that “Floyd was tragically murdered by a police department in a city that’s been in the control of the Democratic Party for a long time.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“In fact, in many of these communities where we’ve seen these police incidents, it’s Democrat mayors and Democrat leaders on the councils and commissions that have run these cities for decades,” he continued.
“They could have banned chokeholds a long time ago,” Rubio added.
He said the second point he finds “ironic” is the fact that Democrats “are criticizing Tim Scott’s bill for not doing what their bill doesn’t do either.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Their bill puts these bans on federal agencies and does nothing to try to influence in real ways what local governments would do,” he explained.
“This is very simple. This is politics,” Rubio said.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Earlier on Thursday, Scott told "Fox & Friends" that Democrat’s efforts to block the Republican-authored Senate bill on police reform is "pure race politics at its worst," adding that “there will be blood on the Democrats' hands.”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Gregg Re contributed to this report.