Marco Rubio Meet the Press Interview: Obama Lacks an Agenda for the Next 4 Years

Impact

On the eve of the third and final presidential debate, and with polls showing an increasingly close race between President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sat with David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press to talk polls, Iran and the coveted female vote. 

"The American people have gotten to see the real Mitt Romney and what his leadership and vision would do for the country," Rubio said when host David Gregory asked him what he thought about the presidential race becoming so close. "The president, on the other hand, lacks an agenda for the next four years; he doesn't talk about the future, he just attacks Mitt Romney," added the young senator to explain why he thinks "things are only going to get better" for Republicans as Election Day nears. 

On Iran, Rubio said the White House has denied reports of talks with the Islamic Republic about its nuclear aspirations. "The White House denied that so there's not really anything to talk about," said the senator. However, when pressed by Gregory on the Republicans' stance on the issue, Rubio said that even though "no one wants another war" the military option should be on the table when dealing with Iran. "A President Romney will continue the sanctions and would press countries like Russia to get on board," added Rubio. 

Gregory then moved on to the female vote, and quipped Rubio about Obama's new campaign slogan "Romnesia," an attack on Mitt Romney's changing political stances (particularly referring to abortion and contraception). "This is not about contraception but about religious freedom," said Rubio. "Romney is pro-life and he never ran away from that," added the senator before clarifying the exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother) to Romney's pro-life stance.  

Finally, when Gregory brought up Romney's "binders full of women" gaffe from the second debate to try to make the point that Romney's take on gender roles is backwards (more appropriate for a 1950s society than for today), Rubio said that all of it was "nonsense" and declared that the issue number one is jobs and the economy and that's the reason why the so-called gender gap between Romney and the president is narrowing. "At the end of the day, Obama is not offering anything to women who are graduating from college and are not able to find work."