Rubio: I won’t be VP
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is ruling out accepting his party’s No. 2 spot after ending his presidential campaign this week.
“No I’m not going to be anybody’s vice president,” he told reporters when asked if he would consider being on Sen. Ted Cruz’s ticket. “I’m not interested in being vice president. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way.”
{mosads}He added that he also wouldn’t run for Florida governor in 2018, saying, “I’m going to finish out my term in the Senate over the next 10 months. We’re going to work really hard here, and we have something we want to achieve, and then I’ll be a private citizen in January.”
Rubio’s comments come after he called Cruz the only “conservative left in the race,” though he declined Thursday to comment on whether he will endorse.
“Well, clearly Ted’s positions on issues are conservative,” he said, asked what he meant by his comments to Minnesota supporters. “I like Governor Kasich, it’s just — that was my opinion.”
Rubio ended his presidential campaign on Tuesday evening after losing his home state primary to Donald Trump, who has been able to ride voter frustration with Washington to the top of the GOP presidential field.
The Florida senator predicted that with him out of the race the party would be able to coalesce around an alternative, saying “hopefully there is still time to prevent a Trump nomination.”
Rubio’s comments marked the first time that he spoke with reporters since returning to the Senate Thursday, where he took his first roll call vote in more than a month.
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