Rubio: ‘Ironic’ Trump Is Attacking My Finances Considering His Four Bankruptcies

Back in June, the NY Times detailed his many personal financial missteps at length: a brush with foreclosure on a second home in 2010 after being late with mortgage payments; his 2012 decision to spend part of a $800,000 book advance on a boat rather than paying down his considerable debts; his 2014 liquidation of a retirement account that prompted a hefty tax penalty; and the 2015 selling of his second home for $18,000 less than he and his friend paid for it a decade ago, to name a few.

The charges from 2005 and 2006 are about half of the $117,294.73 that Rubio charged to the Florida GOP American Express card in 2007 and 2008 when he was House speaker. But in the past, he has explained the personal charges by saying that he sometimes just pulled the wrong card out of his wallet.

Rubio has offered explanations for all the questioned charges: The wine store actually sold sandwiches, and the minivan was damaged at a Republican Party event.

“Marco paid his personal charges directly to American Express”, his campaign said.

In 2010, a Florida man filed an ethics complaint against Rubio for the charges, but it was dismissed.

“This program’s now been around for three years and we haven’t signed it by now … we’re not going to extend the program”, Rubio said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

In addition to the $8 million it had spent on Rubio-centric commercials through this week, Conservative Solutions Project has reserved almost $2 million worth of advertising time on satellite television to begin airing next month and continue through the first three primary elections next year, information provided by CMAG shows. “I have no problem releasing it. We have nothing to withhold here”.

Marco Rubio ran for and was elected to the U.S. Senate by Floridians. And so it is important for us to have leaders who understand this, that understand that you can be a conservative, but you’ve got to apply those principles to the issues of the 21st century, which invoices global competition, rapid changes in innovation and a need to modernize higher education.

In a statement, the Campaign Legal Center’s executive director said failure to investigate the pro-Rubio group would encourage other groups to copy their tactics.

The Republican Party of Florida paid for none of the senator’s personal expenses. It was virtually the same explanation he’s giving today.

“But the Republican Party never paid a single personal expense of mine – personal expense”.

Marco Rubio, the Horatio Alger candidate in the presidential field, is hitting back at bombastic billionaire Donald Trump over – what else – personal finance skills.

He said he had reimbursed all the personal expenditures he had made with the card, and promised to make public the credit card records. Rubio also parried questions on issues his rivals see as weaknesses, like Rubio’s past support for comprehensive immigration reform, and his spotty Senate attendance record. According to RealClearPolitics, Bush has been steadily falling since the September Republican debate, while Rubio has been in a steady surge.

Earlier this week, Rubio told ABC: “In hindsight, I would do it differently to avoid all this confusion”. Those charges added up to $22,003.19, or 12%, of the $182,072.55 Mr. Rubio billed to the party’s credit card.

Spokesmen for Rubio’s campaign and the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rubio and his team should’ve known that once he started climbing in the polls, he would face increased scrutiny.

The issue came up in the last Republican debate, in Boulder, Colorado last month, when Rubio was asked by CNBC moderators why voters should trust him to run the nation’s finances when he had so publicly struggled with his own.