Marco Rubio fires back at 'sad' Jeb Bush campaign after super PAC attack ad
The new commercial, from Right to Rise USA, goes after Rubio for missing national-security hearings in the US Senate in order to campaign for president.
"Over the last three years, Rubio has missed important national-security hearings and missed more total votes than any other senator," the ad's narrator said, highlighting hearings after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
It concluded: "Politics first: That's the Rubio way."
Both Bush and his super PAC have highlighted Rubio's poor Senate-attendance record as Rubio rose in the polls over the past weeks and months. Rubio was a Bush ally when Bush was governor and he was speaker in the Florida House of Representatives, but that relationship has since publicly frayed.
Right to Rise USA released an ad in December that similarly knocked Rubio for missing "crucial national-security hearings," but that spot also went after two other presidential candidates. The PAC also launched a Twitter account in October to draw attention to Rubio's missed votes.
The Register reported that Right to Rise declined to say how much it was spending on the anti-Rubio ad. But the super PAC told Business Insider that the spot was part of a $1.4 million television-ad buy in Iowa over the next two weeks.
Rubio has downplayed his missed votes as generally unimportant and argued that much of his office's substantive work comes in the form of constituent service.
Rubio's campaign spokesman, Alex Conant, also called the pro-Bush ad "sad" and factually incorrect on one of the national-security hearings it highlighted.
"Bush's team dishonestly omits that Marco is on the Senate's Intelligence Committee, where he attended the highest level briefings on the Paris attacks," Conant said in a statement. "No other candidate for president has received more classified Intelligence briefings or better understands the threats facing our nation today than Marco. It's sad to see Jeb's 'joyful' campaign reduced to such intellectual dishonesty."
Bush's super PAC is legally required to be independent of his campaign, but Right to Rise is nevertheless closely tied to his operation.