The Gang that couldn’t talk straight

Yesterday, it was revealed that an aide to Sen. Rubio made the following statement to Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker:

There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.

How did Team Rubio respond to this report? The usual way – dishonestly.

A Rubio spokesman claimed that the Rubio aide “was describing some industries’ response to unions’ opposition to temporary workers — he was not describing Senator Rubio’s position, which is that American workers can compete with anyone, and we need these programs to fill labor shortages in specific industries like agriculture.”

Unfortunately for Team Rubio, Lizza has now released the text of the relevant passage from his interview. Here is how it reads:

RL: Well their argument [presumably the unions’] is, what, that they have American workers for these jobs, they don’t need this program.

Rubio Aide 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the problems you have with this, “Oh there’s American workers who are unemployed.” There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly because. . .

Rubio Aide 2: But the same is true for the high-skilled workers.

Rubio Aide 1: Yes, and the same is true across every sector, in government, in everything.

Clearly, Rubio’s aides weren’t talking about what “some industries” say. They were expressing Team Rubio’s view of the limits of American workers “across every sector, in government, in everything.”

The lack of candor exhibited by Sen. Rubio and his staff throughout the debate on his immigration reform legislation has been appalling.

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