Ethics watchdogs question necessity of the US secretary of state flying between DC and Gainesville so often
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has emerged as a superfan of the University of Florida’s football team, spending more than $1.2m of taxpayers’ money on frequent personal trips to watch them play, a report published on Wednesday claims.
Ethics watchdogs have questioned the necessity of the country’s top diplomat shuttling so often between Washington DC and Gainesville, where his son Anthony has a walk-on role as a running back for the team known as the Gators.
An investigation by the Washington Post found that Rubio has attended at least 10 games in the last two seasons, including five this fall, and that of 23 total trips made to Gainesville on military aircraft, 15 were “personal” in nature.
He sucks as a representative of his people but he’s a really good sycophant and a great dad!
Might be the first misappropriation of taxpayer funds I can kind of get behind
If he’s catching a jumpseat on an existing flight I don’t really care.
I really-read the article. He’s prohibited from flying commercially. This sounds like an excessive use of money but it’s not something we should worry about. There’s a lot more corruption going on elsewhere.
Rubio is prohibited from flying commercially, because of security protocols that also cover the secretary of defense and FBI and CIA directors
I do care. Because if any official in Biden’s admin did this it would fill an entire news cycle and be condemned by Chuck Schumer and half of the Democrats in the name of optics. It would become a voting issue, and a national emergency, and probably even a new war in the mideast somehow if a Democrat was doing this.
My tax dollars should go towards Americans’ benefit, not enabling a diplomat to watch his son sit on the bench in a college football game. Watch it on TV like the rest of us poors.
I can’t go watch my niece’s soccer game because I have bills to pay, so please justify to me why my paycheck should fund these trips for Marco Rubio to watch his son not play football.
Sec of state and other top officials are a security risk. I’m ok with flying them to their kids football game every weekend. I don’t like it, and I don’t like it even more when it’s Rubio, but it’s a necessity for the job.
I think you know he isn’t.
Most recently, on 7 November, Rubio arrived in Gainesville on board an Air Force C-37, a plane used frequently for the VIP transport of high-ranking government officials, and was seen on the sidelines as the Gators lost 23-7 to Oklahoma. Anthony Rubio played no part in the game.
