Rubio Campaign Press Release - WATCH: Marco Rubio Explains Why Obama's Defense Cuts Have Been So Reckless, and What He'll Do About It

November 8, 2015

Marco discussed his campaign, his plan for the military, and his tax plan on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Morning Futures.

MARIA BARTIROMO: Let me talk about your military plan. You unveiled this late last week. Basically what you're saying you want to begin to undo that $1 trillion of indiscriminate cuts to the defense budget.

MARCO RUBIO: Because defense spending is not the reason why we have a debt. It is not the driver of our national debt. Our national debt, especially long-term, is driven by mandatory spending programs that need to be reformed. These reductions in defense spending with not just unsustainable, they're dangerous, reckless. Every time this country has undertaken massive reductions in defense spending it had to come back later and undo them and it cost a lot more money. So we're on par to have the oldest and smallest air force ever. The oldest navy since the end of World War I, World War II. An army that is about to cut another 40,000 positions. There is a budget out there, it is called the Gate's budget, it was basically a bipartisan commission that looked at the defense needs of this country and said this is what we should be spending money on. What I argue is that we need to get back to that. We need to get back to funding our defense needs because it is the most important thing the federal government does.

MARIA BARTIROMO: When you look at national defense, and sort of what we're fighting out there, what do you think would be the biggest threat on a foreign policy or a national defense status?

MARCO RUBIO: We face three major threats. One is rogue states like North Korea and Iran, who either have acquired or are on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability that could eventually reach the United States. The second is non-state actors like ISIS, terrorist groups who continue to spread their reach. They're now very involved in Libya, that's why news about a Russian jetliner should not be surprising to us because ISIS is very active in Libya and they use it as an operational ground in the Sinai into Egypt. And the third are state actors like China and Russia, who in different ways are trying to crowd America out and our influence. In the case of China in the Asia Pacific region, in the case of Russia in Europe and now in the Middle East. All are very significant threats. We need to confront all three of them. A strong national defense is critical to that.