Marco Rubio's blatant lie about his personal finances should worry you

Marco Rubio's blatant lie about his personal finances should worry you

by Laura ClawsonFollow

A crucial part of Marco Rubio's big debate victory came directly out of his ability to lie with conviction and an innocent look in his eye. Not justabout his tax plan, but about his own personal finances. Here it is:

Senator Rubio, you yourself have said that you’ve had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills. You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money. You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought. And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That’s something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties. In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?

RUBIO: Well, you just – you just listed a litany of discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents, and I’m not gonna waste 60 seconds detailing them all.

Discredited attacks? As Florida Republican Joe Scarborough said Thursday morning:

“Marco just flat-out lied to the American people, there,” he continued. “And I was stunned that the moderators didn’t stop there and go, ‘Wait a second, these are court records. What are you talking about?’”

There are two issues here. One is the substance of the question: Rubio and his "scandal plagued"-doesn't-begin-to-describe-it friend, former Rep. David Rivera, only last summer sold the house which had at one point been in foreclosure. That is a fact, not a "discredited attack." And so on. The financial problems and mismanagement detailed in the question were accurate, so make of his personal finances what you will.

But whatever you make of Rubio's personal finances, pay attention to his lying. Because he didn't flinch, he didn't equivocate. He seemed sincere and a little wounded as he dismissed that list of true facts as "a litany of discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents" and said he wouldn't address them because it would "waste 60 seconds." Sincere, wounded ... and lying.

Maybe you don't have a problem with a presidential candidate having faced foreclosure on the second house he co-owned with another scandal-plagued politician. Maybe you don't have a problem with any of Rubio's financial missteps, with the fact that the guy is clearly a terrible manager of his own money. But the lying should be a problem nonetheless.