@PatriciaMazzei
Marco Rubio's flurry of media interviews continued two days after the launch of his presidential campaign, each of them offering a glimpse or two of the Republican candidate's thoughts.
Wednesday night, Rubio made time for a Miami Spanish-language television station -- the only local news outlet to score a interview with him so far. Rubio told América TeVe host Pedro Sevcec that he didn't agree with the suggestion that he is ideologically more moderate than GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
"I've never seen those characterizations as legitimate," Rubio said, adding -- not that there was any doubt -- that he considers himself a conservative.
Sevcec also asked if opposition research -- when other candidates dig up dirt on their fellow contenders -- would turn up anything on Rubio.
"I've been in the public eye already for so many years," Rubio said.
The Florida senator noted he has been vetted before, in 2012, when Mitt Romney's campaign considered him for the VP slot on the Republican ticket, suggesting that if anything had turned up it would have already become known.
"Like all human beings I've made mistakes but at the end of the day no skeletons" in his closet, Rubio said.
When asked why he didn't say more in Spanish in his announcement Monday other than a single reference to his late father, Rubio didn't say the likely reason: that the made-for-TV speech was precisely timed to fit into newscasts and give him time to record a cable interview immediately afterward.
Instead, he referred to time constraints in general and to what he called a very hot hall at the Freedom Tower (though it was likely hotter for him under the lights than for the audience).
"The great majority of the American populations that was watching that speech speaks English," Rubio concluded.
He heads to New York and Boston for fundraisers Thursday.
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