Sen. Marco Rubio, who speaks to the Miami-Dade Republican Party Saturday night, has kept PolitiFact Florida’s Truth-O-Meter busy since 2009 when he ran for U.S. Senate.
One of our earliest fact-checks examined his claim that "Fifty-seven" of Rubio's 100 ideas “ultimately became law” in Florida related to his tenure as House Speaker. We rate that claim Half True.
We have fact-checked Rubio 93 times on a variety of claims including about climate change, Common Core, Cuba, the federal health care law, foreign affairs, guns, poverty, space and technology.
Out of Rubio’s 93 ratings, he has received 17 percent True, 24 percent Mostly True, 20 percent Half True, 23 percent Mostly False, 14 percent False and 2 percent Pants on Fire. We also gave him a Half Flip for his position on whether the Iraq war was a mistake.
(And here is the Truth-O-Meter for his fellow Miami-Dade resident/presidential primary opponent Jeb Bush.)
Here is a look at a few of our recent fact-checks related to Rubio:
Bulk metadata collection: "There is not a single documented case of abuse of this program,” Rubio said. There are plenty of documented cases of misuse of the metadata collection program. It just depends whether that misuse is what you or Rubio have in mind when you think of abuse. We found no example of intentional misuse of the program. Keep reading here.
Immigration: "We have a legal immigration system in America that accepts 1 million people a year, legally,” Rubio said. “No other country in the world even comes close to that." The United States accepted just under 1 million people in 2013, the most recent numbers available. As a percentage of population, though, the United States ranked 19th out of 24 countries in 2013. Still, Rubio is correct that the overall figure puts the United States ahead of other countries. Keep reading here.
Restoring felons’ rights: A Facebook meme says Marco Rubio said that "felons should not have their voting rights restored" but that "convicted felons should be allowed to own guns after they have done their time." The meme was posted by a site that describes itself as satirical, and we found no evidence that Rubio actually said the words attributed to him. While Rubio has spoken critically in the past about felons regaining voting rights, he does not appear to have taken a stance on the restoration of felons’ gun rights. Keep reading here.
Hear a claim in Rubio’s speech tonight we should fact-check? #PolitiFactThis or [email protected]
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