As the Republican Party works this week to hammer out the 2024 election-year platform, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is stressing Donald Trump drives the agenda from the top of the ticket – and not "think tanks" doing "think tank stuff."
"Donald Trump's running on common sense, on restoring common sense versus the lunacy of the last four years in the far left and the shadow government that now is running our country with Joe Biden as its figurehead," Rubio told CNN's "State of the Union." "That's what he's running against.
"I mean, think tanks do think tank stuff. They come up with ideas. They say things."
Rubio was responding to criticism of the "Project 2025" agenda list set forth by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, which seeks to drain the swamp, defang the government bureaucracy established by the Obama and Biden administrations, and put in place an executive branch that serves the next president.
"I like Heritage Foundation," Rubio continued. "I agree with some of the things they stand for. But there's a bunch of scholars and people that turn around and work on different projects.
"But our candidate for president is Donald Trump."
Ultimately, Trump drives the agenda from the top of the ticket, not think tank ideology like "Project 2025."
"It's the work of a think tank, of a center-right think tank, and that's what think tanks do," Rubio continued to Dana Bash. "I can assure you, I don't have them with me today, but I have seen plenty of write-ups, frankly, not just from left-wing think tanks, but from columnists and others who are opinion writers who have actually come up with crazy ideas that are now the policies of the United States under Joe Biden.
"Things like, I don't know, letting people into our country and releasing them because there's no danger.
"Those are radical ideas that began in the faculty clubs and in the think tanks of the far left that are now the policy and the laws of the United States in 2024."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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