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At debate, Rubio calls tally of financial mishaps a pack of 'discredited attacks'
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio waved off a question about his economic smarts during the latest Republican presidential debate, saying stories about his personal financial decisions weren’t worth discussing.
At the Oct. 28, 2015, debate in Boulder, Colo., CNBC moderator Becky Quick asked Rubio how qualified he felt to guide national fiscal policy when he’d had so many money problems himself.
"Sen. Rubio, you yourself have said that you've had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills," Quick said, quoting Rubio’s 2012 book An American Son before listing several examples. "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 the wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?" she asked.
Rubio’s response was to dismiss all of Quick’s examples as partisan smear tactics.
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"Well, 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," he said. He then went on to detail his blue-collar upbringing with immigrant parents.
The response made us pause, because we wondered what had been "discredited" about Rubio’s widely reported financial mishaps. In this context, "discredited" means the things Quick said are not true or accurate.
Rubio’s campaign did not respond to our requests for comment, but we’ll take them one at a time and explain what happened:
"You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money." Years before Rubio became speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2006, he created two political committees to pay for travel and other expenses.
A 2010 Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald investigation found he failed to disclose paying $34,000 in expenses, including $7,000 to himself. He paid his wife Jeanette, who was treasurer of one of the committees, $5,700 for "gas and meals." Rubio also gave relatives another $14,000 and charged $51,000 in travel expenses to his own credit cards.
Speaking of credit cards: In 2005, the Republican Party of Florida gave him an American Express for expenses. Rubio charged thousands of dollars’ worth of restaurant meals while his meals in Tallahassee were being covered by taxpayers as part of being in the state House.
Rubio routinely used the party’s card to pay personal expenses, which he later repaid. Those included a rental car, repairs to his personal vehicle, flights to Tallahassee, a family reunion trip and paver work to his home.
In all, he spent more than $100,000 between November 2006 and November 2008. He didn’t release disclosures prior to that. The Florida Commission on Ethics in 2012 dismissed a citizen complaint that had been filed during Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign.
Rubio wrote in his book that the expenses were the result of simple mix-ups. "For example, I pulled the wrong card from my wallet to pay for pavers," he wrote. Another time, "my travel agent mistakenly used the card to pay for a family reunion in Georgia."
"Each time, I identified the charges and paid the costs myself, directly to American Express. The Republican Party of Florida didn't pay a single one of them. Nevertheless, in hindsight, I wish that none of them had ever been charged."
Quick’s description of these events is accurate.
"You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought." In 2005, Rubio bought a house in Tallahassee with then-state Rep. David Rivera for $135,000. The pair used the home while in town on state business.
Foreclosure proceedings on the Tallahassee house were started in 2010 when Rivera, then Florida House budget chairman and running for Congress in Miami, failed to make mortgage payments for five months. The loan had been structured for interest-only payments on an adjustable rate mortgage until April 2010. Rubio and Rivera stopped paying the loan in February because of a dispute over how much the payments would be after April.
In June 2010, Deutsche Bank filed a lawsuit for $136,000, prompting Rivera to make a hasty payment for the missing months. Foreclosure proceedings were stopped.
Rivera later became entangled in ethics investigations and Rubio has kept some distance from him. They sold the house in June 2015 for $117,000.
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It’s worth noting that the foreclosure proceedings didn’t proceed, but Rubio did "face" them on a second home.
"And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That's something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties." Rubio disclosed in May 2015 he had cashed out a tax-advantaged retirement account on Sept. 1, 2014, closing an American Bar Association account for the cash infusion.
"It was just one specific account that we wanted to have access to cash in the coming year, both because I'm running for president, but, also, you know, my refrigerator broke down. That was $3,000. I had to replace the air conditioning unit in our home," Rubio told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. "My kids all go to school, and they're getting closer to college and school is getting more expensive. And then when you're running for president, we just wanted to access the sum of that cash."
Because of the way most traditional IRAs are structured, Rubio was able to put money into the account without paying taxes. When he closed the account, by law he would have likely had to pay both income taxes and a 10 percent penalty, a move financial advisers usually do not recommend.
Taxes and penalties could have ranged from about $24,000 to as high as $30,000, but it’s unclear how much he paid.
Quick’s description here, too, is accurate.
Our ruling
Rubio said the premise of questions about his financial skills are "discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents."
He was responding to examples Quick gave when asking if he was prepared to oversee the nation’s economy as president. She listed troubles Rubio had experienced with campaign bookkeeping, foreclosure proceedings and liquidating an IRA at severe tax penalties.
All of these events happened and have been well-documented. It’s not accurate for Rubio to refer to the issues as "discredited," whether his opponents have used them to attack him or not. Quick was not making things up nor shading the facts.
We rate Rubio’s statement False.https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/6a595865-463d-4975-981a-4e8332b0611d
Read About Our Process
Our Sources
Marco Rubio, CNBC’s Republican primary presidential debate, Oct. 28, 2015
Tampa Bay Times, "Records show Marco Rubio spent thousands with GOP credit card," Feb. 24, 2010
Tampa Bay Times, "Marco Rubio's lavish rise to the top," March 12, 2010
Tampa Bay Times, "Senate candidate Marco Rubio in foreclosure tangle over Tallahassee property," June 18, 2010
Tampa Bay Times, "Marco Rubio's personal finances clash with call for fiscal discipline," Oct. 21, 2010
Tampa Bay Times, "U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio urges Florida Ethics Commission to toss complaint against him," March 2, 2012
Tampa Bay Times, "Ethics panel dismisses 2010 claim about Rubio," July 27, 2012
Tampa Bay Times, "Rubio's financial disclosure shows $800,000 book advance," May 16, 2013
Business Insider, "Marco Rubio has a 'big money' problem," March 6, 2015
Politico, "Marco Rubio's house of horrors," March 16, 2015
Tampa Bay Times, "Marco Rubio's finances have presented an opportunity — and a curse," April 24, 2015
Occupy Democrats, "Marco Rubio Caught Red-Handed Stealing Thousands From Republican Party Finances," May 15, 2015
Miami Herald, "Sen. Marco Rubio’s latest financial disclosures show added wealth from book royalties," May 15, 2015
Miami Herald Naked Politics blog, "Marco Rubio: I cashed out retirement account for campaign -- and new refrigerator, air conditioner," May 17, 2015
CNN, "Why Marco Rubio raided his retirement account," May 19, 2015
Tampa Bay Times Buzz blog, "Marco Rubio and David Rivera sell Tallahassee house," June 3, 2015
Politico, "Marco Rubio sells his house of horrors," June 3, 2015
Associated Press, "Rubio’s real estate dealings often a drag on his finances," June 6, 2015
New York Times, "Marco Rubio’s Career Bedeviled by Financial Struggles," June 9, 2015
MarcoRubio.com, "Our Response To The NYT’s Latest Attack On Marco And His Family," June 9, 2015
Washington Times, "Marco Rubio slams NYT for ‘arrogantly’ using student loan debt to question financial acumen," June 9, 2015
Business Insider, "Deep in debt, Rubio bought an $80,000 speedboat and leased a $50,000 luxury SUV," June 9, 2015
Talking Points Memo, "5 Points On Marco Rubio's Troubled Financial History," June 9, 2015
Huffington Post, "Yes, Marco Rubio Struggled With His Finances. Now Let's Talk About His Policy Prescriptions.," June 9, 2015
Washington Post, "Marco Rubio’s problem isn’t his personal finances. It’s his party’s economic ideas.," June 9, 2015
Washington Post, "Here’s the real issue with Marco Rubio’s finances," June 10, 2015
CNBC, "Will financial fumbles hurt or help Marco Rubio?," June 10, 2015
CNN, "Marco Rubio's financial woes could be political gold," June 10, 2015
Bloomberg, "Marco Rubio Had Money Problems. Like Everyone.," June 10, 2015
Washington Post, "Marco Rubio, like a lot of Americans, is terrible with money," June 11, 2015
Salon, "Marco Rubio’s financial woes are a perfect microcosm for GOP hypocrisy," June 11, 2015
CNN, "Is it fair to probe Marco Rubio's finances?," June 16, 2015
Des Moines Register, "Rubio addresses debt, terrorism and deregulating business," July 8, 2015
Politico, "Book deals rewrote Rubio’s story of financial woe," Sept. 18, 2015
South Florida Sun Sentinel, "Senate candidate Alan Grayson calls on Marco Rubio to resign from Senate," Oct. 28, 2015
Mediaite, "Scarborough: Marco Rubio ‘Flat-Out Lied to the American People’ During Debate," Oct. 29, 2015
South Florida Sun Sentinel, "Marco Rubio should resign, not rip us off," Oct. 29, 2015
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At debate, Rubio calls tally of financial mishaps a pack of 'discredited attacks'
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