U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio appeared on Fox News Thursday night, charging that talk in the Joe Biden White House of a domestic travel ban on Florida is driven by “jealousy” and a zest for “punishment” of the Sunshine State.
The Senator told host Tucker Carlson that there needed to be legislation curbing the Executive Branch from travel restrictions he deemed “clearly unconstitutional.”
Discussion of potential travel restrictions on the Sunshine State, first reported by the Miami Herald, were being considered as a result of B.1.1.7 and other variants surging in the state. The Biden Administration has denied that plans for such action are imminent, but the talk is enough for Biden-wary Republicans.
Rubio noted Biden’s opposition to the Trump-China travel ban, but quipped that the new President “wants to impose them on American citizens.”
“Tonight if you arrive at the U.S. Southern Border with a child, you will be allowed entry to the country,” Rubio said. “But if you’re an American citizen living in Florida who wants to travel, they will put some kind of restriction in your way. It’s clearly unconstitutional. We should pass a law here making clear that this is not in the power of an administration to do.”
Rubio suggests the Biden administration is “trying to punish Florida.”
“Florida’s embarrassed California. Florida’s embarrassed New York. It hosted a Super Bowl with actual people in the stands,” Rubio said. “I honestly think there’s an element of it that involves punishment, I really do.”
The Senator, as is the case with many Florida Republicans, has leaped to express condemnation of the Biden administration travel ban trial balloon. He publicized a letter to the White House earlier this week memorializing his dismay.
“Instituting a travel ban, or any restriction of movement between the states, would be an outrageous, authoritarian move that has no basis in law or science. Instead, it would only serve to inflict severe and devastating economic pain on an already damaged economy,” Rubio wrote Biden Wednesday.
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
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This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2021.
