Marco Rubio: Get the Parkland Teens' Names Out of Your Mouth!

Just one month ago, Marco Rubio was thoroughly owned by Parkland teens during a town hall on school shootings, who asked him if he would commit to stop taking donations from the NRA. (Surprise: he wouldn’t!)

On Friday, the day before said teens will lead a march to end gun violence across the country, Rubio complimented their efforts to the Guardian: “They’ve done more in five weeks on gun violence than has been done in 15 years.” (Student journalists from the Eagle Eye, the newspaper of Stoneman Douglas requested the interview in a collaboration with the Guardian where they are guest-editing the site’s coverage.)

To you, sir, I say: Get those beautiful teens’ names out of your mouth!!!

Rubio, who has suddenly started to support more minor gun control measures (it’s amazing what dinging a politician’s pride can accomplish), his plans still don’t include banning assault weapons. He told the Guardian that “the attitude of total victory—the idea that somehow some of us are going to come up here and get everything we want and just run over the other side—our system is just not set up for that.”

That’s the same system, of course, that allowed Rubio to take millions of dollars from the NRA over the course of his career and has engendered his history of opposition to gun control. Also let’s not forget that Rubio complained about the lack of civility surrounding the gun control debate after the town hall, tweeting that “we have infected the next generation with the same disease.”

Rubio is trying to have it both ways, but the teens know he’s a hack.