Rubio: Trump Nomination "Would Fracture The Party"
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Former presidential hopeful Marco Rubio spoke out for the first time since he dropped out of the race.
Rubio was on Capitol Hill Thursday where he made sure to reiterate his opinion on GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
"Hopefully there's time to still you know prevent a Trump nomination which I think would fracture the party and be further damaging to the Conservative movement," said Rubio.
When asked about the prospects of a vice presidential position or running for re-election in the Florida Senate or even running for governor, he was clear on his plans.
"No, I am not going to be anybody's vice president. I'm not interested in being vice president....I am not running for the governor of Florida. I am going to finish out my term in the Senate. Over the next 10 months, we're gonna work really hard here and we want some things we want to achieve and then I'll be a private citizen."
As for his now-suspended campaign, Rubio said he is proud of the way it was run.
"We ran a race I am very proud of from a messaging perspective. It's just not what the electorate wanted this year," said Rubio.
But he said while he had the right message, he was not on the winning side this time.
"You have millions of Americans that are struggling financially. The changes in our economics are very disruptive. Many of the jobs that people relied on to sustain the middle class are gone or don't pay enough or are being replaced by a machine or they're being sent overseas and so my argument was yes these things are really happening but there's also opportunities being created and we should embrace those and that's just not a message people wanted to hear," said Rubio.
As for the candidates who are left in the running, Rubio referred to this election year as "unusual."
"It's a very unusual political year. People are going to write books about this year," said Rubio.
The Florida Senator said as of Thursday, he had no announcement on a possible endorsement of his former rivals in the race for the White House.
One thing is for sure, he does not want to get behind Trump.
"I think in an ideal world, you have a nominee and people coalesce around the nominee and it gives you a stronger position in the general election. I don't believe Donald Trump will ever be able to do that," said Rubio.
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