Second Rubio Aide Argued Some Americans Not Cut Out for Workforce

Breitbart's Big Government ^ | June 17, 2013 | Matthew Boyle

[2ndDivisionVet]

A second staffer for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) disparaged American workers during an interview with Ryan Lizza, a partial transcript of the interview the New Yorker reporter released Monday afternoon shows.

Originally, it appeared as though only one anonymous Rubio “aide” disparaged American workers and only did so in the context of speaking about low-skilled jobs in the U.S. However, the Lizza interview transcript shows two aides referenced low-skilled and high-skilled American workers.

Lizza asked the two staffers to respond to this statement: “Well their argument is, what, that they have American workers for these jobs, they don’t need this program.”

The thus-far unidentified “Rubio Aide 1” said that some workers either can't or won't make it in the work force anyway:

Yeah. I mean one of the problems you have with this, "Oh, there’s American workers who are unemployed." There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you obviously can’t discuss that publicly because—

At that point, “Rubio Aide 2” interjected, “But the same is true for high-skilled workers.”

“Aide 1” then said, “Yes, and the same is true across every sector, in government, in everything.”

Lizza’s story had originally not specified that two Rubio aides made the argument, leaving a little room for Rubio’s staff to try to discredit the reporting.

As excerpted by Politico’s Mike Allen Sunday morning, Lizza’s story reported the exchange as follows:

Rubio sided with the Chamber against the construction workers. "There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it," a Rubio aide told me....

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