Rubio says he apologized directly to Trump for manhood jokes
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio personally apologized to Donald Trump for making jokes about the size of his manhood, he told CNN Sunday morning.
"I actually told Donald, one of the debates, I forget which one, I apologized to him for that," Rubio said. "I said, you know, I'm sorry I said that. It's not who I am and I shouldn't have done it."
"I didn't say it in front of the cameras, I didn't want any political benefit," he added. "I'm not a candidate now so I can say that to you. So not because of him, but because of me. I didn't like what it reflected on me. It embarrassed my family. It's not who I am."
Back during his final weeks as a GOP candidate, struggling to catch up to Trump in the polls in his home state of Florida, Rubio made a joke about Trump's "small hands" that implied the size of other body parts as well. ("You know what they say about men with small hands? ... You can't trust them. You can't trust them," Rubio said at the time.)
At the time, Trump responded during a GOP debate by assuring the audience that if, by referring to his hands, Rubio was suggesting "something else must be small," Trump said: "I guarantee you there's no problem."
Rubio acknowledged that his increasingly Trump-like tone toward the end of the campaign was borne out of a desire to find a strategy that worked, but ultimately it hurt him and his campaign.
"And you did it almost in a sense of, you know, nothing at this point is working," he said. "This guy is out there every day mocking people, saying horrible things about people, but if you respond to him, somehow you're hitting below the belt? And that was my sense of it at the time. What I didn't realize was, it isn't who I am ... and by doing it, I ended up hurting myself."