DALLAS — Following the Republican debate at the University of Houston on Thursday, presidential candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio held a rally in Dallas on Friday.
Although the event, which drew approximately 2,000 supporters, was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Rubio did not arrive until about 10 a.m. and finished around 10:30 a.m.
Rubio alternated between reassuring his stances on conservative ideals and attacking Republican front runner Donald Trump. Rubio drew a lot of laughs mocking Trump, taking out his phone to read Trump’s tweets from that morning.
The first tweet Rubio read accused Rubio of being a “choker” but Trump misspelled the word.
“And once a chocker, always a choker,” Rubio said. “I guess that’s what he meant to say. He spelled ‘choker,’ ‘c-h-o-c-k-e-r.’ Chocker.”
Rubio went on to describe how Trump acted during commercial breaks.
“He asked for a full-length mirror. I don’t know why, because the podium goes up to here,” Rubio said, raising his hand to his chest. “Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet. I don’t know.”
Rubio continued to read tweets and pointed out the misspellings of words such as honor, spelled by Trump as “honer” and lightweight, spelled “leightweight.”
Rubio followed up on a claim he made during the debate the night before, suggesting that maybe Trump hired illegal workers to write his tweets for him just as he had hired illegal workers at Trump Towers several years earlier.
Rubio also encouraged voters to talk to their friends about voting saying, “Friends don’t let friends got for Donald Trump.”
Conner Jones, a 19 year-old from Dallas said he believes Rubio is the only candidate who can stand up against Trump and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“There is a resurgence in the Republican Party right now we are finally realizing that Trump is an immature child,” Jones said. “Trump always says he’s a businessman but he lies like a politician.”
Alison Richardson, 51 year-old from Lucas attended the rally with her 15 year-old daughter Karlee Arrington. Richardson said she believes Rubio’s charisma, strong leadership skills and his ability to affect change will bring him the supporters he needs to win the Republican nomination.
“Marco Rubio is the embodiment of the American Dream,” Richardson said. “He is the son of immigrants, worked his way to the top, I believe he has been in Washington long enough to know what’s broken and have an idea of how to fix it.”
