DAILY BEAST
by Tim Mak
May 13, 2015

Marco Rubio proved he can hang with the big hawks in his first foreign policy speech since he declared his run for president

The student has now become the teacher. Sen. Marco Rubio, once viewed as a protege of presidential competitor Jeb Bush, schooled the former Florida governor Wednesday evening in the first national security address of his national campaign. As compared to Jeb Bush, who fumbled and stumbled through his first major national security address, Marco Rubio delivered a master class on foreign policy that spoke to the soul of the right’s hawkish neoconservatives. In New York City, before the Council of Foreign Relations and their foreign policy experts, Rubio showed himself to be a peer. In an hour before the Council, he spoke about everything from Filipino typhoon survivors to keeping South China Sea transit ways accessible—and at one point corrected longtime broadcaster and forum moderator Charlie Rose about the extent to which there are Iranian fighters in Iraq. READ MORE