Rubio Makes a Surprise Lubbock Appearance as Trump Closes the Night: 'Let's Go Out and Do What We Do Best — Win on Nov. 3'
The secretary of state was not on the program. Neither was a joke about parachuting him into Cuba. President Donald Trump closed his second Texas rally of the day with both — and with a direct warning about what a James Talarico win would mean.
LUBBOCK - The surprise guest arrived late in the program. President Donald Trump invited Secretary of State Marco Rubio onto the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center stage on Tuesday night, drawing one of the longer applause breaks of the evening, USA Today reported in its live coverage. Rubio kept it to a single sentence of praise: "Our enemies are weaker, our country is stronger and our people are safer because Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States. Thank you." Trump then turned his own secretary of state into a punchline - for the second time this week, he said he could drop Rubio into Cuba. "Maybe on the trip back, we'll just drop Marco into Cuba. We'll fly him in by parachute him. We'll drop him into the middle of Cuba, he'll solve that problem in about two minutes," Trump said, adding, "Cuba is coming our way just like everything else is coming our way." He made similar remarks during a September visit to the United Nations and at an October 23 rally in Fort Myers, Florida.
The closing argument itself was aimed three miles down the road, at the Democrat holding his own rally. "The other guy doesn't deserve it, he doesn't represent your values," Trump said of James Talarico, the Wall Street Journal reported, predicting that if Talarico won, "you go off meat, you go off oil, and you let millions and millions of people flow through the border and your second amendment will be destroyed." Talarico, at the Fiesta Center, was making the opposite case at the same hour - that Paxton and the system behind him are the corruption Texans should vote out.
Trump concluded the rally at 8:10 p.m. Texas time with his signature dance moves and "YMCA," his closing staple. "Let's go out and do what we do best, which is to win on Nov. 3," he said of the midterms. "We know how to win, we know how to win better than anybody. That's what we've been doing for a long time together." Both Lubbock rallies wrapped on Tuesday night, the Avalanche-Journal reported - and West Texas is not done with this campaign: Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to return to Lubbock on Friday, three days before early voting ends and four days before the election that decides the Senate seat and, with it, possibly the Senate itself.
