Sen. Marco Rubio sounded like someone who just wanted to punt responsibility for holding Donald Trump accountable for inciting the violence and the armed insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.

Rubio seemed more put out at having to go through a Trump impeachment trial than he was about Trump’s wrongdoings, which Rubio acknowledged. He called the trial “stupid and bad for the country” and claimed, “It’s not even constitutional.”

“How can you put someone through a process where the automatic consequence of it is impossible?” Rubio continued. “You can’t remove Donald Trump from office.”

But it’s not about removal of Trump, it’s about the rule of law and barring him from running for office again. Lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin said it well on CNN:

RASKIN: Well, the Constitution, of course, talks about conviction, removal and disqualification from holding further public office. 

I don't think anybody would seriously argue that we should establish a precedent where every president on the way out the door has two weeks or three weeks or four weeks to try to incite an armed insurrection against the union or organize a coup against the union, and, if it succeeds, he becomes a dictator, and, if it fails, he's not subject to impeachment or conviction because we just want to let bygones be bygones. 

Rubio, however, continued whining.

RUBIO: We’ve got all these important issues in this country. … All these things we should be working on, and instead we’re going to spend from 1PM until 7 or 8 PM six nights a week for as long as it takes on an impeachment trial. … When they were doing the first impeachment trial a year ago, they wouldn’t let us move nominations, they wouldn’t let us move legislation, they said they didn’t want the day distracted.

And after backing Trump, Rubio now cares about national unity.

RUBIO: It stokes the fire. This is a country that’s already deeply divided. Politics has become very emotional, people literally hate each other in this country over politics, and now on top of that fire, we’re going to pour all of this gasoline and really get it going hotter. … It’s pretty typical in the third world that after someone’s out of office they lose, they leave, the party that takes power then prosecutes him. It happens all over the world. And that’s the precedent we’re creating here now.

Host Neil Cavuto pushed back: “But isn’t that of Donald Trump’s doing, though, Senator? Do you think that he provoked that crowd?”

“Donald Trump is a private citizen,” Rubio said, though Trump was in office on January 6.

“Do you think he should be punished for those remarks?” Cavuto asked.

“If the president did something that rises to that level, as these folks so strongly believe, then the criminal justice system and the civil system is in place to pursue.

Cavuto pressed. If the remarks had been made six months earlier, would Rubio think impeachment proceedings would have been warranted?

Rubio waffled. “That’s why you would have to have a trial at that point.”

But finally, Rubio acknowledged, “There’s no doubt that the president bears some responsibility for what happened,” he said. But, he reiterated that if Trump committed wrongdoing, “the criminal justice system can deal with that.”

Then, Senator Unity went on attack: “It’s all about the left’s demand for revenge. … This is about ratings and about clicks.” He called it “tremendous arrogance” to try and ban Trump from running again. “This is all about vengeance and retribution,” Rubio said.

You can watch it below, from the January 26, 2021 Your World.