The super PAC supporting Jeb Bush is hitting Marco Rubio for missing Senate votes and national security briefings in its first TV ad fully targeting the first-term senator from Florida.
Right to Rise is spending $1.4 million on a 30-second spot that will run in Iowa over the next two weeks, an apparent attempt to blunt any momentum Rubio could pick up in the upcoming Iowa caucuses on February 1.
The ad mentions that Rubio missed a briefing following the Paris terror attacks, and blasts him for being at a fundraising the same day as the San Bernardino attacks.
“Politics first. That’s the Rubio way,” the narrator states at the end.
After missing the briefing following the Paris attacks last month, Rubio’s team argued at the time that he attended a separate classified Intelligence Committee session.
“Bush’s team dishonestly omits that Marco is on the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, where he attended the highest level briefings on the Paris attacks,” spokesman Alex Conant said in response to the new ad.
“No other candidate for president has received more classified Intelligence briefings or better understands the threats facing our nation today than Marco. It’s sad to see Jeb’s ‘joyful’ campaign reduced to such intellectual dishonesty,” Conant added.
The super PAC has previously hit Rubio, along with Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in an ad, but this is the first one focused solely on Rubio.
The Des Moines Register first reported the ad.