'He warned us': Marco Rubio praised for 2016 caution that US was giving 'nuclear codes' to 'erratic individual'

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as a 2016 presidential candidate described Donald Trump as a "dangerous" actor, warning that it would be imprudent to provide "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual."

His warnings appear to have materialized. The 37-count indictment against the former president includes allegations that he mishandled classified documents “regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”

But Rubio isn’t taking credit for his foresight, MSNBC reports.

The senior senator from Florida is instead staking out the politically safer partisan ground in downplaying the seriousness of the allegations prosecutors claim the former president committed. Rubio told CBS News on Monday that, regardless of whether the charges against Trump have merit, special counsel Jack Smith should have considered the “deeply divisive” nature of the allegations, Steve Benen writes for MSNBC.

In the same CBS News interview, Rubio said the allegations against Trump weren't so serious because he wasn't acting as an actual spy.

Benan writes that “It’s difficult to think of an issue on which the Florida Republican was more correct. Rubio’s rhetoric has never been more prescient: He warned us that Trump was likely to be irresponsible with nuclear secrets, and there’s now documented evidence that Trump was irresponsible with nuclear secrets.”

Benan writes that as the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee who recently chaired the panel, Rubio “as much as anyone on Capitol Hill, knows just how dangerous Trump’s alleged misconduct was. What’s more, the senator practically predicted the former president’s apparent recklessness.”

“But there was Rubio on national television anyway, doing his part to support the man who labeled him ‘Little Marco,’ adding a pitiful coda to an embarrassing transformation.

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