Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) stayed on the offensive and continued his verbal onslaught against primary frontrunner Donald Trump on Monday, attacking him for refusing to denounce the Ku Klux Klan and its former leader, David Duke, during a Sunday news show.
"[Trump] can't win either, that's the other big problem," Rubio told a crowd of supporters in Alcoa, Tennessee. "He's unelectable now. He refused to criticize the Ku Klux Klan. He's now been given three interviews."
Trump was asked Sunday on CNN's State of the Union if he would condemn the racism of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who endorsed Trump's bid for the White House and said voting against him would be "treason to your heritage." The GOP frontrunner did not give a straight answer, instead saying he was unaware of Duke and his association with white supremacists or other groups.
When the questioner, Jake Tapper, pushed Trump and made clear he was only talking about Duke and the KKK, Trump still refused to flatly reject either one.
The real estate mogul, who the following day blamed his response on a "lousy earpiece," has since disavowed Duke's support and actually did so days before the interview with Tapper as well.
At his campaign rally, Rubio berated Trump's excuse that he could not hear Tapper asking specifically about the KKK.
"This morning on The Today Show, [Trump] blamed it on a bad earpiece, that he couldn't hear the question. I don't care how bad the earpiece is, Ku Klux Klan comes through pretty clearly. And he refused to criticize it," Rubio said.
The Florida Senator then charged that a person who cannot flatly condemn the white supremacist group and its former leader is not fit to be president.
"How can someone like that be our nominee?" Rubio asked. "How can the nominee of the Republican Party, of the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan, the party of hope and the party of optimism, nominate someone who refuses to criticize the Ku Klux Klan or distance himself from an avowed racist like David Duke? And we can't lose this election."
Rubio added that the media knows everything controversial about Trump's past and is waiting for him to be the Republican nominee "so they can descend on him like the hounds of Hell" to "shred him to pieces, and then they will get Hillary Clinton elected, which is what many of them want anyways."
Rubio has been aggressively going after Trump since last Thursday's GOP debate in which he attacked what he views as the real estate mogul's shady business record, unspecific policy proposals, and lack of knowledge of many issues.
Rubio has since used the term "con artist" to describe Trump on several occasions, causing a back-and-forth between the two candidates that has taken center stage on the campaign trail.