Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said on Wednesday that when it comes to what public policy issues are a priority, there is an enormous gap between everyday people and the elites in government, media and academia.
"I would challenge you that politics today is a lot less about ideology and a lot more about the disconnect between the people who make our laws and the people that live underneath them," Rubio said in an interview with CBS Miami. "If you want to understand 2010, 2014, 2016, and I believe, future elections, you have to understand that there is an enormous gap between what public policy elites—people in government, the media, and academia—are focused on, and what everyday people care about. And they’re not lined up."
Rubio added that people in politics spend too much time fighting over things that don't matter in the "real world."
"So I think there’s a sense across the American political spectrum that the people in office spend all their time fighting for things that don’t matter in the real world. And the things that matter in the real world aren’t getting enough attention," Rubio said. "And so they want to send people that are going to blow it up, that are going to basically force change in the status quo, and the more the established figures in politics attack you, the stronger it makes you in the eyes of the people that want to see something different."
In 2016, political newcomer President Donald Trump shocked the world as he rode a wave of populist anger towards the political and cultural establishment to become president of the United States. Rubio added that divide between average citizens and elites explains Trump's rise to the presidency.
"I think that explains Bernie Sanders, I think that explains Donald Trump. And I think that is a dangerous thing for the country because Vladimir Putin is a threat to America," Rubio said in comments that didn't air on CBS.
"The overwhelming majority of the men and women who serve us in the intelligence community and the FBI are patriotic Americans, not members of the deep state. Kids should be vaccinated," Rubio added. "But some of these things are being questioned now because the experts saying these things are people whose motivations and intentions are questioned by millions of everyday Americans who wonder who’s fighting and who understands people like me, and often times they feel like the people in power look down on people like them."
Trump has often attacked former and current members of the intelligence community as being part of a "deep state" that is working to undermine him and his presidency.
In his interview, Rubio also chided the media for how they cover Trump voters.
"You see journalists going out in middle America covering Trump voters the way an anthropologist would covers some lost tribe in the Amazon. These are everyday Americans, and just because they don’t live in Washington or New York, doesn’t mean that their views aren’t real and don’t matter. And you can’t attribute everything they do, everything they stand for, and everyone they vote for on them being backwards or xenophobic or racist," Rubio said. "So that disconnect is real, and it’s playing out in both parties."