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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Kudlow to discuss the double standards used on President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Biden’s hostility towards Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and escalating tensions between China and Taiwan. See below for highlights and watch the full interview on YouTube and Rumble.

On the double standard to which liberal elites hold Biden and Trump:

“Trump was charged [for mishandling classified documents], and Biden wasn’t. But there are other double standards here. For example, apparently [Robert] Hur is the only special prosecutor you’re allowed to viciously attack and call names. If you do it to Jack Smith, you’re undermining the system, you’re a threat to his family. But you can do it to Hur. I saw a clip from the White House press conference. They’re saying that [Hur] is not a doctor. They’ve fundamentally misunderstood that. 

“It’s very simple. What he found was, all the elements of a crime have been met. But we have decided not to charge him, because we believe he’s suffering from age-related dementia, and we don’t think a jury will convict him because of that. He’ll be sympathetic, especially four years from now, because of these challenges. That’s why they chose not to charge him. So, one of two things is true: either he has age-related dementia and therefore shouldn’t be charged, or he doesn’t and therefore should be charged.

“You don’t need a doctor. They’re relying on their interviews, and their argument is, if we put this before a jury, the jury’s not going to convict this guy. So, if he in fact is not suffering from dementia, then he should have charged him. He either has dementia, or he should have been charged with a crime. Those are the only two outcomes. Hur decided not to charge him because of the dementia and memory issues. You don’t need a doctor. That’s not a medical assessment. That is an assessment of what would happen in front of a jury.”

On Biden’s and Trump’s mishandling of classified documents:

“They made the decision not to charge him, unlike Trump, even though there’s no allegation that [Trump] shared [classified material] with any foreign power, or that anything’s been disclosed… 

“What’s the crime? What’s the harm that’s been done, the injury to the nation? I’ll tell you what has injured the nation: it’s the fact they charged the president, and they’ve ripped a nation apart. They’ve created this new normal, where you’re going to have a lot of pressure on future Republicans to go after Democrats using special prosecutors and the legal system to conduct lawfare like we’re seeing now. They opened a Pandora’s box there.”

On Trump’s NATO comments:

“Trump was already president, and while Trump was president, we didn’t destroy NATO. We had troops deployed there. I remember being in Poland and meeting with American troops that were there. We didn’t see any attack on NATO. What Donald Trump has done is basically what virtually every president in the history of NATO has done, and that is, complain that our allies don’t do more. 

“Trump simply expresses it differently than the other ones did. He expresses it in a story that he told. He used the story as a way to sort of describe his position on it, which is, if you’re not going to pay more…. He was describing a negotiating tactic of some sort, but it was not prospective. He did not say, if they don’t pay up, I’m going to tell [Russia to attack them]. He was describing the story of something that he claims has happened in the past. I wouldn’t have talked that way, because I don’t talk that way. But Donald Trump doesn’t talk like a U.S. senator. He doesn’t talk like people that have served here or are members of some foreign policy think tank. 

“On the other hand, here’s what we do know, and that is that Joe Biden is using all kinds of profanity and temper tantrums and leaking to the press to go after Netanyahu. What we do know is that even as Israel is fighting for its very existence, you have an administration that’s going out there and openly saying that they’ve gone over the top, that he hates Netanyahu, that we don’t like the way you’re conducting your operation. He’s actively, in a time of war, undermining an ally, and he’s doing it to appease the radical antisemitic element of his base.”

On Biden’s hostility towards Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“They [the campaign] went to [Biden] and said that he’s going to lose a bunch of pro-Palestinian voters in places like Michigan. They sent emissaries from the White House to go meet with antisemites, to go meet with people that are supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, because these people are threatening. I guarantee you, they’ve gone to the White House, and political people have said: ‘We’re in trouble here. We have an element of our base that’s really angry at us, and it’s not going to vote for us. So, we need to put stuff out there to show that we’re not 100% on Israel’s side.’ 

“So, you start seeing the leaks that he hung up on Netanyahu, and that he swore at him. You see this memo last week that comes out from the State Department about how we’re not going to give aid to countries that target civilians. Israel is not targeting civilians. Unfortunately, in war, civilians are caught in the way. In this case, Hamas could end this conflict tomorrow. They should surrender. But they’d rather have every civilian die in Gaza than surrender. So, [Biden] has a press conference and says how they’ve gone over the top. All of this is designed to appease that radical anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, pro-Iran element in his own party, because he’s afraid of losing their support and their votes. 

“Some of those elements, by the way, find themselves in the bureaucracy of this country. I don’t know if you saw a picture about a couple of months ago of White House staffers or executive branch staffers standing out in front of the White House in protest, demanding ceasefire, obviously with their faces covered like a bunch of cowards. In the State Department, they were signing a letter condemning the administration’s position on Israel. Of course, none of them would put their name on it. Some of these people might be ambassadors or future ambassadors. We don’t know who they are, because they’re in hiding, because they’re cowards. But that’s embedded in our government right now, and that’s who he’s trying to appease.”

On the Senate foreign aid package: 

“First of all, 20 billion of the 60 billion is to buy back the weapons for ourselves that we gave them. We gave them weapons; now, we don’t have them. We need to go out and buy them to replace them for ourselves. 

“Ultimately, I would say that I want Ukraine to have the strongest possible hand in a future negotiation with Putin. That’s what’s going to happen in this conflict, and the stronger Ukraine is, the better the terms are going to be at the end of this conflict when that day comes. I think we have a national interest [in helping Ukraine defend itself]. I don’t think it’s unlimited and forever, but I also don’t think it’s zero, as I’ve described. 

“My problem is what people back home are saying to me. And that is: ‘You guys will stay up there for days at a time, cancel trips, whatever it is you’re going to do, to help other countries with their invasion. But you never do that for us. We have an invasion going on right now, and you won’t give that priority.’ 

“I think Americans are tired of always being told they’re second: second to another country, second to an interest group, second to the global economy, whatever it might be. They’re tired of it, and I think that’s exposed how out of touch politics has become. People in both parties [are out of touch] with what the priorities are of everyday working Americans.”

On escalating tensions between China and Taiwan:

“[Xi] has been talking about a takeover, and that’s been their plan. That’s part of his legacy. He views that as part of his legacy. I continue to believe that we won’t finish this decade without probably seeing some sort of real conflict over that, unless we can do things to deter it and buy ourselves some time. Maybe the next Chinese leader will have the same ambitions, but right now, we’ve got to make it as hard as possible for them to achieve that. [Xi’s] calculus changes, but he’s never made any mystery about it. He intends to move on this one way or the other before the end of this decade.”