Donald Trump's campaign manager criticized Marco Rubio on talk radio last week for missing the final vote on the government spending bill, saying the senator from Florida should resign from office if he isn't going to do his job.
"You've got a member of the U.S. Senate who is running for president who didn't even have the courtesy to show up and make a vote on the budget," said Corey Lewandowski on the John Fredericks Show. "There's something fundamentally wrong with that. If you don't want to do your job as a U.S. Senator, then please resign your seat and stop taking taxpayer money for a job you're not doing anymore."
Rubio's Senate attendance record has been fodder for several of his opponents, including Jeb Bush and Rand Paul, who have also suggested Rubio should resign for missing votes. Rubio argues that missing votes is a byproduct of running a presidential campaign, and has pointed to candidates in past elections who also had to miss votes while campaigning for president.
"You can be opposed to a lot of things, but at the end of the day, you are being paid by the taxpayers to do a job and that job is to show up in Washington D.C. and represent your constituents to the best of your ability," Lewandowski continued. "And I think it's fair to say an individual who has missed 40% of the votes in the U.S. Senate this year is not doing that. And I understand he wants to be the next president of the United States, but does current performance equate to future performance? Potentially."
Lewandowski said Rubio might decide as president that he didn't like it anymore and might just stop showing up.
"Do the job that the taxpayers are paying, or you have the opportunity to just resign that seat and go do something else," he added.