Marco Rubio flips the script on ‘Meet the Press’ anchor with clever response to ‘Gotcha’ question

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio appeared on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, and the interview didn’t seem to go the way the show’s host seemed to be hoping.

Kristen Welker, who took over as moderator on the show from Chuck Todd last December, seemed to be trying to embarrass Rubio — who was born in Miami to parents who had immigrated from Cuba in 1956 — on the subject of, of course, illegal immigration.

“If re-elected, Donald Trump has said he’s willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military to deport the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country,” Welker said. “It would be the largest deportation operation in American history. Do you support that plan?”

“Eleven million?” Rubio responded, chuckling. “That’s an outdated — that was the number 10 years ago. We’re talking upwards of 20, 25 million, maybe 30 million.

“There’s been almost 10 million people that have entered this country unlawfully in the last three years,” he added.

Welker, never one to let a little thing like actual data get in the way of her narrative, tried to dismiss Rubio’s objection by saying, “The number varies,” as if a difference of roughly 100 to 170 percent were a rounding error.

Rubio was forced to chuckle again as he agreed with her — sort of. “The number varies big time,” he said, repeating the argument that something close to Welker’s figure of 11 million had crossed the border over overstayed their visas during President Joe Biden‘s term alone.

“The answer to your question,” Rubio said, “is yes. We cannot absorb 25, 30 million who have entered this country illegally. They are here illegally,” he added for emphasis.

The Florida Republican said that no country in the world would allow illegal immigration in those numbers, and that Biden administration claims of “vetting” meant little given that many illegals come from countries lacking trustworthy documentation to begin with.

Rubio said it would require “dramatic” action to remove so many illegal immigrants and again pointed out that Welker’s figure of 11 million illegals was outdated.

As if none of that conversation had happened, Welker than showed Rubio three clips of Rubio in 2016, when he was running for president against the ultimately victorious Donald Trump, stating that he disagreed with Trump’s stated plan to deport 11 million illegals.

Most sentient beings at this point would have realized that Rubio had already argued against the premise of Welker’s line of questioning —Rubio said at least three times that 11 million was essentially a silly (my word, not his) number to use in relation to the number of illegals in the country.

But Welker had a trap to spring, and by golly, she was going to spring it … even if it meant that she was going to have to chew off her own leg later.

“So, why have you changed your mind now?” she asked, in what had probably been conceived as a “gotcha” moment but only really made her look like an unprepared interviewer.

“Because the issue has completely changed,” Rubio said confidently. “When I said that, [and] back in 2013 when I was involved in immigration reform, we had 11, 12 million people that had been here for longer than a decade. Now we’ve had almost the number in the last three years alone.”

I don’t blame him for repeating that point, honestly, as there was literally no evidence whatsoever that Welker had heard him the first few times he’d made it.

Rubio said that he believed that some of the people who have entered the country illegal had done so with the intent of committing terror attacks against the U.S. and that there’s really no question that at least some illegals were criminals in their home countries.

“This is not immigration,” he said. “This is not immigration. This is mass migration. Mass migration.

“This is an invasion of the country and it needs to be dealt with dramatically,” he concluded — though he added a footnote.

“By the way … polls show most Americans agree with us on this,” he said.

You can watch the clip below — which, I will add with a bit of grudging respect, was posted to X by the show itself.

WATCH: In 2016, @SenMarcoRubio (R-Fla.) said Donald Trump’s mass-deportation proposals weren’t “realistic.” @kwelkernbc: “Why have you changed your mind now?”

Rubio: “The issue has completely changed. … This is mass migration … and it needs to be dealt with dramatically.” pic.twitter.com/Dj7AMBNvdM

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 19, 2024

Responses to the posted video on X largely sided with Rubio, with a handful of exceptions.

One X user, for example, wrote: “Wow, Rubio totally owned Welker in this interview. I’m a Democrat, but I was impressed with his interview.”