Marco Rubio just endorsed Donald Trump. WTF?

Here we go again.

(Marco Rubio and Donald Trump)

If the last 8 years have taught me anything, it’s this: NEVER be surprised by the willingness of elected Republican officials to bow and scrape before Trump.

And yet, when this tweet came across my feed on Sunday night, dear reader, I was shocked:

Marco Rubio endorses Donald Trump for president on the eve of the Iowa caucuses! Is there no shame left in politics?

(Sidebar: In backing Trump, Rubio snubbed his home state governor — Ron DeSantis — as well as Nikki Haley, who endorsed his presidential candidacy in 2016.)

In case you forgot, let me remind you of the MANY things Marco Rubio has said about Donald Trump in the past eight years:

• “If we’re going to be the party of fear, we’re going to spend some time in the wilderness. If we’re the party of fear, with a candidate who basically is trying to prey upon people’s fears to get them to vote for them, I think we’re going to pay a big price in November and beyond…I think he’s already an embarrassment. People around the world are watching this debate and this campaign and wondering what’s happening here, because the things he says are nonsensical.” (March 2016)

• “This is the most important government job on the planet. And we’re about to turn over the conservative movement to a person that has no ideas of any substance on the important issues. The nuclear codes of the United States – to an erratic individual – and the conservative movement – to someone who has spent a career sticking it to working people.” (February 2016)

• “He is a con artist. He runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy — his entire career.” (February 2016)

• “Donald Trump isn't gonna make America great, he's gonna make America orange.” (February 2016)

• “Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vulgar – no I don’t think perhaps – the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency in terms of how he’s carried out his candidacy.” (March 2016)

• “I don't care if I have to get in my pickup truck and drive around the country like I did when I ran for the Senate. Donald Trump will never be the nominee of the party of Lincoln and Reagan.” (February 2016)

• “He put out a picture of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is amazing to me that the guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup. Donald Trump likes to sue people, he should sue people for whoever did that to his face.”

• “Let me tell you something, during one of the breaks, two of the breaks, he went backstage, he was having a meltdown. First, he had this little makeup thing applying, like makeup around his mustache, because he had one of those sweat mustaches. He wanted a full-length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants weren't wet. I don't know.” (February 2016)

There’s more. Lots more. I mean LOTS more.

Now, I can already hear the defenders of Rubio (yes, they are out there) saying something like: Those quotes are eight years old! Things have changed!

Which is, of course, the notional theory behind Rubio’s Twitter X endorsement of Trump. Read it closely and it’s less about Trump than about Rubio: I accomplished these things because Trump got out of the way! We need a president who gets out of the way!

This is, in a word, ridiculous. Go back and just read that first Rubio quote about Trump above. Actually, don’t. I’ll remind you:

“If we’re going to be the party of fear, we’re going to spend some time in the wilderness. If we’re the party of fear, with a candidate who basically is trying to prey upon people’s fears to get them to vote for them, I think we’re going to pay a big price in November and beyond…I think he’s already an embarrassment. People around the world are watching this debate and this campaign and wondering what’s happening here, because the things he says are nonsensical.”

Now, ask yourself: What, exactly, has changed about Trump — and his use of fear as a vote motivator — over the past years that would lead to Rubio’s change of heart? I’ll answer that one for you: Absolutely nothing. If anything, Trump has leaned IN on his fear-mongering.

How about that second Rubio quote above — the one where he said: “This is the most important government job on the planet. And we’re about to turn over the conservative movement to a person that has no ideas of any substance on the important issues. The nuclear codes of the United States – to an erratic individual – and the conservative movement – to someone who has spent a career sticking it to working people.”

Rubio said that long before this tweet from Trump:

So, did something change Rubio’s mind during Trump’s presidency about his trustworthiness to handle the American nuclear arsenal? Maybe his suggestion that we should drop nuclear bombs into hurricanes to change their trajectory?

My point (in case you somehow missed it): Trump has not changed ONE BIT since 2016. Not at all.

And yet, here we are. (I find myself saying and writing this a lot these days.)

Rubio, like Mike Lee and so many other elected Republicans, is engaging in an act of political survival: Trump is going to be the nominee — barring some cataclysm. So the only course of action is to endorse him — principles and past statements be damned.

But, we remember. Even if they’d like us to forget.