Hypocrites Rubio, DeSantis won’t condemn Trump for loving on Putin but boycott Biden | Opinion

At a time when the United States should be showing the world a bipartisan, united front against Vladimir Putin’s despicable invasion of Ukraine, Florida’s top Republican leaders have instead chosen to play partisan politics.

In their book, the political baloney they peddle in the home state in a midterm election year is more important than a conflict with Russia that could lead us into World War III.

Leave it to Sen. Marco Rubio of Miami and Gov. Ron DeSantis to take the lead by targeting President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as the subject of their dismissal and ire.

Rubio not present, as usual

Rubio, who’s facing a reelection campaign against law-and-order Congresswoman Val Demings, is boycotting Biden’s speech.

Silly man that Rubio has become, spewing dangerous COVID misinformation and downplaying a highly infectious virus that has killed 70,084 in Florida, he was all worked up about being asked to wear a mask.

A great excuse for a senator who constantly misses important Senate business.

DeSantis won’t defend his own country

DeSantis, expected to win reelection come November and not in need of resorting to immoral conduct, still rejected a request to send members of the Florida National Guard to Washington to support the security effort.

But he’s proud to be an undemocratic lout, boasting Monday on Twitter of his disdain for an American democratic tradition just because a Democrat leads the country.

“Last week, the Biden Administration requested the assistance of State National Guards to deploy to Washington D.C. I have rejected this request — there will be no @FLGuard sent to D.C. for Biden’s State of the Union,” he said.

As DeSantis indulged his one-party rule impulses, Russians bombarded a residential area of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and its national cultural center.

It’s quite the interesting stand for a governor with 2024 presidential ambitions to take: He won’t help defend his country — or the nation’s president and members of Congress, his former colleagues — from a potential threat during a landmark, Constitution-mandated event.

And he’s a Harvard University-educated lawyer? The Ivy League has some stepping up to do.

Likewise for Florida’s National Guard, who should be volunteering their services or, at least, expressing dismay and standing up to DeSantis’ stand-down mandate.

On the merits of their unpatriotic acts at wartime alone, Rubio and DeSantis should give Americans pause.

But here’s what’s most interesting — and highly hypocritical — about their all-political, anti-Biden antics.

All about Putin-lovin’ Trump

They shun and disrespect the democratically elected president of our country, but they won’t condemn their own party’s leader, Donald Trump, for still voicing admiration for the man killing and exiling Ukrainians.

To say they’re the ultimate two-faced politicos is an understatement when you view the images of death, bombings, and destruction coming out of Ukraine. And when you behold the solidarity from around the world, and in particular, the strong international measures against Russia being assembled, in large part due to the Biden administration’s insistence on coalition-building.

Those of us with good memories remember that NATO-hating Trump placed our alliances in jeopardy, that the United States’ reputation around the world as friend of democracies and foe of tyrants came into question as Trump embraced one tyrant after another.

He embraced pretty much all of them (and aided his business interests abroad), except Miami’s most hated despots in Cuba and Venezuela, of course — with both of those regimes upheld by Putin’s intervention during the Trump administration and continuing even now.

How Cuban American and Latin American voters in Florida were able to overcome the Trump-Putin bromance to vote again for Trump is only understandable to those of us who know how easily these voters can be fooled by caudillos of both the right and left.

In Florida, center of Trump universe — we have unfortunately inherited the Trumps discarded by Washington and New York City — it’s more important to focus on what can be gained by continuing falsehoods about how badly Biden is managing everything.

If for no other reason than the brave fighters of Ukraine, Rubio and DeSantis should have put aside their partisan claptrap for one night.

But they chose the same-old, same-old political game.

The bottom line remains: If they truly supported Ukraine, they would call Trump’s admiration of Ukraine invader Putin what it was — and still is: Shameful.

In not doing so, and forgoing the State of the Union speech by a rightfully elected Biden in order to throw shade for Putin-admiring Trump, guess on whose side they’re playing this time?

Cuba’s.

Like Trump, the regime south of us likes Putin, too.