Rubio: Clinton will have to answer for ‘massive failures’ at State Dept.

Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), a Republican White House hopeful, is giving likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton an “F” for her term as secretary of State.

{mosads}“I’m sure she’s going to go out bragging about her time in the State Department,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week.” “She’s also going to have to be held accountable for its failures, whether it’s the failed reset with Russia or the failure in Benghazi that actually cost lives.”

“If you look at the diplomacy that was pursued in her time in the State Department, it has failed everywhere in the world,” Rubio added. “If she is going to run on her record as secretary of State, she’s also going to have to answer for its massive failures.”

“No one’s been held accountable,” he said. “Who’s been held accountable in this administration?”

“They decided not just to mislead the American public but to mislead the families of these victims as to exactly what happened.”

“Marco Rubio took a deep dive into right-wing political posturing this morning in an attempt to appeal to the kind of partisan extremism required to be a potential Republican presidential candidate these days,” said Adrienne Elrod, communications director of American Bridge’s Correct the Record.

“Americans want leadership like Hillary Clinton’s that is built on making the future better, not an agenda dictated by Tea Party fear mongering financed by the Koch brothers,” she added.

Rubio has a major speech scheduled for Tuesday on retirement security reform.

A report released in January by the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-allied think tank, concluded that Americans are “deeply concerned” about retirement security and want policymakers to make it a higher priority.

Rubio earlier this year outlined major reforms to federal poverty programs and higher education in a bid to establish himself as a candidate who can compete for more populist voters against Clinton.

— Alexander Bolton contributed to this report, which was updated at 4:28 p.m.