Florida Senator Marco Rubio was roasted on social media after joking that if college football players started wearing Antifa ‘uniforms’, they could be allowed to play during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the tweet, posted on Saturday, Rubio said he may have “found a way” to get people who wanted football tournaments to be cancelled to change their minds. “We will have to make a few equipment & uniform changes,” he wrote on Twitter, alongside a picture of Antifa protesters donning helmets and shields bearing the communist hammer and sickle.
“Apparently this new equipment makes Covid a non-issue,” Rubio added.
While Rubio’s point is similar to that made by numerous Republicans, who have questioned why massive protests are deemed safe while other major events are not, the senator began trending on Twitter, earning thousands of snarky replies.
Inspired by President Donald Trump’s past campaign nickname for Rubio, critics slammed ‘Little Marco’ for downplaying the pandemic and overemphasizing the importance of the cancelled college football season.
“You're a disgrace to the US Senate. Truly,” liberal author Amy Siskind tweeted in response. Others were equally extreme in wagging their fingers at “shameful” Rubio.
Rubio doubled down in a follow-up tweet, slamming people who are “celebrating” protests during the pandemic while deeming sports “too dangerous.”
“We have some people who encourage & in some cases even celebrate one of these activities while demanding the other activity be cancelled as too dangerous,” the Florida senator wrote.
“Can you tell which one they say is safe & constructive and which one they claim is too dangerous and irresponsible?” he added, posting another image of an Antifa protest – this time next to a still from a football game.
While Rubio received plenty of blowback for his tweets, he did get some support – and plenty of others have been airing their displeasure with the college football season being nixed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Conservative commentator David Hookstead tweeted on Friday that fans should be furious over the cancellation, given that campuses will meanwhile “be packed with thousands of students having sex.”
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