Rising Trump VP contender refuses to say if he'll accept 2024 election results and calls for mass deportation of '25 to 30 million' illegal immigrants

Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio refused to say whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election on Sunday while also taking a hard-right stance on immigration after once being seen as a moderate who worked to find a bipartisan solution.

Rubio's stances on both issues come as he has been publicly floated by Donald Trump as a potential vice presidential pick. His remarks put him more in line with the presumptive presidential nominee as Trump deliberates his running mate.

'Will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter what happens senator?' Meet the Press moderator Kirsten Welker asked Rubio on Sunday.

 'No matter what happens? No, if it's an unfair election I think it's going to be contested by either side,' Rubio said.

Welker clarified 'no matter who wins?' but Rubio claimed it was actually Democrats who have sowed distrust in the elections.

'The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000,' Rubio said. 

While Democrats often point out their presidential candidates won the popular vote in both 2000 and 2016 despite not winning the election, there has always been a concession from the Democratic candidate and a peaceful transfer of power.

Rubio went on rant slamming Hillary Clinton saying that she said the election was stolen in 2016, but in the end, Clinton did in fact concede the election to Trump in a public speech.

The Florida senator also became animated, raising his voice and asking Welker whether she had ever asked a Democrat on the show about whether the election was stolen.

Trump continues to claim that he actually won the 2020 election which is not true and his team failed to provide evidence of in court.

Rubio did vote back in 2021 to certify the 2020 election results in Congress. He told Welker by that point in the process he did not have other options.

Ex-president Donald Trump with Senator Marco Rubio at a rally in Miami, Florida in 2022

Hillary Clinton giving a speech where she conceding the 2016 election to Donald Trump

Rubio was also asked about Trump's plan to build migrant detention camps, deploy the military and carry out the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in U.S. history if reelected. 

Rubio suggested the number of those who would be rounded up and deported from the country would be upwards of 20 million.  

'The answer to your question is yes. We cannot absorb 25, 30 million people who entered this country illegally,' Rubio stated emphatically. 'They're here illegally. What country on earth would tolerate that?' Rubio said. 'We don't even know who most of these people are.'

He claimed they cannot be vetted and are coming from nations that do not have document systems. 

'Yes, we're going to have to do something. Unfortunately, we're going to have to do something dramatic to remove people from this country who are here illegally, especially people we know nothing about.'

His declaration was a dramatic shift from where he stood when he ran for president in 2016. 

Migrants lining up to be transferred by U.S. Border Patrol on April 18, 2024 after crossing the Bravo River in El Paso, TX

Senator Rubio debating with Trump in 2016. While running for president in 2016, Rubio called mass deportation of undocumented immigrants unreasonable but his stance since then has shifted much further to the right since Trump became president 

Meet the Press played clips of him in 2015 saying 'I don't think it's reasonable to say you're going to round up and deport 11 million people,' 'I don't think that works,' and that he did not believe it was a realistic policy.

Rubio claimed that the issue has 'completely changed' since he made those past comments. 

'In 2013 when I was involved in immigration reform, we had 11, 12 million people who had been here for longer than a decade. Now we've had that number almost in the last three years alone from all over the world,' Rubio said.

He said 'this is not immigration, this is mass migration' and even called it an 'invasion' of the country. 

He was against the bipartisan immigration deal that Republicans ended up blocking earlier this year. 

A decade ago, Rubio was considered a champion of bipartisan immigration reform and supported the 2013 immigration deal. But he has since disavowed the bill of the so-called Gang of Eight which he was once a part of.

Senator Rubio during a hearing on border security and immigration on Capitol Hill in 2020

But by 2016 even as he was still calling some of Trump's proposal 'unrealistic' he was shifting much further to the right on the issue as he mounted his own presidential bid.

He vowed to end the DACA program during his campaign and later moved to support Trump's border wall and the separation of families at the border.

But even as Rubio has been mentioned as a potential running mate by Trump, the two have not actually spoken about the possibility. 

'I haven't spoken to the president, I haven't spoken to anybody in the campaign,' Rubio said. 

He said the only people who have spoken to him about becoming Trump's running mate were mostly members of the media.

'There's only one person on this planet who knows to the vice presidential pick is going to be and his name is Donald Trump.'