Marco Rubio: Hillary Clinton's Ideas 'Will Not Help Everyday Americans'

The GOP senator weighs in on a potential Democratic rival.

ByABC News
April 13, 2015, 4:53 PM

— -- Hillary Clinton's economic proposals "will not help everyday Americans," Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on Monday announcing his 2016 presidential campaign.

"This notion that somehow if we just increase the size and scope of the federal government, it helps people who are trying to make it has been disproven," Rubio said at his West Miami home. "The bigger the federal government, the more the people who can hire lobbyists and law firms to help them navigate it are going to do."

"This attachment to more government and more taxes and more regulations," Rubio said, "crush the people who are trying to make it."

In the video announcing her own presidential run on Sunday, Clinton said she wanted to be a "champion" for Americans at a time when "the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top."

When asked about Clinton's candidacy, Rubio said: "One of the challenges we have today in this country is that we're trying to fix 21st century problems with 20th century ideas."

Rubio, who has referred to Clinton as "yesterday," doubled down on that criticism in the interview.

"The jobs of the 21st century require different skills and more education than in the past," he said. "We have people from yesterday -- leaders that are still grounded in the 20th century who think if we just pour more money in our existing higher education system, we'll get a 21st century result. It isn't true anymore."

In a May 2014 interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, Rubio gave Clinton an "F" for her work as secretary of state under President Obama, and said her diplomacy "failed everywhere in the world."

"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," Rubio said.

Rubio, who has represented Florida in the U.S. Senate for four-and-a-half years, sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. He has been critical of the Obama administration's recent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.

At his official campaign kickoff event Monday night, Rubio took another jab at Clinton.

"Just yesterday, a leader from yesterday," Rubio said to loud booing from the crowd, "began a campaign for President by promising to take us back to yesterday. But yesterday is over, and we are never going back."

ABC's Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.