What’s Marco Rubio’s beef with Amazon? The Florida senator airs his views on Twitter
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio put Amazon on blast in a 72-second video message on his Twitter account Saturday morning.
In the video, Rubio sneers at Amazon’s “wokeness” and suggests the online retailer bans books. Perhaps that’s a reference to the recent flap over the decision of the estate of children’s book author Dr. Seuss to stop publishing six lesser-known titles because they contained offensive racial stereotypes. Amazon did not ban Dr. Seuss’ books.
Rubio appears to be no fan of Amazon if his tweet is any indication.
“Let me get this right,” Rubio, in baseball cap and blue T-shirt, begins. “Amazon gets to be the most woke corporation on the planet and every day is proving their wokeness by banning books, not allowing traditional charities to participate in Amazon Smiles, denying President Trump access to Amazon’s web services and denying his campaign that, every day we’re getting messages about how woke Amazon is. That’s fine. Be as woke as you want. I have no problem with that. But when it comes to tax cuts then they want our help.”
Union efforts at Amazon
The rant is not meant to be a statement against Amazon workers’ attempts to unionize an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama.
On Friday, Rubio became the latest politician to back union organizers, whose supporters also include political rivals like Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, and Stacey Abrams, a one-time Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, the Associated Press reported.
The Black Lives Matter group also voiced support for the union efforts, according to AP.
But Rubio did slap at Amazon by mentioning the union push.
‘Beat up on conservatives’
“When it comes to, ‘Oh, they are trying to unionize us, we might have to pay workers more,’ then they want our help. If you have a union problem and think taxes for corporations like yours, the biggest in the world, are too high, why don’t you get your woke, liberal, leftist friends to help you?
“Here’s the bottom line, it’s very simple for me,” Rubio continued. “The largest, richest company in the world and a champion of wokeness, that’s all it does is beat up on conservatives versus hardworking Americans who want to be paid more and have better working conditions. It’s an easy choice.”
On Friday, Rubio wrote an opinion piece for USA Today in which he stated what that choice is in his view.
“Here’s my standard: When the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values, the choice is easy — I support the workers. And that’s why I stand with those at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse today.”
Not surprisingly, Rubio’s tweet generated its own thread of comments.
“You gave Amazon HUGE tax cuts.”
“He’s trying so hard and his reasoning is asinine but his conclusion is correct so, uh, progress?”
This story was originally published March 13, 2021 at 11:39 AM.
