Marco Rubio Books MSNBC Town Hall, Denies CNN Report Some Advisers Want Him To Drop Out

MSNBC announced Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio will participate in a town hall moderated by Chuck Todd on Wednesday, just days prior to the primary in Rubio’s home state of Florida. The announcement was made as CNN reported that some of the senator’s campaign advisers were urging him to drop out before that primary, while CNN also begged him to come on their network  – and replayed video of Donald Trump calling for Rubio to step out of the race. CNN is scheduled to host the next GOP debate, on Thursday.

The senator recently told MSNBC that “in the ‘winner-take- all’ states, we’re going to have to win,” further emphasizing the importance of victory in Florida for the future of his campaign. Rubio has, to date, won the Republican primary in Puerto Rico and the GOP caucus in Minnesota; a win in Florida’s March 15 winner-take-all primary would land him 99 additional delegates.

Rubio will take questions from Todd, NBC News’ political director, Meet the Press host and anchor of MSNBC’s MPT Daily, from 8-9  PM ET at Florida International University in Miami. It will air on MSNBC and stream online at now.MSNBC.com and NBCNews.com.

Town halls with candidates are not controlled by the RNC and DNC. Fox News Channel, which has been unable to land a Dem debate from the DNC, is doing a work-around tonight when it hosts a Dem candidate town hall at which FNC anchor Bret Baier will put questions to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Similarly, MSNBC’s town hall with Rubio did not need an RNC sanction. NBC News was to have moderated the GOP’s February 25 debate in Houston, but the RNC yanked it from the news division because RNC chief Reince Priebus said he didn’t like the tone of CNBC’s GOP debate in October; CNBC does not report to Andy Lack, who oversees NBC News and MSNBC.