Without  having to take him out to the political woodshed by name-calling, or bashing him in any way, Republican presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio, put significant distance between him and billionaire Donald Trump on the issue of foreign policy.

Rubio appeared on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” program, where he was asked  “is Donald Trump qualified to be President of the United States.”

Rubio responded:

I think the most important thing a president will ever do is provide for the national security of our country and I think up until now he hasn’t really answered serious questions about national security and until he does there should be concerns, not just about him, but about any candidate that’s not able to speak in detail with clarity and with seriousness about the national security threats that we face. The government doesn’t run the economy, the economy is run by the private sector. The job of a president is to ensure we have policies that allow the private sector to grow and prosper, but national security, the government is in charge of that and we better have a president that understands the threats we face and what we have to do about it and if you can’t articulate that as a candidate, you cannot be commander in chief. And so he has to meet that, as the rest of us do as well…

As of now, I haven’t heard him talk seriously about national security. Hopefully that will change, I wish all of our candidates would speak more seriously about national security. Some have done better than others. Look, Carly Fiorina is not in government. She knows more about it than he does. If you took the time, you could learn more about it, but, ultimately, the most important thing that we need from our next president is to be someone who understands the threats we face and has real solutions to those problems. So far he hasn’t met the threshold in my mind, but there’s still time I suppose.

Rubio reiterated that he has proposed defunding Planned Parenthood, taking  those taxpayer dollars that would go to that organization, and give it to other women’s health centers that don’t practice in aborted baby body part procurement.

Rubio also said that GOP leadership in the U.S. Congress waived the white flag of surrender on the issue.