Donald Trump didn't realize his own website called Marco Rubio 'Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator'

During the Republican presidential debate in Boulder, Colo., Donald Trump faced off with CNBC co-moderator Becky Quick over something Trump had supposedly said about one of Trump’s presidential rivals, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Here’s the exchange:

Quick: "You have talked a little bit about Marco Rubio. I think you called him (Facebook founder) Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator, because he was in favor of the H-1B visa."

Trump: "I never said that. I never said that."

Quick: "So this is an erroneous article the whole way around? … My apologies, I'm sorry."

Trump: "Somebody's really doing some bad fact-checking."

As it turns out, Quick was, uh, too quick to apologize.

We looked at the immigration-policy page of Trump’s campaign website and found the following:

"Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:

"Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities."

Featured Fact-check

Instagram posts

stated on November 8, 2024 in an Instagram post

"BREAKING: Zillow CEO just said on CNBC Trump's deportation plan will help with housing affordability.”

And here’s a screenshot we took during the debate:

Quick circled back later in the debate, noting that she got her information from Trump’s website. Trump did not offer a rebuttal. We did not receive an immediate response from the Trump camp.

Our ruling

In the debate, Trump said he "never said that" Marco Rubio was Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator. But he may want to check his own website, which says exactly that. Pants on Fire!