Donald Trump, the billionaire White House waters-tester who’ll headline Saturday’s South Florida Tea Party rally in Boca Raton, isn’t your typical tea partyer.

Trump is allied with the tea party movement in favoring repeal of the health care law and opposing tax hikes. But while exploring a 2000 Reform Party presidential bid, part-time Palm Beacher Trump supported universal health care and a one-time 14.25 percent “wealth tax” on individuals and estates with a net worth of more than $10 million.

But that was more than a decade ago.

More recently, Trump has given campaign contributions to some high-profile tea party foes.

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Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has sent a letter to Senate leaders that calls for authorizing the use of force in Libya — not just for the limited humanitarian mission described by President Obama on Monday night, but to remove Moammar Gadhafi from power.

Rubio’s stance was first reported by the conservative Weekly Standard.

Here’s a copy of Rubio’s letter. The letter doesn’t address whether ground troops should be authorized to take out the Libyan strongman.

Freshman Republican Sen. Marco Rubio ended his self-imposed exile from the national media spotlight with Tuesday night appearances on ABC’s Nightline and Fox News’ Hannity and an interview this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America.

He also has an opinion piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal in which he says he’ll vote against raising the federal government’s borrowing limit unless certain conditions are met.

“I will vote to defeat an increase in the debt limit unless it is the last one we ever authorize and is accompanied by a plan for fundamental tax reform, an overhaul of our regulatory structure, a cut to discretionary spending, a balanced-budget amendment, and reforms to save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” Rubio says.

Read the whole thing here.

The good news for rookie Republican Gov. Rick Scott: After three months of budget cutting, high-speed-rail rejecting, pension revamping and other decisions and proposals that were bound to upset some Floridians, his approval rating remains at its post-election, pre-inauguration levels.

The bad news: that approval rating was, and is, in the low 30s, according to the Democrat-oriented Public Policy Polling firm.

A new PPP survey finds only 32 percent of Floridians approve of the job Scott is doing as governor, while 55 percent disapprove. He’d lose a hypothetical do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a 56-37 percent margin.

In December, PPP found only 33 percent of Floridians had a positive view of their governor-elect after his narrow win over Sink. PPP’s Tom Jensen calls Scott “incredibly unpopular.”

Rookie Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, on the other hand, has an approval/disapproval score of 43/31. That’s better than two-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson‘s 38/34 score as he heads into a 2012 reelection bid.

Freshman Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who has kept a deliberately low national profile since his November election and January swearing-in, reemerges on the national stage tonight with the airing of an ABC News interview and an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Rubio’s also slated to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday.

Rubio made his first national radio appearance as a Senator this month.

Sure, Adam Hasner was a Tallahassee insider who rose to the rank of House Majority Leader and raised $1 million in his last reelection campaign.

But since being term-limited out of the House last year, the Boca Raton resident has been making Garmin-aided treks around the state to talk to tea party groups and other grassroots conservatives about a possible 2012 U.S. Senate bid.

Hasner says the tea party crowd remains unhappy with Washington and is poised to send another wave of conservative anti-establishmentarians to Capitol Hill in 2012.

It sounds a little like former House Speaker Marco Rubio’s early-2009 underdog Senate quest. Rubio was discovered by the national conservative movement before many establishment Florida Republicans took him seriously, getting a coveted National Review cover story in August 2009.

Hasner hasn’t landed on the conservative mag’s cover, but he did get favorable mention from the publication last week.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Rookie Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s self-imposed freeze on national media appearances ended today when he granted an interview to conservative syndicated radio talker Laura Ingraham to blast President Obama and congressional Democrats for their handling of the federal budget.

Ingraham was an early Rubio supporter back when former Gov. Charlie Crist appeared to have a lock on the 2010 GOP nomination for the Senate seat.

Here’s a clip of Rubio accusing Obama of being more focused on his 2012 reelection than the national debt.

And here’s Rubio criticizing Democrats for failing to pass a budget last year when the party controlled both houses of Congress.

Since taking office with sky-high expectations and 2012 presidential ticket talk, Rubio has declined national media interview requests while making himself available to Florida outlets.

Rubio still hasn’t made a national TV appearance since being sworn in.

UPDATED with statement from West…

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, appear ready to vote against another temporary spending measure to keep the federal government running for a few weeks, saying Congress should instead pass a bill to cover the remainder of the current budget year.

Both West and Rubio voted for a Republican plan — passed by the House but rejected by the Senate — that would cut $61 billion in federal spending through Sept. 30, when fiscal 2011 ends.

With congressional leaders discussing a three-week stopgap measure to keep the government running into early April, Rubio announced this morning that he’ll oppose such a bill.

“I will no longer support short-term budget plans. While attempts at new spending reductions are commendable, we simply can no longer afford to nickel-and-dime our way out of the dangerous debt America has amassed. It is time our leaders in Washington wake up and realize that we are headed for a debt disaster.”

West, who along with other conservatives has voiced similar reservations to continued stopgap bills, is also lining up against a three-week continuing resolution or CR.

Says West: “I make myself clear. I will not support anything less than HR 1 (the House bill with $61 billion in cuts) as it was sent forward to the Senate. Nor will I support another two week Continuing Resolution. Alexander the Great once stated, ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ The American people are looking for principled and bold leadership. I understand ‘political maneuvering’ but the time has come to engage in the battle for the fiscal responsible future of America. I shall take my position on the frontlines.”

Freshman GOP Sen. Marco Rubio and seven of his Republican colleagues are vowing to block consideration of any new legislation on the Senate floor “until the Senate begins in earnest a long overdue and urgently needed debate on America’s debt crisis.”

The group includes conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and tea party freshmen Rand Paul, R-Ky. and Mike Lee, R-Utah.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the eight write: “While there are certainly many issues that warrant the Senate’s consideration, we feel that the Senate must not debate and consider bills at this time that do not affirmatively cut spending, directly address structural budget reforms, reduce government’s role in the economy so businesses can create jobs, or directly address this current financial crisis.”

Read the entire letter after the jump…

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WEST PALM BEACH — Former House Speaker and potential 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, arriving at tonight’s Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Day dinner, says several Floridians could end up on the Republican presidential ballot next year.

“Florida has two and maybe three potential vice presidential candidates right now, maybe four if you count Jeb Bush,” Gingrich said. He mentioned Sen. Marco Rubio, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation and Gov. Rick Scott.

Gingrich says he’ll announce his presidential plans within a few weeks.

Asked about Florida’s 2012 primary date, Gingrich said Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina should be the first states to hold 2012 presidential primaries or caucuses. After that, he said, “it’s up to Florida. At that point Florida has to negotiate with the RNC.”

The Republican National Committee wants Florida to move its primary from January to March.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio delivered an “eat-your-peas” speech Wednesday to fellow Republicans from the dais of the state House where he served as speaker a few years back.

The West Miami Republican, sent to Washington last fall with heavy tea party backing, said Medicare and Social Security spending is unsustainable. And the federal government’s $1.5 trillion deficit must be harnessed, Rubio told state lawmakers gathered in the House chambers.

But Rubio also conceded, “we have a political process in Washington that is frozen.”

Rubio, speaker from 2007-08, drew a lot of love from the Republicans, who later lined up for photos with him. He also returned the schmooze, saying he didn’t envy their task of trying to balance a state budget rocked by at least a $3.6 billion shortfall.

“State governments don’t have the luxury of printing money,” Rubio acknowledged, later adding, “The day of reckoning comes a lot quicker at the state level.”

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WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Allen West are both conservative Republicans who won last year with strong tea party backing and large national followings.

Since arriving on Capitol Hill, however, they’ve pursued different media strategies during their first weeks in office.

Read about it here.

WASHINGTON — Florida should keep its early presidential primary date in 2012 and the Republican National Committee would be wise to accommodate the important swing state, Republican U.S. Sen Marco Rubio says.

Both parties have agreed that only four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — should have primaries before March 1. When Rubio was state House Speaker, the legislature moved Florida’s 2008 primary to January to give the state more influence. The 2012 primary will be in January as well unless the legislature changes the date.

Says Rubio: “I think if the Republican Party wants to pay for the elections in Florida, they can have them any day they want. But as long as the voters of Florida are going to pay for this election, it should be on the most meaningful day possible. An election in late January costs the same as an election in April, but it’s a lot more meaningful.”

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Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters in Washington this morning that he won’t be joining the Senate’s new Tea Party Caucus. Rubio, a favorite of the tea party movement, has voiced reservations in the past about giving inside-the-Beltway formalization to a decentralized, grass-roots movement.

Lest anyone question Rubio’s tea party cred, the rookie Senator’s first piece of legislation is co-sponsorship of a Senate version of the House-passed bill repealing the 2010 health care law.

U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, plan to sit with each other at Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech in Washington, their offices confirmed this afternoon.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., several lawmakers have discussed making a bipartisan show of unity and civility by sitting alongside one another without the traditional partisan separation when President Obama delivers his speech to a joint session of Congress.

Florida’s two Senators — Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio — have already announced plans to sit next to each other.

The Deutch-Rooney pairing is contingent on their ability to find each other Tuesday night and then locate a pair of seats together. The House chamber can be “kind of a madhouse” before a presidential address, Rooney said.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, called the civility effort “nice,” but said he’s “planning to sit wherever I can sit.”

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, said he’ll honor tradition by sitting on the Republican side of the chamber.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and a handful of other Senators are winding up a four-day in Afghanistan and Pakistan where they met with military officials from both countries and dined with Afghan President Hamid Karzai last night.

From Kabul this morning, the freshman from Florida told reporters he was encouraged by what he saw but cautioned that “2011 is going to be a very crucial year for our efforts here.”

Rubio joined Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, on the trip where they met with Gen. David Petraeus and also watched Afghan National Army training exercises.

Rubio said the Afghan people and government need assurances from the U.S. that “we are in it for the long haul” and discouraged setting numbers for U.S. troop withdrawal from the region.

“People want to make sure that we are in this to win this. We are in this for the long haul,” Rubio said. “Everyone on the ground is really enthusiastic about the progress that’s being made…There’s a long ways to go. There’s no way to overestimate how serious the challenge is but we are headed in the right direction.”

Benchmarks for U.S. withdrawal from the region should not focus on the number of troops returning but the number of areas that successfully transition to a functioning government, Rubio said.

“From everything I’ve seen here we are making physical progress,” he said, adding, “You can’t overestimate what a difficult challenge it is.”

Afghanis need assurances that the U.S. will remain because they are afraid that “the bad guys” will resume control of the region, Rubio emphasized.

“They’re afraid to vote. Theyr’e afraid to take jobs and work for the government or volunteer for the military…because …these bad guys are going to come back in and take over again,” he said. “You are really creating a diff situation because people think the bad guys, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, all they have to do is wait.”

Members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation are reacting to today’s shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

Giffords was doing the kind of thing members of Congress in South Florida and across the country routinely do — conducting a “Congress On Your Corner” event with constituents at a shopping center in her district — when a gunman opened fire, critically wounding her and killing a federal judge and at least four other people.

Click here for a story on local reactions.

Read after the the jump for complete statements by local members of Congress and both Florida Senators….

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Newly elected Republican Marco Rubio will be sworn in as a U.S. Senator today while Republican Allen West will take the oath as a new member of the House of Representatives serving Palm Beach and Broward counties.

Click here to read our John Lantigua’s account of how both are getting acclimated.

Since defeating Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in November, West has already appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press and a variety of other national shows.

West was on CNN’s John King, USA on Monday talking about repeal of the health care law and tying a raise in the national debt ceiling to spending caps (click here for the video and here for the transcript). The rookie congressman will appear on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Rubio, a national media celeb himself, filled several key staff positions for his Senate office this week. Read about them after the jump…

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As newly elected Senators and House members go to Washington for orientation, Politico.com says of Florida Sen.-elect Marco Rubio: “No Republican in memory has come to Washington with such fanfare.”

Read about it here.

Interesting tidbit: He’s no Allen West, but Politico notes the video of Rubio’s recent Republican weekly address has garnered 10 times as many YouTube hits as GOP Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner got the week before.

CORAL GABLES — Marco Rubio’s Senate victory has made him a national superstar, with pundits calling him the face of the new GOP and a key to reaching Hispanic voters. Before the results were all in Tuesday night, cable chatterers were also musing about Rubio as a potential vice presidential or presidential candidate in the future.

Rubio, who won’t be sworn in for another two months, downplayed such talk at a news conference today.

“It’s flattering and it’s fleeting,” Rubio told reporters at the Biltmore Hotel. “Politics is full of one-hit wonders, of people that stood in a room like this with a bunch of cameras and you don’t hear from them anymore. The truth is that soon you will all go off and cover something else and there’ll be somebody else out there who’s the flavor of the month.

” And I will still be a U.S. Senator. And people of Florida deserve to be represented and I’m going to have to continue to work hard….It’s not going to get to my head. In life one of the things that keeps you grounded is you surround yourself with people that are willing to tell you when you’re really doing something dumb. And I have been blessed with an abundance of people that are willing to do that.”

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