Sen. Marco Rubio, a Tea Party favorite frequently mentioned as a possible GOP vice presidential pick, is pushing back on a story in The Washington Post that says he embellished the facts about his family's departure from Cuba.
Rubio issued the following statement about the Post story, which the Florida Republican says contains false allegations:
"To suggest my family's story is embellished for political gain is outrageous. The dates I have given regarding my family's history have always been based on my parents' recollections of events that occurred over 55 years ago and which were relayed to me by them more than two decades after they happened. I was not made aware of the exact dates until very recently."
The Washington Post story, posted online Thursday afternoon, said Rubio "frequently repeated" that his family fled Cuba after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
The newspaper reviewed documents, including the naturalization papers of Rubio's parents, showing that the Rubio family arrived in the United States in May 1956 -- well before Castro overthrew the Cuban government and declared the island a socialist state in 1961. Castro was Cuba's president until 2008, when he ceded power to his brother.