The State Department reported that senator and Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio has rejected an offer to meet with Roberta Jacobson, the nominee to be the ambassador to Mexico, and asked him to put an end to his "unnecessarily long" blockade on the candidate.
State Department spokesman John Kirby told media that the department offered to have Rubio meet with Jacobson, but "the senator has declined that invitation."
"This lengthy, unnecessarily lengthy hold, has definitely hurt our ability to accomplish this," he said. "It's time to have a vote."
Kirby didn't get into why Rubio refused to meet with Jacobson. "All I can tell you is an offer was made to meet to address any other ... issues, any other questions outstanding, and that offer was declined," he said.
In an interview with The Washington Post last Saturday, Rubio said that he will continue to block any vote on Jacobson until she answers a series of questions regarding her work in Cuba and Venezuela and the delay in requesting the extradition of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.
