Marco Rubio’s daughter steals the show during her first midterm speech: “I don’t know where she got that from!”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio beamed with pride Friday after his daughter Daniella introduced him before a major post-election speech.

“Was that cool or what?” Rubio rejoiced after his daughter’s remarks at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention.

“I don’t know where she got that from,” he marveled. “There’s no stage fright. She’s not afraid to speak. I don’t really like speaking in public, but she, on the other hand, is fantastic.”

Daniella, a third-year law student at the University of Virginia, is Rubio’s youngest daughter. He has four children, two boys and two girls, with his wife Jeanette.

When asked by another law student in the crowd how Americans could “instill in the next generation values ​​of love for our freedom” as he did with his Daniella, Rubio joked: “Well, my house wasn’t a democracy.” »

The Secretary of State was quick to point out that he was “not the dictator” of the family, but rather “the Minister of Defense”.

Rubio’s speech, his first since Republicans were swept away by the Democratic blue wave in last week’s midterm elections, struck an optimistic tone.

He reminded conservative audiences of the “devastating losses” Republicans suffered in the 1982 midterm elections under former President Ronald Reagan.

“Less than two years into Ronald Reagan’s first term, everything seemed to be going in the wrong direction,” Rubio said. “It’s hard for us to remember right now, but that’s how it was.”

Rubio encouraged current Republicans to take a big-picture view and think long-term.

“We still have a lot to do over the next two, six and 20 years,” he said. “Great things that last are built over decades, not electoral cycles. »

“There will be more victories and there will be more defeats. There will be more triumphs and there will be more disappointments. That’s the nature of all businesses of this weight and magnitude,” Rubio continued.

“There are no great men or great causes in the pages of history who have not suffered equally,” he declared defiantly, “but we are convinced of the justice of our cause, and we too will ultimately triumph.” »