Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the US was preparing to “unleash Chang” on Iran — making an obscure reference to a mythical conservative warrior whose sword Jeb Bush gifted him 20 years ago.
“We’re going to unleash Chang on these people,” Rubio told reporters before briefing senators on the Iran war.
“In the next few hours and days, you’re going to really begin to perceive a change in the scope and in the intensity of these attacks as, frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the world take apart this terroristic regime and defang it and take away its ability to threaten its neighbors or hide behind a zone of immunity that allows them to develop their nuclear ambitions.”
Rubio said the attacks would “systematically take apart their missile program” and “destroy their ability to sponsor terrorism,” saying: “We will destroy their factories. We will destroy their navy. Those objectives are going to be met.”
Rubio’s reference to “Chang” is a callback to then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush gifting him with a sword in 2006 when he became speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Bush’s brother, then-President George W. Bush, had invaded Iraq three years prior and Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.
“Chang is a mythical conservative warrior,” Rubio told the New York Times in 2012. “From time to time, if there’s a big issue going on, you’d see Jeb say, ‘I’m going to unleash Chang.’ He gave me the sword of Chang… I think it’s a Jeb Bush creation.”
The Gainesville Sun reported in 2006 that Gov. Bush presented the sword to Rubio in front of a roaring crowd.
”Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society,” the governor told Rubio at the event.
“I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down. I’m going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior.”
