Under fire for absences, Marco Rubio scraps 2016 event for Senate budget votes

Washington (CNN)Marco Rubio, who has faced scrutiny for missing Senate votes because of his presidential run, touted his decision to cancel a Friday morning campaign stop in Iowa to vote against the two-year budget deal in the Senate.

"The Council Bluffs lunch originally scheduled for noon today at Barley's will be postponed to a later date due to Senate votes in Washington," the Rubio campaign highlighted in his daily schedule sent Friday morning.

Jeb Bush attacked Rubio for missing votes during Wednesday night's Republican debate, asking if he was working a "French work week" in an exchange that most pundits said backfired on Bush. But pressure has been growing on the Florida senator to address the issue since a Washington Post report emerged with a Rubio friend saying of his Senate job: "he hates it."

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which endorsed Rubio when he ran for the Senate, called on him to resign his seat this week.

"If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it," the paper wrote in an editorial.

Rubio was one of 35 Republicans who voted against the two-year budget deal early Friday morning.

A Rubio spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning and the Rubio campaign schedule did not explain why he was returning for votes.

But Rubio defended himself last weekend in an interview with CNN's Jamie Gangel, saying, "I'm not missing votes because I'm on vacation."

Rubio has missed nearly one third of Senate votes this year and multiple Senate intelligence briefings while campaigning for president -- more noticeable, in part, because four of his Senate colleagues are also running for president but miss fewer events at the Capitol.