Florida Senator Rick Scott On His Big Re-election Win And Run For Majority Leader

The Hugh Hewitt Show

Senator Rick Scott of Florida joined me this morning. Senator Scott, like Senators Cornyn and Thune, are longtime friends and great conservatives. The GOP will be led well by whomever succeeds Leader McConnell:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: Someday, Democrats are going to learn. You can’t beat Ted Cruz in Texas, and you cannot beat Rick Scott in Florida. He joins me now. Rick Scott, congratulations on your reelection, and handy reelection. They poured a lot of money into trying to beat you. What was the final margin, Senator?

RS: 1.4 million votes.

HH: (laughing)

RS: I won Miami-Dade by 10 points, won Osceola, which is the Puerto Rican majority county. We won the county that Tampa’s in. We won the county that St. Pete’s in. We won the county that Jacksonville’s in, and of course, we won Miami big. So 5.9 million votes. You know, we are, Florida is the center of the Republican Party in America, and look, everybody from Florida is getting appointed.

HH: You know, Senator, I want to point out that you ran for governor twice. They tried to knock you off. This is your second run for senator. I don’t know how much money’s been spent against you, but do you think they’ll give up now?

RS: I think they should give up on Florida. I bet they spent $300 million dollars against me.

HH: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s like you and Cruz. You bankrupted the Democratic Party. So Senator, let’s talk about tomorrow. I’ve had John Thune on. If John Cornyn calls, all three of you guys are great friends of mine and to the program.

RS: Yeah.

HH: Why are you running for leader?

RS: Well, I’m running because I think we have to have, you know, a dramatic change. We’ve got to get the Trump agenda accomplished. I’m a business guy. I know how to get things done. I talked to my colleagues. They know that we have to have big change. They want to get treated as equals. They want us to have an agenda. They want to be part of a team. They know I’ve got a great working relationship with Donald Trump and with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. And I’m a business guy. Business guy. What do you do? You have a purpose, you build a team, you write a plan, you made your living…and guess what? You have success. So I think that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to have success. We’ve got to get this stuff done.

HH: You know, the business plan thing. Can I pause on that, becusae I’ve been trying to explain the budget and reconciliation process to people. Would you explain it to them? We get 100 days, and we get one budget reconciliation this year, and it’s got to be big. What would you imagine for it?

RS: Well, first off, you’ve got to revamp, we’ve got to, you know, reduce taxes. I mean, our taxes are too big. And you’ve got to change the size of government. We are spending 40% more than we take in. Our taxes are too high. I cut taxes, by the way, every year as governor. I cut taxes and fees 100 times. Guess what? My revenues went up. The economy got better. So what we’ve got to think about is how do we get people back to work? How do we reduce the cost of living for people? I mean, I just tell you, people are struggling. I mean, I stopped at a restaurant the other day to grab a sandwich, and a young lady said look, Governor, I moved when you were governor, and I could afford it. And she says I can’t afford to live here anymore. Everything’s gotten too expensive. You’ve got to fix this. That’s going to take dramatic change. And so what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to pass a budget, and we’ve got to get, we have to stop and say to ourselves why do we do, like why do we have the Department of Education? Why is the federal government involved in so many agencies? It’s so many things. Why do we, if they want to run everything, why do we have our states? I believe in states’ rights. I believe our governors and their legislatures ought to be responsible for education and so many things that the federal government has gotten involved in. and what they’ve done is all they do, is bog everything down. You can’t get a permit. You’ve got to, they’re telling you how to run your life. This is easy. That’s why we have our states. That’s how this was set up. So it’s the United States of America. It’s not the federal government of America.

HH: Senator, I believe that the Spending Clause would support conditioning federal education dollars on every state that receives them, that wants them, implementing a school choice program at least as robust as Florida and Arizona’s, and West Virginia’s and Ohio. I mean, there’s a standard. We can’t mandate the end of public schools, but certainly, do you think reconciliation could support that kind of a requirement on education spending?

RS: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to say what can we do, and don’t be shy. I mean, listen, we should do everything we can do. We have, there are so many things we have to do. We have to have a military that scares the crap out of our enemies. We’ve got to balance our budget. We can balance the budget. Guess what? I balanced the budget when I was governor. Florida had not balanced its budget in 20 years before I became governor. I balanced the budget when I was in business. How do you do it? You say this is what my revenues are going to be, I’m not spending more than that. It’s not that hard. But you have to create a process for everything you want to get done. So we know, we know we have to get a budget done. We know we have to do reconciliation. Let’s go to the, when do we have to have these things done? Let’s move backwards. Who’s going to be responsible? What’s our timeline? What’s our measurement? And then do it. We’ve got to get the Trump agenda accomplished. We’ve got to get these judges in. We’ve got to get his nominees done. We’ve got to, this is not for the faint of heart. This is for somebody that wants to bust their butt every day to get this done.

HH: Now Senator Cornyn put out, and you retweeted, and I’m sure Senator Thune agrees, around the clock – 24/7, 365 to get Donald Trump his nominees, because we cannot have a replay of 2017. Can you explain that to people?

RS: Yeah. Well, here’s our schedule. I was shocked when I came up here. Here’s the schedule since I’ve been up here for six years, okay? And we have a vote at 5:30. We don’t know what we’re voting on, by the way, until generally Monday morning. We don’t know what we’re voting on, but 5:30, we’re going to have a vote at night. And then we leave here at 1:45 on Thursday. Now the Senate is a process. It takes so many days to do each thing we do. So the only way we’re going to get this done is if we commit to be here. That means, I think, for the first whatever time it takes, if it’s the first 100 days, if it’s the first 200 days. We should be here every day. We should be here every day, and get everything done. If the Democrats want to slow everything down, which that’s what they’ve done, that’s what they did with Trump the first time, if they want to slow it down, then they’re going to have to be here every day to do it, because we’re, my belief is let’s stay here until we get his nominees done, until we get reconciliation done. Let’s get all this done now. We know, we know this country has to be saved. Donald Trump, he ran on a campaign to do these things. We’ve got to have, we’ve got to have a leader and a Republican party up here that does it.

HH: Now Senator, I want to get deep in the weeds with a potential majority leader. The blue slip process is the blue slip process. It’s never going to change. But I do believe, California hasn’t had a good district court judge nominated during a Republican presidency for as long as I can remember. I do believe in nominating a bunch of people and appointing them for one year, and then they can retire. You can find retired partners. You can find retired judges to put up there, nominate, go into recess, and recess appointment them for a year. Is that legit in your view?

RS: Well, what Donald Trump has asked is would people support a recess appointments who are non-judicial. I actually believe that we can get judicial nominees done, because here’s the deal. The blue slip process works as long as people are respective of it. If you just say oh, I’m not even going to talk to you…

HH: Well, that’s the California senators. They wouldn’t even talk to the Leader and the Republicans when Donald Trump was…

RS: Then what you have to say is the blue slip process doesn’t work. What this is, is the only way it works is if, you know, when there’s a Democrat president, Republicans works to try to find a good judge. When the Democrats there, or a Republican, Democrats have to work. If they don’t, the blue slip process doesn’t work. You can’t have a process that just is used to completely stop the appointment of judges. The president has the right to appoint judges.

HH: Well said, or to nominate them, and they get a vote. Let me conclude by this, and Senator Thune spoke to it. No matter who wins, do you think the 53 will come together?

RS: I hope so. But we’ve got, when I say come together, though, we’ve got to come together on the Trump agenda. We’ve got to come together on getting nominees done. You know, this idea that we’re going to work two-and-half days a week is crazy. This idea that we’re going to be, you know, we’re not going to bust our butts every day for the Trump agenda, if that’s, it depends. It all comes down to, and I think hopefully, whoever wins, they will understand we have got to have big change. I’m running, and as you know, I ran two years ago, because this has got to change.

HH: Now I’ve got to get a quick question in. If Marco Rubio becomes Secretary of State, that would be a great appointment. Who becomes the next senator? Who would you recommend to Ron DeSantis?

RS: Oh, gosh. There’s a lot of good people.

HH: Mike Waltz is going to the White House, so he can’t be on the list.

RS: I know. Mike Waltz would be great. I mean, there’s great, Vern Buchanan, Byron Donalds, Kat Cammack, I mean, we’ve got so many, Cory Mills…

HH: Florida is like the Ground Zero of the Republican talent pool, isn’t it?

RS: Yeah, we’ve got great ones. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Jimenez, Maria Salazar. I mean, we have got so, we have got so much talent, it’s unbelievable.

HH: Senator Rick Scott, great to talk to you. I appreciate you taking time. Again, I just want to say congratulations. You’re right. I think they’ve spent $300 million dollars against you, and it bounces off. Pebbles against a battleship. Thank you, Senator Scott.

RS: All right. Bye bye.

End of interview.

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