Sen. Rick Scott isn’t having a great week. On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address used the Florida Republican’s plan as an example of GOP radicalism, sparking jeers from Republican lawmakers — who didn’t want to be associated with Scott’s misguided agenda.
The morning after the address, the senator tried to push back against the criticisms, but in the process, Scott ended up doubling down on his own unpopular ideas related to Social Security and Medicare. It led Politico to marvel at the Floridian’s reluctance to simply take the loss and move on.
Yesterday, the senator, already in a ditch, decided to dig deeper. It started with a disastrous interview on CNN, which Democrats were eager to promote and disseminate, which was soon followed by Scott releasing an ad that was immediately condemned for trying to deliberately deceive the public. All the while, Biden and his White House team treated the Republican and his regressive ideas like a piñata.
All of which helped set the stage for last night, when the Senate GOP’s leader deliberately made matters worse for Scott. NBC News reported this morning:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday criticized one of his own Republican members, Sen. Rick Scott, over the Florida senator’s proposal to sunset all federal legislation in five years — an issue President Joe Biden skewered the GOP over in his State of the Union speech. “That’s not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell said in an interview with host Terry Meiners on a Kentucky radio station.
The Kentucky senator didn’t stop there. In the same interview, McConnell said he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agree that Social Security and Medicare “are not to be touched,” and the two GOP leaders are in a more authoritative position to state what the position of the party is than any single senator,” apparently referring to Scott.
Abandoning all subtlety, McConnell…
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