On this week’s episode of “The Signal Sitdown,” I speak to Sen. Rick Scott of Florida about his bid to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as leader of Senate Republicans and how the Nov. 5 election will shape the next Congress.
In our discussion, Scott suggests McConnell has become tyrannical as Senate minority leader, as has Chuck Schumer of New York as Senate majority leader.
“What we have here is we have dictatorships,” Scott tells me. “We have the McConnell dictatorship and the Schumer dictatorship. … Schumer tells Democrats how to vote, McConnell comes in and tells Republicans how to vote.”
Scott says things are so broken that the current Senate GOP doesn’t have a governing agenda.
“In our bylaws, we’re supposed to have a legislative agenda,” Scott tells me. “I’ve been up here six years. There’s no legislative agenda. You know, we asked for it after I lost to McConnell at the end of the ‘22 cycle. We never got one.”
Now, the Senate Republican conference is looking for change, he says.
“I ran against McConnell at the end of the ’22 cycle,” Scott says. “I didn’t win, but what happened is we started really having real conversations.”
“Most of my colleagues, they want change,” the Florida senator adds.
And Scott says he believes the addition of some new Republican senators could help facilitate that change.
“We have great candidates,” Scott says, referring to GOP Senate candidates coast to coast, and a big election night could make a big impact on how business is done in Washington.
Listen here: