During an episode of Fox News Sunday over the weekend, host Bret Baier questioned Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) about Republicans’ suddenly apparent concerns for the national deficit and debt with the Biden administration in place. While Trump served as president, large amounts of government spending went through, adding to the national debt, and while some of this substantial spending was connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, such definitely was not the case for all of it. These circumstances depict Republicans as hypocrites, and Baier highlighted this issue.
Baier noted that Scott was “talking a lot about the deficit and debt,” but, the host noted, “it wasn’t that way under the Trump administration.” Baier also laid out how trillions of dollars were added to the national debt during the Trump era, which significantly undercuts the idea that Republicans are committed to keeping the national debt as low as possible. Baier noted that there’s “not a great track record for Republicans recently to tout themselves as deficit/ debt hawks.”
Scott responded by referring to his time as governor of Florida… which seems about as committed to deflection as one could get. Baier didn’t ask about Scott’s time as governor of Florida — he asked about Republicans in the federal government. Scott said, though, that he “walked in as governor of Florida in 2011 with a $4 billion budget deficit,” and he added that Florida “had increased its debt every year by over a billion dollars.” Scott also said that his administration back in Florida, “working with the legislature,” paid off a third of the state’s debt across his two terms as governor. He did eventually get to the substance of Baier’s actual question, claiming to have consistently spoken up about debt concerns as Senator — but Baier observed to the Senator that he seemed like “a lone voice” or “one of them.”
Scott claimed that he was not, in fact, alone among Republicans on this issue, and he ranted that he’s “fed up with a government that can’t live within their means,” adding that “every family in this country has got to figure out how to live within their means.” None of Scott’s attempts at making a stand will change the fact that Senate Republicans have seemingly become so much more noticeably concerned about the national debt and deficit now that Joe Biden is in charge, and this fact reveals these Republicans as participating in what’s essentially a political game — and that’s it.
Watch the exchange below:
Bret Baier to Rick Scott: "Senator, you're talking a lot about the deficit and debt … but it wasn't that way during the Trump administration. In fact, if you look at the numbers, the debt went up … the Trump administration Republicans added $6.7 to the debt." pic.twitter.com/3dkOW4CD9V
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 8, 2021
