Mitch McConnell really, really hates Rick Scott
Whoa boy.
In 2022, Florida Sen. Rick Scott introduced a 12-point plan to “rescue America.” Among its proposals were that everyone must pay some income tax and that every federal program — including Social Security and Medicare — would sunset after 5 years and need to be re-approved by Congress.
It was — and is — controversial. President Joe Biden used the plan on the campaign trail as evidence of what Republicans would do if they were handed majorities in Congress. And Biden again referenced during Tuesday’s State of the Union speech.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans, want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden said.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked about Scott and his plan. To which he said this:
“This is a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America.”
HOLY SHIT.
To understand just what a rhetorical bomb dropped on McConnell, you need to have a little background in the way Senators — especially of the same party — deal with one another.
The Senate is a backslapper’s paradise. It’s a very exclusive club and everyone in it acts just like that. And the most important rule of the club is that you NEVER, EVER mess with someone’s reelection.
It’s considered weirdly sacrosanct. Consider this from then Democratic leader Harry Reid when asked whether he would campaign against McConnell’s opponent in the 2014 Senate race:
“Oh, no. No, I — that — I’m a traditionalist here, and that isn’t anything I’ve ever done and will not do.”
And that was for a senator of the party! Badmouthing someone within your party — and suggesting he will have challenges in his own upcoming reelection bid! — it’s just not done.
(We can debate whether the Senate’s gentility is, in fact, a good thing. One could argue that it might be a better thing for the country if the Senate got along a little less well. But, I digress…)
McConnell’s hit did not go unnoticed by the Scott folks. This came from an adviser to Scott:
There is, as you might guess, history here.
McConnell and Scott spent much of the 2022 election at each others’ throats. McConnell was leader of the party, Scott ran the party’s campaign committee.
It all started when Scott announced that the campaign committee would not involve itself in contested Republican primaries.
McConnell was openly skeptical of that decision — repeatedly noting throughout the election cycle that the party had a candidate problem.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said in August 2022. “Senate races are just different — they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
Scott shot back: “If you want to trash-talk our candidates to help the Democrats, pipe down. That’s not what leaders do.”
Later in the year, after Republicans lost a seat in the Senate and failed to retake the majority, McConnell echoed his previous comments. “We ended up having a candidate quality test,” McConnell, said last December. "“Look at Arizona. Look at New Hampshire. And the challenging situation in Georgia, as well.”
The real break between the two men came, however, when Scott, against McConnell’s wishes, released his 12-point plan.
McConnell immediately shot the plan down. “Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell said in March. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”
(McConnell, asked in January 2022 what the party’s plan would be if they took back the majority, responded: “That is a very good question and I’ll let you know when we take it back.”)
Scott repeatedly insisted that voters wanted a plan of action — and that McConnell was wrong. In the aftermath of Republicans’ disappointing performance in the 2022 midterms, Scott penned an op-ed in the Washington Examiner aiming to ensure he was not blamed fore the defeats.
“My effort to change the way the Senate operates is not over,” he pledged, adding: “The old Washington establishment Republican path of never having a vision is over, it’s dying. A new wave of bold and aggressive Republicans who will stand up and fight is demanding change from our leaders in Washington.”
Good to his word, Scott challenged McConnell for the post as top Republican in the Senate. It, um, did not go well for the Florida Republican; McConnell won by a vote of 37-10 (with one abstention).
He’s spent 2023 getting even. Earlier this month, McConnell removed Scott from the Senate Commerce Committee.
Scott didn’t take it well. “McConnell made the decision,” he told NBC. “I got a text that I wasn’t on it. Nobody called me.”
And now this.
The message here — as in so many things in life — is best summed up by The Wire’s resident philosopher Omar Little:
Does this have anything to do with Scott being a crook in his prior business life, or nah
"Pass the popcorn".................