In one corner, it’s Democratic President Joe Build It Better Biden…and in the other corner, it’s Republican Senator Rick Pound the Progressives Scott. The senator from Florida is just a first termer, but he is certainly finding his footing as Biden’s number one antagonist.
Rick Scott is the chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm and he is using his platform to increase the attacks on the Biden presidency with a new TV ad. This spotlight will certainly raise Scott’s national profile and cause more to take notice of what some consider to be ambitions for the White House if former President Trump decides not to run again.
Scott has boldly invited Biden to debate him on the topic of inflation.
Senator Scott told the press, “He said yesterday he was going to put … my rescue plan up on their website. I hope he does, and I asked him if he wanted to debate me. If he wanted to debate over the economy, I would be glad to.”
Scott and Biden have a very little past relationship and even less admiration for one another, but they do talk about each other a lot. Scott got some headlines recently when he said that the most effective thing Biden could do for the economy would be to resign.
“Biden’s raging inflation is a tax on every American. Families are suffering, but Blame-Game Biden refuses to take responsibility. It’s clear that Biden is the problem. He is incoherent and confused and he needs to resign,” Scott said in a statement.
Biden tried to respond with some harsh words of his own by saying, “I think the man has a problem.” But the president also made a gaffe by saying that Scott was a senator from Wisconsin. The senator responded to that comment by saying Biden was “incapacitated and incoherent.”
Rick Scott is not doing anything new with his recent comments, last year he questioned if the president should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment. This came after Biden called for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Scott asked in a tweet if Biden was capable of the duties of his office. He asked if the time had come to exercise the rule of the 25th Amendment.
Scott’s GOP colleagues don’t seem so sure about how to handle the comments. Senator John Thune from South Dakota chalked the banter up to an “even numbered year,” and said neither side takes the rhetoric very seriously. And another senior Republican said that Scott surely doesn’t want Biden to resign because that would mean Vice President Harris would become president.
Some Democrats have saddled up to the idea that it’s Scott versus Biden. They are very willing for the Florida senator to become the main GOP boogeyman as they head toward November. As the midterms loom, the Democrats will likely use Scott’s economic plan against the Republican Party in their campaigns.
Biden has already referred to Scott’s plan as the “ultra MAGA plan.” Biden said, “What’s the congressional Republican plan? They don’t want to solve inflation by lowering your costs, they want to solve it by raising your taxes and lowering your income.”
One part of Scott’s 11-point plan says that all Americans should pay some income tax so that they have “skin in the game, even if a small amount.”
When Senator Scott was asked if his rhetoric about Biden was just to further his own political future, he sidestepped the criticism. He responded by saying that he was a “business guy” who cares about the economy.
So it looks like we have just begun…Let’s get ready to rumble!
