The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Sen. Rick Scott called the 2022 midterm elections a “complete disappointment” and he lamented low voter turnout on Election Day but another top GOP lawmaker blamed him for the loss.
“Here’s what happened to us. Election Day, our voters didn’t show up. We didn’t get enough voters. It was a complete disappointment,” Scott told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a recent interview.
Scott spoke at Heritage Action’s Sentinel Summit calling on Republicans to work together to advance a “bold, conservative agenda to rescue America from the Democrats’ radical, socialist policies.”
Sen. Josh Hawley blames the election loss on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Scott, whose talk about making changes to Social Security and Medicare was a ‘bad idea” according to the Missouri lawmaker.
Scott released a 60-page “11-point plan to rescue America” that offered 128 proposals, one of which was to sunset all federal programs including Social Security or Medicare. Scott reasoned that “if a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
Hawley pronounced that kind of talk “nuts.”
“This does not address any of the felt concerns of voters, particularly voters who are struggling economically, who are struggling with rising prices, who have paid into those systems, by the way, with their wages, their entire working lives,” Hawley said.
“I don’t understand why in the world Republicans would say ‘Oh, yeah, let’s first when we get back to the majority, let’s go fiddle with those programs that you’ve paid into, and that you are going to depend on for your livelihood in retirement.’ I think it’s nuts,” said Hawley.
Scott was pressured to resign as chief executive of Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest private for-profit health care company, after the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs in 1997.
The Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.
Following his departure, he became a venture capitalist and pursued other business interests and in 2010, Scott ran for governor of Florida. He was barred by term limits from running for a third term in 2018, he instead ran for the United States Senate.
Hannity asked Scott, “Where did all this pie-in-the-sky talk about a wave and a tsunami election come from? Because I never saw it.”
The senator, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that Republicans were trending toward success in the polls leading up to the election but that ultimately GOP voters did not show up.
“I think we’ve got to reflect now. What didn’t happen?” said Scott. “I think we didn’t have enough of a positive message. We said everything about how bad the Biden agenda was. It’s bad, the Democrats are radical, but we have to have a plan of what we stand for.”
The comments from Scott come amid reports that the Florida senator would run for GOP leader, challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has held the position for years.
Republicans were expected to make significant gains in the 2022 midterm elections as Americans struggle with high prices eating up their paychecks. The party was expected to claim the House majority by wide margins, and polling showed the GOP had a chance to claim the Senate as well.
Control of both chambers of Congress is not yet known, but it appears that Democrats, who won the seat that will be vacated by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), outperformed low expectations.
Hannity asked Scott, “Where did all this pie-in-the-sky talk about a wave and a tsunami election come from? Because I never saw it.”
The senator, who also heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that Republicans were trending toward success in the polls leading up to the election but that ultimately GOP voters did not show up.
“I think we’ve got to reflect now. What didn’t happen?” said Scott. “I think we didn’t have enough of a positive message. We said everything about how bad the Biden agenda was. It’s bad, the Democrats are radical, but we have to have a plan of what we stand for.”
The comments from Scott come amid reports that the Florida senator would run for GOP leader, challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has held the position for years.
Republicans were expected to make significant gains in the 2022 midterm elections as Americans struggle with high prices eating up their paychecks. The party was expected to claim the House majority by wide margins, and polling showed the GOP had a chance to claim the Senate as well.
Control of both chambers of Congress is not yet known, but it appears that Democrats, who won the seat that will be vacated by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), outperformed low expectations.
Scott told Hannity on Friday night that the party shouldn’t “attack” Republicans who deviate from the mainstream but should instead be willing to “have a conversation about these things.”
Scott also made multiple plugs for Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker, who will fight it out in a runoff election against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in December.
“We have got to do everything we can to help Herschel,” he said.
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