Sen. Rick Scott Tackles All the Big Issues with Clay and Buck

BUCK: We have Senator Rick Scott with us now of the great state of Florida. Senator Scott, thanks for calling in.

SEN. SCOTT: It’s great to be with you guys today, and just had a great trip to Europe last week to talk to our troops and talk to refugees and talk to elected leaders about what’s going on in Ukraine.

BUCK: Yeah, we saw, Senator, you were in Poland, Lithuania. You were at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. What does everyone listening need to know about the situation right now in Ukraine? What were your most important takeaways for the region, and what matters most to us here at home?

SEN. SCOTT: Well, number one, at Ramstein what you learn: Our NATO leaders are really focused, and our U.S. military leaders really focused on, you know, taking — one, making sure we can defend our NATO allies. Number two, that we can get all the lethal aid we can to Ukraine that our elective leaders will allow them to do. And they’re working hard to get it done as quickly as possible. That’s one.

Number two, you really have to appreciate what the Poles have done. They don’t have refugees camps and they have millions of refugees there so what they’ve done is Poles have all across the country have one, invited them into their house. Number two, the Polish government has said, “If you’re here and you stay here you can go on our safety net programs immediately.”

And number three is, they’re worried about Russia. They know Russians — a murderous thug, and our troops in Lithuania are really close to the border. The Lithuanian government is committed to NATO and defending their freedom, but they know they need the United States and NATO allies pulling for the same position. So people appreciate America, they cherish our freedom, and they really cherish our military.

CLAY: Senator, appreciate you joining us. We were just talking about — and and I’m sure you’ve been paying some attention to it — the idea of Joe Biden canceling up to $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. I know you guys are basically in session now until the end of May. And one of our big discussion points has been: As bad as things are going for Democrats, are they gonna try some political Hail Marys? This feels like one. What are you seeing on this in the Senate right now, and what do you expect from the Biden administration and their allies?

SEN. SCOTT: Well, every week we go home, you know, we come up on Mondays, start voting at 5:30 and leave on Thursday sometime in the afternoon. Every day we go home and nothing happens, it’s a good day for mesh families ’cause there’s nothing good happening up here. If you want to deal with the student loan debt, here’s what you need to do.

Do what I did in Florida. Stop raising tuition. We have, I think, the lowest tuition, our university system in the country. Number two is make sure kids get jobs and make sure they get good-paying jobs. So what I did is I set up a program where universities competed for who had the lowest price per degree, who had the most job creation, who’s alumni got paid the most money.

That’s what we ought to be focused on instead of just saying, “Oh, I might just throw all this money at your school. Whatever happens, oh, gosh, I’m sure it will be good.” Let’s make sure we gotta be fair. We gotta be fair to people that paid their way through school like I did. I got the help with the GI Bill because I was with the U.S. Navy.

But they went and worked full time or their parents worked full time or their grandparents worked full time to pay for their way through school so they have no debt. We need to take care of them. And, you know, we gotta make sure, you know, our graduates have degrees where they can pay off these debts. If you’re gonna run up X dollars in debt, you need to have a plan to pay it back.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Senator, you’ve probably seen DHS, the Biden DHS has released their memo of what’s gonna happen going in here to end up of Title 42 at the U.S.-Mexico border. How do you foresee this actually playing out? There’s some Democrat Senators, some of your colleagues, who are certainly expressing their concerns about the Biden policy. Is this gonna be a massive political liability for them, assuming we have this tidal wave of illegal migration that comes in and it just feels like lawlessness is increasing at the U.S.-Mexico border.

SEN. SCOTT: You know, it’s fascinating. I’ve been up here three years, and it’s fascinating watch people, how they act during election years. Like Mark Kelly. He voted last year, three times against any border security; then no, that wasn’t a good idea. He’d go home and say we needed it, but he’d associate against if up here. Now all of a sudden, “Oh, gosh, if we get rid of 42 that’s gonna be a problem!”

Maggie Hassan, she’s worried about election in New Hampshire. They go to down to the border then she goes to home and gets protested by the radical left. So what these people are doing is saying, “Oh, my gosh! I gotta get reelected. I don’t really believe in border security.” These Democrats don’t believe in border security.

“But, oh, it’s election year! I’m gonna lose some votes here. This looks bad; so I’m gonna go act like I care.” They don’t care at all. And, by the way, Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security? That guy never… All he’s done is make sure the border is completely porous. I mean, there’s nothing that they’re doing that is actually controlling illegal immigration. We like immigrants. I’m from an immigration state. I’m from Florida. We like ’em.

Legal ones, right? ‘Cause here’s what happens. There’s a lot of wonderful people that want to come. But you know what? I don’t want the drugs. I don’t want the terrorists coming. The only way you can prevent that is having a secure border, and these Democrats are just committed not to do it.

So I want to allow people into our country that want to live our dreams, right, the American dream, not a socialist dream but want to live the American dream and don’t want to have… I don’t want drugs come across the border and I don’t want terrorists come across the border. And gosh. That’s where the American public is. These Democrats are all for open borders, except during election year.

CLAY: Senator Rick Scott of Florida. I know you’re in a federal position now, but as you mentioned you’ve been in state government before. What kind of reaction are you getting over the Disney World flap that has developed in the state of Florida? What are your constituents saying? How would you analyze it?

SEN. SCOTT: What happened to these companies? I mean, what’s Disney thinking? I mean, I’m a business guy. I would never get up and say, “How can I make half or more of my potential customers mad? I think I’ll do that today.” That’s what Disney just did. It was a common sense bill that we’re not gonna talk about sex to grade schools. Gosh, that’s not controversial at all.

But we got Coke, we got Coke and Delta complaining about a better election bill for Georgia, but the thing about Disney, they don’t see anything in China about the Chinese government. Neither does Delta, Coke, NBA because, guess what? They’re just out to make more money. They don’t care. “Oh, in China, it’s okay! Oh, you know, you don’t have a right vote. Don’t worry about it. You put people in prison? Oh, I’m not gonna worry about that.

“Anything in China, you can censor anything I do. I’m not gonna worry about that ’cause I think I can make some money here.” But in America, in America, they’re hypocrites. They have a position here which make any sense to me why they would make some of their customers mad, but they take a completely different position in communist China. You get sick and tired of these companies like Disney and Delta and Coke and NBA and these people that they’re just in it to… They want to be social warriors here but they want to be profiteers in China.

CLAY: How do you think they’re reacting, from a business perspective, inside of the Disney corporate suite as a reaction to what Florida has done? What do you expect those conversations look like?

SEN. SCOTT: I don’t know. I used to deal with Disney as governor, and what they’re doing, you say to yourself, “Who thought of this? How would you do this?” I’ve canceled Disney+. I don’t plan on going to Disney. I think there’s a lot of people like me out there saying, “ook. I’m not gonna have some woke company, right, tell me how I need to think about something that I think is pretty common sense.

“Like, I don’t want my kids in my case my grandkids being taught about sex by somebody in their school. That’s just not… You know, doesn’t make any sense.” So I think people are fed up with them. But you know what will happen is when their profit margins go down, right, they’re gonna say, “You know, that was… Maybe that was not very smart, and I think that’s what’s gonna happen to these companies.”

BUCK: Senator Rick Scott with us now from Florida. Senator, was it the right move, is it the right move to get rid of the special status that Disney has with the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

SEN. SCOTT: Well, I think what you have to do is you have to go back and you have to say, “Why do…? You know, if somebody has a special deal, why do they have ’em?” And I think you should always be doing that. I think — you know, when I first went in as governor, there was a lot of taxing districts, and we did a review them to make sure it was good for the state. And so I think you always have to look at ’em. And I think they just put it… Disney put a target on itself. It has this special taxing district, and, now wants to be a woke corporation? I think, well, how foolish on your part. So, you know (crosstalk) —

BUCK: What are the ramifications? I mean, ’cause you were the governor of Florida. What will the ramifications be of the change in status for Disney, not just for the company but for state revenues, et cetera?

SEN. SCOTT: I’ve been trying to understand exactly… I guess they have a significant amount of debt on that special taxing district. Who’s gonna pay for that? Is it gonna increase taxes anywhere, and who’s gonna provide the services that Disney provides. So I think it’s something we all have to really understand. But look. No one should get a special deal. We all should be treated the same by government. So I think we have to look at it, but let’s don’t hurt ourselves.

CLAY: Senator, we are very thankful for the judge in the Tampa area –

SEN. SCOTT: Oh yeah.

CLAY: — who overturned the mask mandate on airplanes. And as part of that, that was a Trump appointee, hugely important, obviously, with what you do in the Senate is who the judges are. That’s important. I’d like for you to explain why as we get ready for 2022. But also, would you agree with the idea that Florida has now become the centrality location for the entire Republican Party as we roll into 2022 which is a big move, because as you well know Florida had long been considered a toss-up state, and now it feels almost like a Republican base state.

SEN. SCOTT: Well, there’s been a big change, right? When I got elected governor back in 2010, there are almost 500,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, and so what you’ve seen is good Republican policies, people flock there. And, you know, they change their votes from Democrat to Republican. They change registration ’cause they want to vote in our primaries.

But on top of that people move because they want lower taxes and less government, they want to have more freedom, and that’s what Florida stands for. So you have to keep fighting for that stuff every day but, yeah, I think Florida’s is doing a great job. I was very focused on making sure it’s a place where, one, you can get a great job; two, you can get a great education.

When I finished, we had the second lowest tuition of universities and we were number one, according to U.S. News World Report, of higher education, and we were at a 47-year low in our crime rate. Those things matter to people. And when they see it’s good government, guess what? They’ll change their regulation, they’ll vote for us, ’cause they vote for good policy. They move for good policy. I moved to Florida from the Midwest. One, I don’t like cold weather, and I don’t want to pay ridiculous taxes.

BUCK: There we go. Compelling pitch! Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Senator, thanks so much for joining us today. Always good to talk to you.

SEN. SCOTT: Have a great day. Move to Florida.

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: Everybody’s pitching you, Buck.

BUCK: (laughing) Not a bad idea.