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It's time to take the quiz. Five questions,
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Take the quiz every weekday at the
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Clay, Cher, and of course listen to
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the quiz at the quiz.fox. Now
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it's time for another Guy
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Benson show. That's invite where
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we bring you the day's
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most interesting interviews in a
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bite-sized package. For the full
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episode, visit guybensonshow.com or wherever
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you listen to podcasts. With
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us now, U.S. Senator Rick Scott, Republican
0:34
of Florida. He is up for reelection
0:36
this year. Senator, welcome back to the
0:38
show. I hope you enjoy
0:40
Alaska. It's a beautiful place. A little chilly in the winter.
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It really is. It's
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actually a little chilly still now, even
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in May. So I've had my North face
0:49
here on because it gets warm, they say,
0:51
but just not quite yet. It's always warm,
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seemingly, down in your state, especially down in
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the southern part of your state. I want
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to get to your reelection battle
1:00
in just a moment, but first, your
1:02
reaction, Senator, especially as
1:05
a member of the Armed Services Committee, to
1:07
what the President has now
1:09
done vis-a-vis Israel. We've been talking
1:11
about it a lot, obviously, a
1:14
shocking change in policy. And
1:16
I know you've been watching this. I know a lot
1:18
of Floridians care about this issue. How do you read
1:20
what the President has done? Oh,
1:23
he hasn't changed. He's the most pro-Hamasah president
1:25
we've ever had. Here's a
1:27
guy that will go out and
1:29
say he cares about Israel. Oh,
1:31
but Israel, oh, you can't go
1:33
defend yourself. No, those Hamas, oh,
1:35
those Hamas killed 1,200 people, still
1:39
hold eight American hostages. Oh,
1:41
I'm worried about them. I mean,
1:43
oh, don't worry about the Gazans
1:45
that support Hamas, elected Hamas. That's
1:47
who I'm worried about. So, the
1:50
supplemental they passed, right? Biden
1:52
got what he wanted. He wanted money
1:54
for Ukraine, and he wanted a humanitarian.
1:57
Right? He didn't care about it.
2:00
about Israel. He's never cared about Israel.
2:02
So the money that goes into Gaza
2:04
that supposedly goes for humanitarian, where is
2:06
it going? How about it controls the
2:08
place? Where do you think it's going?
2:11
It's going to build tunnels. It's going
2:13
to build weapons. It's going to buy
2:16
more weapons. So I mean,
2:18
he doesn't not, this
2:20
president does not care about
2:22
Israel. I was just in
2:24
Israel five weeks ago. I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
2:26
I met with Galant, the Minister of Defense. I met
2:29
with IDF. They have no choice.
2:31
Guess where Hamas is? The last
2:33
four or five battalions are sitting in Rafah
2:36
surrounded by civilians. And what they've said is we're
2:38
going to tell the civilians to get the hell
2:40
out. That would be nice of Egypt,
2:42
did their job, opened their borders so they
2:44
could go that way. But if not, they're
2:47
going to have to go to Northern Gaza
2:49
because they don't have a choice. If Israel
2:51
wants to survive, they've got to destroy every
2:53
last, every last member of Hamas. And what
2:56
makes me mad is this president doesn't
2:58
care about Israel, doesn't care about Jews
3:00
and doesn't care about American hostages. But
3:02
he does care about Hamas. I
3:06
want to ask you, Senator, on a separate
3:08
note, because I mean, your frustration, I think
3:11
is shared with so many people and there's
3:13
this volcanic reaction. I think people are just
3:15
stunned. Even, I mean, Joe Biden's bad.
3:17
It's worse than I think a lot of people
3:19
expected. And this is, in my view, I wrote
3:21
about it at town hall today, a new low.
3:23
I just want to turn to
3:26
a very separate topic, which is this Trump
3:28
trial up in New York City. I know
3:30
that you went and you
3:32
visited and you went to show your
3:34
solidarity in New York. Talk about
3:36
that decision and how you're viewing
3:38
those proceedings in the Big Apple.
3:42
Well, first off, I've known President Trump
3:45
for way before I was governor. He's
3:47
a friend and it's despicable.
3:49
This is a this is a
3:52
political attack. He uses
3:54
the courts for a political attack is
3:57
criminal. All right. This is criminal behavior
3:59
by and ethical political thugs. Now,
4:02
I went through this. I built the
4:04
largest hospital company. I fought Hillary Clinton back in
4:06
the 90s. And what she did, she weaponized the
4:08
Justice Department then, and they went after me and
4:10
my company. So I've watched this. I've watched other
4:12
companies. That if you don't go along
4:14
with what the federal government wants under, you know,
4:16
whether it's Clinton or Obama or Biden, they're going
4:18
to go after you. So here's
4:21
what I appreciate. President Trump, he's standing
4:23
up. He's fighting back. But think
4:25
about this. If he does not win,
4:27
just remember, they can
4:29
go after the next president. They can go
4:31
right after you. And here's how partisan it
4:34
is. The number three
4:36
guy at the Biden Justice Department quits
4:38
that job. That's a hell of a
4:40
job, right? He quits that job to
4:42
go work for a state attorney. That
4:46
doesn't make sense. Oh, he did do it
4:48
to go be the lead prosecutor to try
4:50
to put Trump in jail. His wife's a
4:52
donor. The judge is a
4:54
donor. OK? The judge's daughter, she's one
4:57
of the, she's a big fundraiser
5:00
for the Democrats. Everybody involved
5:02
on this is a Democrat,
5:05
except for Trump. And so they're
5:07
trying to gag this guy so he
5:09
can't go beat Biden because Biden can't
5:11
win based on what he's done, open
5:13
border, inflation, creating wars all over
5:15
the world. So what they want to do,
5:17
put his opponent in prison so
5:20
he can't campaign and try to make sure
5:22
he doesn't win. So this is, I'm
5:25
going to bust my butt to
5:27
do everything I can to help President Trump
5:29
here because what they're doing to him, they
5:31
can do to you and me and anybody
5:33
else. If they do this, what kind of
5:35
a country do we have? Senator,
5:38
your opponent in your race in Florida
5:41
is critical, is being critical of you
5:43
for going to New York. And she pointed
5:46
out, well, in order to go and
5:49
do what she's basically calling a stunt with Donald
5:51
Trump in New York City, you missed a vote
5:53
in the US Senate, so you weren't there doing
5:55
your job. What's your response to that critique from
5:57
your opponent? I did my job. on
6:00
the FAA reauthorization. I was there and I
6:02
voted for it yesterday. So she is, she's
6:04
like everything else. She just puts out a
6:06
whole bunch of lies. So
6:09
I was there, I voted for the,
6:11
for the transfer into FAA reauthorization bill.
6:13
It passed, which still has to go back
6:15
to the house, but it'll get,
6:18
it'll get done next week. But my opponent doesn't
6:20
worry about the truth. She'll just put
6:22
out a whole bunch of lies each and every day. I've
6:25
seen some polling that suggests that you are
6:27
leading her pretty dramatically. I've seen one or
6:29
two polls where you're up by double digits.
6:31
Who knows what the final margin might be.
6:33
I know that you're going to fight like
6:36
you're behind. That's how you always run races.
6:38
But is it at all disorienting Senator to
6:40
see yourself leading by a large margin, at
6:42
least some of the polls, given the elections
6:44
that you've had forever, right? When you were
6:47
governor, the first time you were low as
6:49
a 2018 in the Senate, where you were
6:51
elected by 0.2%, you always have these 1%
6:53
or less margins,
6:57
it seems. Now,
7:00
Florida appears to be kind
7:02
of a different place. How are you feeling about
7:04
the race? And what are you
7:06
seeing in terms of that shift, that evolution
7:08
in the state of Florida politically? Well,
7:11
what I did is I actually ran against all
7:13
incumbents, basically, I ran against in the primary, the
7:16
Republican that was the senior attorney general and then
7:18
the, in the general back in 2010, the
7:21
Democrat that was the CFO. And then in
7:23
14, the player governor who was a Republican
7:25
then independent Democrat, and then I had to
7:27
run against Bill Nelson, who had never lost
7:29
a race in 43 years. So I've run
7:31
against all these incumbents. So, and,
7:33
you know, I think now in Florida, you know, people
7:35
know what I busted my butt and they know I'm
7:37
a kid that grew up in public housing that I'm
7:39
fighting for people like that each and every day. But
7:42
here's the deal. You don't know what's going to
7:44
happen. I know they're all they're trying.
7:46
All they're going to do is talk about abortion. You
7:48
know, they're going to be, you know, they got it
7:50
on the ballot. You know, they got legal
7:52
legalized in marijuana on the ballot and they're going to try to
7:55
get the vote out to try to beat me. And they're going
7:57
to try to get the vote out to try to beat President
7:59
Trump. But I'm going to go,
8:01
like tonight I'm doing, I've got a
8:03
grassroots event in Columbia County tomorrow night.
8:05
I've got more grassroots events in two
8:07
different places tomorrow. So I'm campaigning each
8:10
and every day. Because here's what I
8:12
care about. I want everybody
8:14
in my state to have the same opportunity I had. Even
8:17
though my mom was poor, she said, in America,
8:19
you can beat anything. And if that's true, we
8:21
have a hell of a country. If that's not
8:23
true, it's a pretty screwed up place. On
8:28
that point and on the
8:30
election, it's very
8:32
clear that the Democrats, they're looking at their map.
8:34
Chuck Schumer's looking at the map, and he says,
8:36
okay, we're playing defense all these places. It's going
8:38
to be tough. We're going to try to hang
8:40
on to this majority. The best way for them
8:43
to hang on the majority would be somehow
8:45
to beat a Republican incumbent
8:48
and take a currently Republican-held seat
8:51
and flip it blue. It's pretty slim
8:53
pickings for them if you look across the various
8:55
races they have to choose from. It
8:57
really is Ted Cruz in Texas and you in Florida.
9:00
I think they're at least planning to throw
9:02
tons of money at your race, right? Absolutely.
9:06
I mean, Chuck Schumer in the last
9:08
race spent $65 million. Planned
9:11
Parenthood is going to spend a fortune here on the
9:13
ballot initiative just to try. It's not because they think
9:15
they can pass that ballot initiative. Maybe they can. Maybe
9:18
they can't. But they're doing it just to get, you
9:20
know, rile up Democrats to go get them to vote.
9:22
You know, they're going to do the same thing against
9:24
Ted Cruz. So I tell people
9:26
in my race, you know, go to rickscott.com to help
9:28
me. Go to Ted
9:30
Cruz's race and help them. But we've got to
9:33
keep these. This keeps us at 49 if we
9:35
win Ted's race at my race. Then
9:37
if we win West Virginia, which we should, that puts us at 50.
9:40
Then we've got, you know, quite a few places where we
9:42
have a chance for a pickup. Probably Ohio
9:44
is our best chance with Bernie Moreno. But
9:47
we've got other chances around the country. But,
9:50
you know, we've got a number of them on that list, Senator.
9:55
But playing and holding serve
9:57
is step one certainly in your race down in
9:59
Florida. Rick Scott on the Guy Benson Show. Thank
10:01
you, sir. That
10:04
was yet another Benson Vite.
10:06
For full episodes of the
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Guy Benson Show, go to
10:10
guybensonshow.com or wherever you get
10:12
your podcast. Or
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wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
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