Mitch McConnell Punishes Rick Scott For Challenging His Power

Mitch McConnell has decided that he's just about enough of fellow Republican Senator Rick Scott's attacks and attempts to usurp his power, and he has now kicked Scott and one of his Senate allies off their powerful committees in the Senate. This is a new show of force from McConnell, and it could be a signal that he wants to keep his Chamber in order so that they can avoid the same type of drama that has plagued Republicans in the House. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Folks, Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate is off. And I gotta say, it's kind of remarkable because usually you don't see Mitch McConnell angry. You've seen him more stern than usual, but never actually mad. He's never the kind of guy that's like retaliated, right? Well, this week we learned that he sure did retaliate against Republican Senator Rick Scott for challenging his power, and of course, trying to become the Republican minority leader in the Senate. So what Mitch McConnell did this week was he booted Rick Scott off of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee. Rick Scott loved that appointment. He's a very powerful committee. Lots of dollars go through that committee to be doled out across the country. And Rick Scott was kicked off along with Republican Senator Mike Lee, who had backed Rick Scott in his challenge to Mitch McConnell. So it's kind of hard to look at this as just a, you know, oh no, it's totally just a reshuffling of what's going on.

No. Mitch McConnell picked the two people that went against him and said, oh, by the way, guess what? You're no longer on this powerful committee, which is basically gonna strip you of the ability to steer certain funds to your state. You know, infrastructure funds. And we got a billion, uh, billions of dollars worth of it. Hundreds of billions actually, because of the infrastructure package last year. So yeah, you don't get to send that to your states. I'm sure plenty of money will flow, but you don't get to take credit for it because I'm kicking you off the committees. Now, again, I do 100% think this is Mitch McConnell getting back at the people who wanted to use surface power. But I also think it's, it's not just about that, it's more of a shot across the bow for the entire Republican party. Mitch McConnell looked at what happened over in the house recently, you know, the speakership battle, Kevin McCarthy having to make all these concessions, losing all of his power.

Now you've got Kevin McCarthy's friends freaking out because they can't hold these people accountable because they have no power. And if they try to, these people can then challenge McCarthy. It is a crap show. So I think Mitch McConnell looked at that, saw that he had his own little mini coup with Rick Scott and said, you know what? I'm not even gonna let it get that far. I'm gonna put my foot down now. I'm gonna let these Republicans know that you can't screw me around. You can't jerk me around. I am Mitch fricking McConnell. Who the hell are you? And he did it. I don't ever want to give Mitch McConnell any credit. I don't ever want to praise him. But I will say, this decision is absolutely hilarious. And Rick Scott, and of course Mike Lee got exactly what they deserved.