Florida Sen. Rick Scott: Biden's inability to 'react' to inflation will help the GOP in November

Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott blasted President Joe Biden on Sunday, claiming that the Democratic leader’s inability to address the nation’s historic inflation crisis will ultimately help Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

During an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan asked Scott to comment on a recent poll that found 65% of Americans believe Biden has been “slow to react” to multiple crises like inflation, illegal immigration, soaring gas prices, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I think those numbers are consistent with what we’ve seen, that inflation is still the number one issue in the country and the president is slow to react, whether it’s the border, whether it’s inflation, whether it’s gas prices, even Ukraine,” Scott responded.

“I think the expectation is that whoever the president is gets ahead of the problems rather than behind the problem. So, I think the election this fall is going to be about inflation. It’s going to be about the effectiveness of the Biden administration. And I think it bodes well for Republicans.”

Brennan retorted, citing a CBS poll which shows Republicans hold a mere 2-point advantage in trust to handle inflation over the Democrats. Scott, however, maintained that GOP lawmakers would at least take steps to help bring down costs.

“We’re going to balance the budget. We’re going to start watching the dollars very closely. We’re going to watch our spending. We are going to, you know, expect the Federal Reserve to reduce their balance sheet,” Scott said.

Later, Brennan asked Scott about his push to gradually end imports from China, as outlined in his “Rescue America” plan – to which Scott responded by stressing the need to move away from economic reliance on China.

“Well, I think what we’ve got to do is we’ve got- we’ve got to figure out how to decouple from China, and it’s going to take a while to do that,” Scott said.

“But if you look at what they want to do, they’re sending fentanyl in this country. We had over 100,000 people die of drug overdose last year. They never comply with any trade agreements, they’ve never complied with the [World Trade Organization]. So, what we’ve got to do is we got to start building American jobs. We’ve got to get American manufacturing back. And when we do that one, our wages will go up, we’ll have more jobs in this country. People want to buy American products and there’s other countries to do business with.”

Finally, the CBS host pressed Scott on his plan to review all federal legislation after five years, including Medicare and Social Security spending.

“We have got to be honest with the American people and come up with solutions,” said Scott. “I believe in those programs and people rely on those programs.”

“We ought to be honest with the American people,” Scott added. “Here’s the things we’re going to do to make sure you get your Medicare, make sure you get your Social Security. So I will never raise a tax. I cut taxes more than 100 times, but I’m going to make sure we fix and make sure these Medicare programs and Social Security work.”