Florida Senator Rick Scott calls Jan. 6 hearings ‘reality TV’ and ‘irrelevant’
Republican Sen. Rick Scott dismissed the importance of the ongoing Jan. 6 congressional hearings on Wednesday, comparing them to low-brow entertainment and arguing it will fail to prevent another attack.
“I think it’s irrelevant,” Scott said during a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “It’s reality TV.”
Told that the first televised hearing earlier this month had 20 million viewers, the senator said he remained unimpressed.
“I’ve not gotten asked about it in my state,” he said.
Scott spoke on a variety of topics during the hour-long session, explaining his opposition to a new bipartisan bill on gun-related violence (he says states are better positioned to enact such laws), the conditions under which he would support a proposed temporary federal gas tax suspension (he says he would need to see what infrastructure programs President Joe Biden would cut because of the loss of funding), and how often he talks to former President Donald Trump (he says once every two or three weeks).
But the senator was asked time and time again about his view of the hearings about the attack on the Capitol last year, which have produced hours of searing testimony depicting the violent acts of that day and their connection to Trump’s repeated falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
The hearings have featured testimony from retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who advised former Vice President Mike Pence, that Trump and his supporters represented “a clear and present danger to American democracy,” and the revelation that John Eastman, a lawyer who helped Trump try to overthrow the election results, sought a presidential pardon.
Scott, who emphasized that he thinks President Biden was fairly elected and considers the attack on the Capitol “disgusting,” said the committee will nonetheless do little to prevent future events like Jan. 6 from happening.
“The way [Democratic House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi set that up, I mean, it’s tainted from the time it started,” Scott said. “So … I don’t think you’re trying to do anything other than taint Republicans.”
Scott last year voted to decertify the commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s electors.
The specially appointed committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack will next meet Thursday.
This story was originally published June 22, 2022 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Florida Senator Rick Scott calls Jan. 6 hearings ‘reality TV’ and ‘irrelevant’."