McConnell Denies He Ousted Scott from Committee as Payback

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) denied he removed Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) from the Commerce Committee because the Floridian challenged him for the GOP’s top leadership position.

Appearing on Monday’s edition of The Story on Fox News, McConnell told Martha MacCallum that Scott’s bid to unseat him as minority leader in November had nothing to do with the move.

“So, you recently moved Senator Scott and Senator Lee off of the Commerce Committee,” she said, referencing Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who supported Scott’s candidacy. “And here’s what Senator Rick Scott of Florida said about his attitude about that.”

MacCallum played a clip of Scott reacting to the decision.

“I’m gonna keep doing my job,” Scott said. “I put out a plan. You know, he completely opposed me putting out a plan. I believe that everybody, everybody up here, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. We all oughta be putting out our ideas and fighting over ideas up here.”

Scott was referencing a plan he rolled out last year calling for taxes to be raised on most Americans. It was so controversial, McConnell publicly rejected it.

“What do you say to Senator Scott and why did you remove him?” MacCallum asked.

“He had a temporary assignment on the committee – the way we do things – for two years,” McConnell replied. “He could’ve traded in one of his permanent committees for Commerce and stayed on it. He had a temporary assignment. There were others who wanted it. And I gave it to two other senators. No particular reprisal in mind and no animus toward Rick Scott at all.”

“He says it’s because he ran against you,” she said.

“Well, that’s just not true,” he said.

Watch above via Fox News.

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