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The following is a rush transcript of Todd’s interview with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on the Todd Starnes Radio Show.
TODD: [00:51:36] All right, folks, welcome back to the Todd Starnes Radio Show. Good to have you with us today. ToddStarnes.com is our website. You can also listen to all of our interviews, download those free on the Todd Starnes Show podcast. I want to go right now to the Liberty University newsmaker line. It is a great honor to have with us the senator from the great state of Florida, Rick Scott. Senator, thanks for coming on the show today.
SEN. SCOTT: [00:52:01] Hey, Todd, I hope you I hope you’re doing well.
TODD: [00:52:03] I am, thank you. And and I have to tell you, thank you for supporting the nation of Israel – a very, very difficult and dangerous time in American and world history. And, Senator, the the behavior of some of your Democrat colleagues up on Capitol Hill is just outright disturbing.
SCOTT: [00:52:23] It’s disgusting. I mean, think about this, there’s a little boy I don’t five years old that was killed by a Hamas rocket that was indiscriminately just shot into Israel. Right. And and then on the Senate floor of the United States, not one not one Democrat U.S. senator, not one which stand for Israel’s right to defend itself. Not one. So I did a resolution with 30 other Republican senators to say, one, we Israel has a right to defend itself to Hamas is a terrorist organization and we are not going to support them. So, of course, the Democrats blocked it on the Senate floor. And then what I’m going to be doing now is I have a bill that’s going to say we are not going to give any money to the Palestinians if that money ends up in the hands of Hamas terrorists. That is wrong. Now, I’m sure the Democrats are going to go out here and try to block it, but I’m going to fight for Israel’s right to defend itself, our best ally and our only democracy in the Middle East.
TODD: [00:53:32] And again, there’s a much broader issue here, and it goes far beyond Hamas, who is funding Hamas. We know they’re getting money from the Iranians for for these rockets. And yet the Democrats like Bernie Sanders for him to block your resolution, that is reprehensible to their standing alongside the terrorist.
SCOTT: [00:53:52] They’re right. I mean, terrorists. And then then you’ve got the Biden administration going out there and say, well, while this is going on, we still we would still like to sit down with Iran to see if we can work out an arrangement there. Iran the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world and the Bush administration, while Hamas is shooting off rockets, they will you know, we’d really like to sit down and see if we can work with them. So, I mean, and did they say we’re going to sit only sit down with you if you commit to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorists around the world? No, they said they want to sit down with them. And so in the Bush administration is giving money to the Palestinians. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure any money that were given the Palestinians never ends up in the hands of the Hamas terrorists. That is wrong.
TODD: [00:54:37] Senator, how do we go from nine months ago, President Trump was ushering peace in into the Middle East with the Abraham Accords, and now all hell is breaking loose. What happened in those nine months?
SCOTT: [00:54:50] Joe Biden got elected, Biden’s a weak link. I mean, he has no backbone. He’s a weak president. He doesn’t stand up against the ayatollah. He doesn’t stand up against Russia and China. He’s not done anything to stand up to a dictator in his whole life. I mean, I’m from Florida. What what does he do with Obama down in Cuba? I mean, he he stood with he stood with the Castro brothers. I mean, this stuff is despicable. And so we we have got to stand up for freedom and liberty, all the things we believe in. And you know what? The countries that do that, like Israel, we should stand with them and say, you know what, you have a right to defend yourself. Now, in 2014, when Hamas was doing this, guess what? Harry Reid, the Democrat majority leader of the Senate, had a resolution said basically the same as mine. Guess what? Every senator in the U.S. Senate agreed this time. Not one Democrat, not one.
TODD: [00:55:43] Why do you think that is, Senator?
SCOTT: [00:55:46] I think the Democrats are now part of you know, they’re radicals. I mean, they’re anti-Israel. They’re, you know, anti-Semitic. What they’re doing right now is wrong. I wonder if Hamas was attacking the United States, would Bernie Sanders stand up for us? I mean, who knows who they’re going to stand up for? I mean, what if you look at what’s gone on just in the last one? Little over 100 days? By June, president, we’ve got a southern border that’s that’s open. We don’t have our schools open. We’re shutting down. We’re learning to play in women’s sports. We’re shutting down the Keystone pipeline. But it’s OK. Putin has a pipeline. That’s OK. But in America, we can’t have those things that, you know, to make sure we’re energy independent. And then look at you mean, you know, China’s threatening Taiwan and the Chinese and feel intimidated by Biden. Is anybody intimidated by Biden? Nobody’s intimidated by Biden. Clearly. Clearly, Hamas is not clearly. Iran’s not. Clearly she’s not. I mean, Biden, just a weak link
TODD: [00:56:53] On the Liberty University newsmaker line. Florida Senator Rick Scott, he introduced a resolution condemning these attacks by Hamas on Israel and Senator Bernie Sanders blocked that resolution. It’s just absolutely reprehensible, folks. But, Senator, for for me, the more troubling part of this is what’s now happening on American soil as Jews are being targeted on the streets of American cities and the Democrats remain silent.
SCOTT: [00:57:22] Oh, yeah, they’re going to say anything. By the way, where is Chuck Schumer on Israel? Where is the guy? I mean, he’s not you know, he’s he’s on full display saying, I’m not going to do anything because I can’t afford to make AOC mad. I can’t I can’t afford to make the far left mad I might have. I might have a primary next year. So I’m just going to go along with all their anti-Israel, all, you know, they’re just going to carry all this stuff. So it’s all of them told the Democrats there’s not one Democrat standing up for Israel that I know of. I can’t think of one in the country that’s elected.
TODD: [00:57:56] You know, just Congress. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had a caller on our program, senator from Arkansas, Jewish man from from Arkansas said, Todd, I’m packing up. I’m moving to Israel and his family there. He says it’s just not safe to be a Jew in America. And I didn’t know what he was really talking about. But then when you look at what’s happened over the past two weeks, I get it. And this is not right. This should not happen to anybody on American soil and have been any other demographic. If it had been Black Lives Matter being targeted in the streets, there would be no wall to wall coverage.
SCOTT: [00:58:26] Right. I mean, how what happened to our country? I mean, we shouldn’t discriminate against no one. No one should be discriminated against. No. What we should stand up for what we believe in, stand up and be proud that we’re Americans, that we believe in individual rights. All right. And so just think about the people of Israel. They’re sitting there. If you’ve taken a trip to Israel and gone to the border, you see on the northern border, you’ve got Hezbollah over there. You go down the Gaza Strip. I’ve been I’ve been in their bomb shelters. You have 15 seconds to get into the bomb shelter, 15 seconds. You have to think about it every minute. If you if I think if you’re in Tel Aviv, you’ve got 90 seconds. All right. But if you’re I was right next to the Gaza Strip. They had 15 seconds to every day of their life. They have to set himself. Am I ready? Are my children ready? So every child, as soon as they hear the sirens, they lift up their arms because they’re hoping somebody is going to pick them up and take them to the bomb shelter. What a horrible way to live. And we don’t want to defend Israel’s right to defend themselves? They’re not asking for American troops. They’re asking for American support. And Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to give them the resources that we’ve historically given them to be able to Israel to be able to defend themselves. So the Democrats have gone off a complete left end. I mean, they’re crazy.
TODD: [00:59:49] Well, Senator, I appreciate you coming on the program. Thank you for standing up with for Israel and for American Jewish citizens as well. And we stand alongside you, sir.
SCOTT: [00:59:59] All right, thanks for your time. We’ve got to fight for Israel and we cannot allow this anti-Semitic attitude to grow in the United States.
TODD: [01:00:08] He’s right. We’ve got to do something about this. And it’s up to all of us to take a stand. And if we do not, ladies and gentlemen, we will lose this country and we can’t let that happen. But elections do have consequences. That’s why right now we have Black Lives Matter flags flying over every single one of our embassies. All you Never Trumpers out there. I blame you for this, not the Democrats. I blame the Never Trumpers. You are responsible Jews being beaten on American streets. I blame Never Trumpers. Shame on you, all of you.