Sen. Scott says U.S. should balance budget but also 'demolish' Iran's nuclear ability

Last night, we spoke with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut about the war

with Iran.

Tonight, we get a Republican perspective.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, picks it up from here.

As the war with Iran nears the end of its third week, the Pentagon is considering asking

Congress to approve $200 billion to fund ongoing military operation.

To discuss this and more, I'm joined by Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who serves

on the Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thank you for joining us.

Yesterday, we heard from your Democratic colleague, Chris Murphy.

He said the Iranian regime is still intact, and he has not seen a plan from the president

for ending this war.

Is there a plan?

How do you see this?

Well, first off, I don't think the commander-in-chief of our armed forces ought to be telling the

enemy, which is the Iranian government here, what our plan is.

So I don't think it's appropriate for our commander-in-chief to be telling anybody what

the plan is.

But the plan is, when do we have, make sure that their nuclear capabilities are destroyed?

And when can we make sure that they don't have a ballistic missile that they can kill

or either are troops in the Middle East or Americans here in the United States?

So I think the plan will be, it will be finished when that happens, so.

There are many people raising the Iraq war, which was intended to be a short-term U.S.

operation, but much longer than the Bush administration planned for.

Are you thinking about that?

Are you concerned that could happen?

Well, this is a president that doesn't like for wars.

He's talked about that.

I think the American public is not happy about forever wars, so I don't think there's

a much of a chance that we'll have a forever war here.

And on top of that, this is a president that hates war and hates putting troops on the

ground.

So I think what he's doing is trying to fulfill his mission of destroying their capability

of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

I mentioned that $200 billion figure.

We'll see what the Pentagon ultimately requests.

That's what they're considering.

But, you know, I did the math on that.

That's about $1,200 per taxpayer.

Going back to this first question, though, that amount of money was enough to fund two

years of the Iraq war.

Can we take away that they're expecting money to need to last for a long time for this

operation?

Well, we don't have any detail.

I think, like, in my case, I want to watch how we spend our money.

So I want to see the detail of what they're asking for.

At the same time, I do not want a ran that have nuclear weapons or the ability to use

ballistic missiles to kill our troops or Americans.

And so we've got to figure out what do we need to do this?

We've got to make sure we demolish their ability to do this, and we've got to watch our

money.

We've got to do all of those things.

What about the national debt, though?

Is there a limit to what we should be spending here?

Oh, absolutely.

We have $39 trillion for the debt.

You know, we're borrowing money that our kids and our grandkids are going to have to

pay off.

It causes inflation.

And this is, you know, we have to balance our budget.

Our family's balanced our budget.

And I was governor of Florida.

Florida had not balanced the budget, but once in 40 years, I've balanced it every year.

We all know what we have to do this.

It's the thing that's going to get inflation under control.

Now, at the federal level, what we ought to be spending our resources on is for sector

and liberty, which means our military, and make sure we have a great economy.

Most of the other things, others, some of our safety nets, we can be doing at the state

and local level.

I want to talk about the DHS shutdown that we're also in the middle of right now.

Now, Democrats have done this to, they say, over ice, ice conduct that they would like

to change.

They're blocking DHS funding, but they haven't made an offer.

They say they're willing to fund TSA and some other sub agencies.

Do you consider that a serious offer and why not take it?

Well, they don't have a serious offer.

And by the way, I'm not going to do anything to defunds police.

I mean, what they're saying is that they're okay with open borders, and they're saying

they're okay with criminals robbing our country, and killing people like Lincoln Riley and

Jocelyn and Garry and Rachel Moran.

I mean, this is, you can't do this.

I want to make sure that everybody gets paid.

Here's what makes me mad.

I've had a bill since I got a peer called no budget, no pay.

That means if we don't pass our budgets, senders and Congress does shouldn't get paid.

But guess what?

Everybody up here wants to get paid.

You know, the Democrats are sitting here saying, oh, they want to get paid, but there's

260,000 people.

I think part of Homeland Security, TSA agents are getting paid.

Just in Florida, 200 TSA agents have already quit.

They're tired of this.

They didn't get paid last fall.

This is not fair.

Secret service is not getting paid.

You know, it just doesn't make sense.

Well, it's so unfair to Americans.

And so if Democrats don't want to pay these people, then they should say, they didn't

get paid either.

I mean, it's just completely unfair.

But why not support funding TSA as Democrats say they would do?

I support funding TSA, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to, as part of that, never fund

the ice.

I mean, they're never going to look for whatever reason, right?

Democrats don't want ice to do its job.

I want to secure border.

I don't want criminals in this country.

I've got great kids.

I've got daughters.

I've got a wife.

I wouldn't be safe.

I mean, the fact that they are, they're okay with criminals roaming our country and

they don't, they don't care.

Ice is trying to do its job.

Are there, are there reasonable things?

Sure, the White House has proposed some things.

And so, but the Democrats, you know, they, they, this, for whatever reason, they do not

want ice to be able to get rid of criminals and other people that might rape or kill our

daughters or our granddaughters.

Senator, I have to push back a little bit.

You said Democrats are okay with criminals roaming around the country.

When I hear from Democrats is that they too want safe borders and that they are okay

with detaining criminals who are in the country illegally and that they're concerned.

You may have seen these videos as well as about aggressive tactics by ICE and CPB against

including American citizens.

This is the same group of people that were completely okay with completely open borders

under Biden, completely open borders, criminals flocking across.

They never said a word.

They never push back on what Biden was doing.

So when they come now and say, oh, they want to have a secure border, where were they

in those four years?

When they say they're worried about criminals, where were they those four years?

I want to also ask you about the Save America Act, which is on the Senate floor.

Right now, you're a co-sponsor of that.

That is about election IDs.

Now, critics, however, I know you've heard this.

They insist it's a suppressive law.

For example, to register to vote, you need a passport, a birth certificate, or maybe

an affidavit.

It would make it harder to register for some people, but how do you explain how it would

work?

Do you disagree?

Here's what's crazy.

Chuck Schumer, the Democrats, supported real ID.

That does the same thing.

You had to show your American citizen, you know, to be able to get a real ID.

So I don't know what the deal is.

You have to have an ID to go to the doctor or get on airplane or buy a six pack to a beer.

Don't you think the sacred right to vote is important?

If I may, and my understanding is the concern that you would need a passport or original

birth certificate specifically.

And not every American has it.

No, there's a whole list.

At least there's a whole list of things.

You can have real ID, you can have a passport, you can have a birth certificate.

And if you don't have those, you can do an affidavit.

So that's not true at all.

If people would read the bill, we've tried to make sure that no one gets disenfranchised.

We want people to vote.

I want people to vote.

I've run for election.

I want people to be able to vote, right?

But I don't want people.

I don't want fraud.

I don't want people that don't have a right to vote.

I don't get to vote in France or England or Canada or anyplace else.

If you're not an American citizen, you don't get to vote here.

It's so simple.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida, thank you so much for your time.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.