Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said Tuesday he has no timeline for launching a bid for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) role as the top Republican in the conference.
Scott, 71, has said he is “seriously considering” entering the contest for the top job, but he declined to discuss anything but his own reelection at a press conference held at the Conservative Partnership Institute, located just off the Capitol complex.
“It’s an honor to be here at this impromptu press conference for Rick Scott for majority leader,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said in what was the only mention of the senator’s leadership ambitions at the event organized by Scott’s team.
Instead, the Florida senator said he is focused squarely on his reelection this November and will not get into his plans beyond then.
Asked by the Washington Examiner about reports that he told former President Donald Trump about his intentions in the leadership race, Scott replied that the two “just talked about how we’re both going to win our races.”
Should he run for the top job, Scott will face Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for the job, though other candidates could get in the race between now and the end of the year.
McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader of all time, announced last Wednesday that this Congress would be his last as head of the GOP conference. The news sparked renewed interest in his possible successors, including Cornyn, Thune, and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY), the latter of whom announced on Tuesday that he would seek Thune’s whip position rather than McConnell’s leadership role.
The trio of Republicans, described around Washington as the “Three Johns” due to their shared moniker, are all members of McConnell’s leadership team. Cornyn was term-limited out of his role as whip, with Thune succeeding him, but he has remained a key McConnell adviser and ally.
Scott, meanwhile, would be the most conservative of the three men if he opts to run.
Scott unsuccessfully challenged McConnell for his leadership role in 2022 and has been a thorn in his side ever since. The two men’s feud has been public knowledge for nearly three years. They sparred repeatedly when Scott served as National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman for the 2022 cycle, with each holding opposing views on how to win back control.
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After Republicans underperformed expectations — Democrats gained a seat and thus an outright 51-49 majority — Scott launched a bid for McConnell’s job as party leader. He lost that challenge in a 37-10 vote that reaffirmed McConnell as the top Republican.
On Tuesday, Scott criticized McConnell for working with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “to get the number of votes to pass horrible legislation, whether it was the omnibus, whether it was the CHIPs bill. There’s a lot of these things that never should have happened. We should’ve had to come together, and that’s why I ran against McConnell [in 2022].”
