Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume suggested Monday that the push from President-elect Trump’s allies to elevate Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) into GOP leadership may not go the way they planned.
“I think this press from Trump world to support him is likely to backfire,” Hume said Monday on Fox News’s “Special Report.”
“Senators are jealous of their authority, their powers,” he continued in remarks highlighted by Mediaite. “They don’t like to be told what to do. And I think that the other two candidates are more likely to win. I couldn’t tell you which one, but I think Scott’s a longshot.”
Within the last few days, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who is expected to be named the next secretary of State — endorsed Scott to replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who announced earlier this year that he would step down from leadership.
Though, Hume said he thinks Scott is a “longshot” as the senator’s campaign has already sparked backlash.
“I actually think Senator Scott’s kind of a longshot,” he said Monday. “The reason being that, for example, he was head of the Republican National Senatorial Committee in the ’21-’22 election cycle, raised a ton of money [but] as you may recall, Republicans had a terrible result in those midterm elections.”
“Remember the red wave was supposed to come? It never broke,” he added.
Scott predicted that the GOP would win around 55 seats in the 2020 midterm election, but instead ended up losing a seat — leaving the party with 49 — amid complaints from McConnell about “candidate quality.”
The Florida Republican had challenged McConnell — a boogeyman of the Trump wing of the party — for his leadership role at the time and failed, winning only 10 votes to McConnell’s 37.
The Hill has reached out to Scott’s office for comment.
