BENSON BYTE: Sen. Rick Scott Pushes House to Reject Funding Package Over Lack of DHS Funding

Now it's time for another Guy Benson, Guy Benson Fight, where we bring you the day's most interesting interviews in a bite-sized package. For the full episode, visit Guy Benson.com or wherever you listen to a podcast. And glad to welcome back to the show, U.S. Senator Rick Scott, a Republican of Florida. Senator, good to have you here again. Guys, always great to be with you. There's a lot of things happening in D.C., so. Yeah, let's start. Let's start with what's happening in D.C. and then move beyond that. We are actually in the middle of a partial government shutdown. It's gotten almost no attention at all. Talk to us about what the actual state of play is right now. I know a lot of eyes are on the House of Representatives because they had to come back in town and act based on what the Senate did, but there are unresolved issues. Democrats are making a bunch of demands in the minority about DHS and ICE and that sort of thing. Walk us through this. Well, it's a frustrating time because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want to defund ICE. Remember, they're the party of open borders. They're the party of let anybody in their country. So they have no heart for the people that have lost their loved ones as a result of illegal immigrants, criminals, gang members in this country. So what's happened is on Friday that's in the past, I didn't vote for it, but they sent a bill that didn't fund. Homeland Security, which includes ICE, TSA, FEMA. But they funded everything else, including thousands and thousands of wasteful earmarks for Chuck Schumer and other Democrats. So I think it's a pretty frustrating time. I personally don't see how if this passes the House the way it is that will ever get Homeland Security funded this year. I think the Democrats don't want to do it. They want. They want ICE shut down and they're going to do everything they can to do it. They don't care about the criminals in this country. So we'll do what happens. And you know, because ICE itself is already because of the big beautiful law, ICE is funded for three years. So they can't actually defunded, but they can have this partial shutdown of DHS that impacts FEMA and airport security and that sort of thing. I mean, that could be. really detrimental to a lot of people in order to try, I guess, to use this piece of leverage that they think they have to what, pass different legislation that puts all sorts of restrictions on ice? What's the play here? Yeah, I mean, that's what they want to do. They want to put restrictions on ice to where ice can't do their job. Look, I understand where the president is. The president doesn't want a government shutdown. He thinks it's hurt the economy and her jobs. I completely understand where the president is. But we have got to stand up for law enforcement. We have got to stand up for ICE. We cannot restrict their ability to do their job. When you look at people like Lake and Riley and Justin Nongari and Rachel Morin, who were killed by people in here illegally that Biden led into this country. So if we allow this to happen, what do you say to those families? Well, are the people that their daughters have been raped?

have all these airmarks to just waste money. Like, we're paying for a new elevator at the Met in New York City for a bunch of rich people to go to the Met, which sounds really nice. But how does that help in poor families that can't get a job? How's that helping somebody that the groceries are too high or the rent's too high? I mean, it's like the Democrats all that they care about the elite. We're paying for some fake elephant exhibit in New Jersey. I mean, so who's things of this stuff. This is a bunch of Democrat waste, and then they want to open the borders, allow these criminals in, and they never want to be kicked out of the country. I mean, this is the craziest. I mean, you know, guy, I've got two daughters, I got a bunch of grandkids. I'm worried for their safety every day because of what the Democrats do. Thank God they don't live in a sanctuary city, so they have greater chance of something that's happened. But if you live in Minneapolis, So what are you thinking? Your mayor and your governor don't care about your safety? You know that the Democrats don't care about your safety or your kid safety or grandkids safety? That's exactly where we are. I think we've got to fight. We've got a fight to say enough is enough. We got elected to do the right thing. Secure the border. Get these criminals out of our country. Create an illegal immigration system that works. And if you're here illegally, you cannot be here. We have laws. Yeah. I can like you, but you can't do that. And the thing is, Senator, you were for... a long time, governor of your state of Florida. And so you know what it's like to be the chief executive of a major state. And it just keeps coming up example after example of the juxtaposition, the comparison between places that are not sanctuary jurisdictions like Florida, for example, and places that are where you don't have all this unrest and upheaval in the streets and people. coming after ice officers and then these ugly confrontations and some of them have gone really sideways and it's been terrible in Minneapolis. That isn't happening in the Florida's and the Texases and the Tennessees of the world, but it's happening overwhelmingly in these sanctuary jurisdictions where the locals are forbidden from helping, even handing over these people behind bars in controlled settings and jails, which then puts them back on the street, which necessitates these street operations. I just don't understand. You know there's a, it's a criminal alien and you're a sheriff or you're a police sheet and you don't turn them over? Like, I, my heart goes out to Renee Good's family, okay? And Alex Prudy's up. My heart goes out for them, okay? And I think we've got to clearly get the bottom of that. I have an independent investigation. But if you're the mayor of Minneapolis, you're the governor of Minnesota or anyplace else in Sanctuary City, you've got to, don't you care about the citizens of your jurisdiction? Tell them, you can protest.

But you don't obstruct law enforcement. Okay? You don't spit on law enforcement. You don't call them names. You don't get between them and a criminal. So I just think we got to get back to sanity. I mean, what I grew up, nobody would have suggested that you could get in the, and you could stop a law enforcement officer from doing their job. So what ICE is trying to do is get these murderers and rapists and drug sellers the hell out of our neighborhoods. Like, who doesn't want that? Chuck Schumer doesn't. Democrats don't. You know, Mayor Fry doesn't want it. Governor Waltz doesn't want it, but normal people do. Yeah, it's also one minor detail. It's the law. They're enforcing the law that is duly enacted. And if you don't like that, you can change the law, but we've made that point a number of times. By the way, Senator, in our opening today, our opening monologue, I was talking about just the failure of governance in Washington, D.C. with the streets still being a mess a week later. And in Virginia, northern Virginia, a bunch of the schools are still closed because it's... quote unquote, not safe to go to school eight days after a modest storm. It's crazy to me. Another example of one of these places completely run by the government supremacists in the Democrat Party would be California. Palisades fire was just over a year ago. I know you've been trying to get some answers and accountability, right? They pay, just like we do in D.C. in this area, very high taxes, exorbitant taxes. in the Los Angeles area and when push came to shove when the when the need for government competence and government services like core responsibilities were at their most acute people fell on their faces hydrants ran dry etc the mayor was out of the country the list goes on I know that you guys recently had another hearing on the accountability side of this, what have you learned more recently looking back at that disaster in Southern California? Well, and as a result of those actions, that people died. Twelve people died, and thousands of people lost their homes. Okay, and they're financially devastating. So we had the fire, you know, prior, two prior Los Angeles Fire Department employees, one's now the fire chief and harbormaster for Redondo Fire Beach, another one works up here in D.C. And here's what they said. The fire was preventable. I mean, there's no reason this happened. Number one, we at the federal government who has attacked there, we've given them all sorts of money for fire suppression. But in this case, there was a fire 10 days before that the firefighters wanted to put out, and they were called off the job. This is not an issue that firefighters didn't their job, didn't do the job. Leadership decided they couldn't do their job. So then they had two reservoirs, empty of water.

How could you have a reservoir empty of water? And they knew this was the fires were going to come. They knew this. And they pre-position no assets. They had no evacuation plan. I mean, so, and then people died. I mean, and then the mayor doesn't show up, and Gavin Newsom doesn't show up to do anything to help them. You can't even get rebuilt. There's no answers. There's no accountability. There's no plan to go forward. You can't even rebuild. And if you want to rebuild, you can't afford it now because of their taxes and fees. I mean, this is so unfair. to just hardworking Americans that they end up with a government that ultimately because of their actions, people died. They died because of their actions. There are natural disasters that no one could have stopped, but then there are policies that failed badly in California. Like the water policy was not some accident. It was an actual policy, and they've been making excuses and passing the buck ever since. So many people are still waiting for any progress on the rebuild. I saw one story about, victims being told they had to pay for a new fire hydrant in order to start their own rebuild. You've got the governor of California trying to pretend like this was some success on his watch because he wants to be president. It's pretty breathtaking to watch. Oh, and you just feel sorry for these victims. We had a hearing, Senator Ron Johnson. I had a hearing out in California in November and just listen to these victims stories. I mean, they just, there's, I mean, they're devastated. And so you feel so, you know, feel so sorry for them. I went out there the first time last August with Spencer Pratt, who's a, you know, reality TV star. And he drove me around. And, you know, I had four major hurricanes when I was governor of Florida. You know what happens? One, do everything you can to keep everybody alive. Number two, make sure they have shelter. Number three, food and water. And then number four, as soon as this thing passes, how do you get rebuilt? How do you get restarted? How do you get the business still? There's none of that. It's just empty homes. Just burnout block after block after block. And nothing's being rebuilt. Nothing. I mean, it's just the most fascinating thing. I mean, I was there in August, and I was there in November, and it's the same story. Nothing's happening. Senator Scott, you have a lot of Hispanics in the state of Florida. very politically diverse group that have trended at least recently more in the rightward direction. Interesting pattern now emerging in Latin America itself, where, of course, we saw the election of Javier Milei in Argentina. There were right-wingers, conservatives who won elections in Chile, I believe Bolivia. There was a few other countries in Central America as well. And then just yesterday, Costa Ricans had their presidential election.

And a woman named Laura Fernandez, who was the center-right, right-wing conservative candidate with the support of President Trump, actually, she won overwhelmingly down in Costa Rica. It seems like something is really happening in Latin America right now. Well, first of, the people have seen that socialism dictatorships have failed them. And the only way you stay in power is you have to kill a lot of people and have to imprison a lot of people. So they've seen how bad that is. On top of that, we have a president that's focused on Latin America. We have a sector of state that's focused on Latin America. In my lifetime, it seems like this is the only guy. This is the only president that I know that cares. I mean, he took Maduro out. for selling drugs into this country. I think we have every reason to believe that we could have way more democracies, way more freedom in America. It's good for them. It's actually good. It makes us safer. We want the countries around us to be vibrant democracies that we can trade with, compete with, and it'll help build their economies and build our economy. You don't have much of an economy. We don't have much of trade with Russia or Venezuela or Cuba. But you can in a vibrant democracy. Yep. And it's interesting to see this conservative movement sweeping across Latin America. I know there's a big election down in Brazil later in the year as well. We are following that story, among others, here on Guy Benson. U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida here, our guest. Senator, always appreciate your time. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Guy. Have a great day. Bye-bye. That was yet another Guy Benson bite. For full episodes of Guy Benson, go to Guy Benson.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to this show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.