‘How Long Have You Been in the Senate?’ Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Scoffs at Rick Scott in Tense Interview

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo was flabbergasted by Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) responses to her questions about the lack of substantial spending cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that has passed the House.

The budget bill, put forward under the reconciliation process to avoid getting blockaded by a filibuster in the Senate, is nonetheless struggling to get the support of enough senators to pass, despite President Donald Trump’s urging. Republicans have a narrow majority in the Senate and with Democrats expected to vote against the bill, it would only take a few GOP holdouts to block it from passing and kick it back to the House for revisions.

Scott is among the Republicans who have publicly voiced misgivings about the current version of the bill, and Bartiromo interviewed him on Mornings With Maria on Wednesday morning, digging right in by asking him, “What specifically do you want to see to change your mind about this no vote you’re talking about?”

“First off, I want to be a yes. I want to get the bill done,” replied Scott, explaining that he supported the president’s agenda, but wanted to “live in reality” and deal with the explosive deficits the bill would create.

Since American taxpayers have said they don’t want to pay more taxes, the senator continued, “what we’ve got to do is do what every family does — we’ve got to go through every line in the budget,” saying that he had done that as governor of Florida and thought it was necessary to have “a written purpose for every line” in the budget.

Scott added that this was what DOGE was doing and expressed optimism  that getting to a balanced budget was possible.

“We can do it. We can allocate dollars and do the right things for the American public,” he insisted.

“What I’m asking is for specifics,” said Bartiromo. “You brought up DOGE. If you’re so interested in DOGE, why did you and your colleagues not codify into law the DOGE cuts?”

“We haven’t had the opportunity to vote on it in the Senate,” said Scott. “I clearly would codify the DOGE cuts. I don’t know why the House didn’t do that. You know — look, I appreciate all my colleagues in the House working hard, but we’ve got a lot more work to do, so we’ve got to look at all the DOGE opportunities, we’ve got — the reality is, we have to look at every line –”

“So you would vote to codify the DOGE cuts,” Bartiromo interjected, “when given the opportunity, you would vote to codify the DOGE cuts when given the opportunity?”

“Absolutely,” he answered. “I mean, of course, we haven’t seen every one of them, exactly what they are. But, you know, I am into balancing the budget. We’re not going to get inflation under control, we’re not going to get interest rates down — that’s what the American public — this last election was about securing the border and getting rid of inflation. Look at credit card interest rates, look at car loans, look at housing, all that is getting hurt because of higher interest rates — and by the way, logically I don’t know what’s going to happen with interest rates, but when you have to refinance over $9 trillion worth of treasuries and we’re running 2 trillion in deficits, who thinks it’s really going to go down a lot? Who will be the buyer of bonds to get the interest rates down? So I think we have to balance the budget. That’s what will get interest rates down.”

Bartiromo was dissatisfied with that explanation. “So, Senator, I find it rich that you are talking like this when in fact just recently we saw the House come up with one and-a-half trillion dollars in cuts and the Senate came up with 4 billion in cuts,” she said. “Why was the Senate so low on cuts to be identified?”

Scott replied that this was “the resolution to get the process started” and said they were “committed “to “find more cuts than that,” because he didn’t know any of his Republican colleagues that didn’t want to get to a balanced budget and help Trump get his agenda done.

“I think it will take a lot of work,” Scott added. “I think we can clearly get his big beautiful bill done. I think we can clearly have fiscal sanity.”

“OK, so tell me about that fiscal sanity,” said Bartiromo. “What’s most important to you? Is it raising the debt limit? Is it the Medicaid cuts? Is it removing IRA green energy credits, in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act? And how come they’re not all gone, by the way?”

“I think it’s all of the above,” said Scott. “I think you’ve got to do those things but even when we do those, we don’t get to a balanced budget. So the only way we’re going to do this is, is we’re going to do this by going through every line in the budget. Now my goal would be to not have to raise the debt ceiling because we balance the budget. That would be the best thing we can do and that’s what we should be doing –”

“So, have you done it? So, can you identify specifics for us?” Bartiromo cut in again.

“Say again?” said Scott.

“Can you identify some specifics for us?” she asked. “Have you done it? Have you gone through every line in the budget, and can you today give us some specifics in terms of what needs to be cut — to get you on board?”

“Maria, you cannot see a copy — Maria, you cannot see a copy of the budget,” he said. “We do spending bills, we don’t have budget bills — if you ask to see every line — ”

Bartiromo tilted her head incredulously. “How long have you been in the Senate?” she asked. “How long have you been in Congress? You know the budget, roughly speaking, right?”

“I can tell you what I would — where I would start –” Scott replied.

“– Thank you,” Bartiromo said curtly.

“But to get — you’ve got to get every line of the budgets,” he said. “You’ve got to get rid of the Green New Deal. We’ve had 53% increase in spending they the last five years. So why don’t we go back and say, we’re going to start, we’re going to start with pre-pandemic spending and then see if we need to spend more. That’s what you would do with your personal life. But then I would go through them, I would go through Medicaid, which go — you’ve got to do every line. You won’t do enough if you just focus on the Green New Deal and just focus on making sure Medicaid goes back to the original purpose. We shouldn’t spend money for able bodied adults for healthcare, than we are for poor kids.”

“I agree with you,” said Bartiromo. “The Committee for a Responsible Budget said it will add $3 trillion to the debt including interest over the next decade.”

Watch the clip above via Fox Business.