'Shameful lies': Rick Scott tells students 'demented' claim about abortion

04 September 2024

U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) is under fire over video of him baselessly telling students women and doctors would “crush” the “skull” of babies just minutes before they are born, if abortion were legal, apparently at nine months, or starve them to death immediately after. The secretly recorded video, reportedly recorded and leaked by a student, is going viral.

“…you crush a baby’s skull,” Scott says in the video (below), which has received over 400,000 views in under four hours. “A baby that would be born healthy and alive at nine months, two minutes before, okay, it could be crushed and killed,” Scott can be heard saying in the video, remarks very similar to ones he has made before. NCRM has not verified the authenticity of the video or its context, which was posted to social media by attorney and MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski.

Senator Scott, the wealthiest U.S. Senator, is the former governor Florida, an attorney, and the former head of a hospital corporation that plead guilty in the largest health care fraud case at the time in history. He is running for re-election after winning his 2018 race by a mere 10,033 votes, a tiny margin of about 0.12 percent.

“On top of that, all the Democrats have voted to say that a baby born healthy and alive can be allowed to [be] put in the corner and starved itself to death,” he can also be heard saying in the video. Filipkowski says Scott was “speaking to a college class and I got this from a student.”

In a May interview with Politico, Sen. Scott said Democrats “want to crush a baby’s skull at nine months, and they want to leave a healthy baby born alive in the corner to die.”

He also said he would sign an abortion ban if it were at 15 weeks.

Florida Politics reports Scott is leading his Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, by just three or four points in the latest polls, and calls his position “vulnerable.”

MSNBC‘s Steve Benen earlier this year wrote, “Before becoming a far-right politician, Scott led a company called Columbia/HCA, which faced a federal fraud investigation over Medicare. As the FBI’s investigation advanced, Scott resigned as CEO, though he nevertheless faced considerable scrutiny — including an infamous civil deposition in which the Republican asserted his Fifth Amendment rights 75 times.”

“Scott’s former company ultimately pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and was fined $1.7 billion. It was, at the time, the biggest Medicare fraud case in American history,” according to Benen. “Though the article is no longer online, The Miami Herald reported in 2010 that federal investigators ‘found that Scott took part in business practices at Columbia/HCA that were later found to be illegal — specifically, that Scott and other executives offered financial incentives to doctors in exchange for patient referrals, in violation of federal law, according to lawsuits the Justice Department filed against the company in 2001.'”

Wednesday on MSNBC, Murcarsel-Powell told MSNBC that Rick Scott “has been proudly saying” he supports an abortion ban, and called him “one of the most extreme senators” on abortion.

“Florida is in play,” Mucarsel-Powell said.

“Shameful the lies that people like Rick Scott are willing to tell to hold on to power. Infuriating,” wrote Democratic former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill.

“This is demented,” remarked Salon’s Heather Digby Parton.

“These freaks and weirdos really, really hate women. Abortion bans are absolutely rooted in hatred of women,” observed Democratic communications strategist Laura Chapin.

Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and author Laurie Garrett asked: “What psycho horror movie alternate reality is this man living in?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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