Florida's Rick Scott to appear on podcast even Marjorie Taylor Green thinks is racist
28 October 2024
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Rick Scott is scheduled to appear on a podcast on Tuesday night hosted by Laura Loomer, the far-right activist with a history of expressing bigoted views. The program will air on Rumble, the video-sharing platform popular with conservative commentators.
Loomer is a 31-year-old influencer who has become notorious in recent years for a number of comments that have been labelled as racist, sexist, homophobic, and Islamophobic. Her remarks last month that the White House “will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election and that the “media is lying and saying Donald Trump lied about @KamalaHarris’s Haitian invaders eating people’s pets in Ohio” received rebukes from other conservatives such as Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called them “appalling and extremely racist.”
Loomer posted a video on social media last year claiming that the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was “an inside job,” according to CNN.
‘Free spirit’
Loomer is an avid supporter of Donald Trump, who told reporters last month in Southern California that “I don’t control Laura. Laura — she’s a free spirit.”
According to her statement on X, Loomer will speak with Scott about the race to win the Senate Republican Leadership scheduled to take place in Washington next month, two weeks after the general election. Scott is running against Idaho Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn to succeed Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has previously announced that he would step down as the GOP leader at the end of this year. Loomer has said that she hopes Scott wins the contest.
This will not be the first time that Loomer has spoken with Scott. She interviewed the Florida Republican in July during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and posted it on her X page.
Loomer appeared last summer at the Tampa Bay Young Republicans event monthly meeting in Tampa. Jake Hoffman, president of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans, kicked off the evening by telling Loomer that there were members of his club that said, “we shouldn’t give you a platform,” but added that his group stood for embracing free speech, even if it was unpopular.
Scott is locked in a battle for re-election next week for U.S. Senate next week against former South Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Recent surveys have shown Mucarsel-Powell inching closer to Scott but, overall, he still maintains an average lead of around 5 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
The Phoenix reached out to Scott’s campaign to ask if Scott is familiar with any of Loomer’s controversial comments and social media posts over the years, but did not receive an immediate response.
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