GOP senator: Democrats care too much about punishing Trump for getting people killed

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) complained on Thursday about having to sit through Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

“The Democrats are just obsessed with Trump. Trump is not in office. He is not the president,” Scott told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “Why don’t the Democrats stop their obsession and focus on getting something done instead of making us sit through this unconstitutional, backward-looking, waste of time impeachment?”

Trump is on trial after being impeached for inciting a mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6. During the trial proceedings on Wednesday, newly released video showed Scott’s fellow senator, Mitt Romney (R-UT), along with former Vice President Mike Pence, being ushered away from a crowd calling for their deaths.

Despite the threat to his colleagues, Scott told Hewitt, “I’ll be glad when this ends. I hope everybody in this country is thinking, ‘Why are the Democrats focused on the past rather than the future?'”

At the time Scott recorded the interview, the Capitol attack had only occurred 36 days in the “past.”

From the Feb. 11 edition of “The Hugh Hewitt Show”:

HUGH HEWITT, host: Senator, let me begin with the question on everyone’s mind. The videos yesterday, the testimony in the impeachment trial, was harrowing to say the least and I believe no one who watched it would be other than horrified by it.

 

I am wondering if anyone in the Republican caucus who voted against proceeding on constitutional or prudential grounds has changed your mind to your knowledge?

 

RICK SCOTT: Well, I’ll tell you my take. The videos were horrible. The people that did this need to be prosecuted. Nobody should be coming into the Capitol, nobody should be doing anything that hurts another human being or tears up property, it shouldn’t happen, so, my hope is that everybody will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

 

But here’s why I look at this: The Democrats are just obsessed with Trump. Trump is not in office. He is not the president. And so why don’t the Democrats stop their obsession and focus on getting something done instead of making us sit through this unconstitutional, backward-looking, waste of time impeachment?

 

The Democrats don’t care about getting anything done for families. This is just pure political theater, it ought to be done at the Kennedy Center, it shouldn’t be done at the Capitol. So, I hope – I’ll be glad when this ends, I hope everybody in this country is thinking, “Why are the Democrats focused on the past rather than the future?”

 

This is horrible, this is horrible precedent, so if you don’t like the next president, you’ll find something to impeach him on. And whoever’s in the Senate then has to sit through an impeachment.

 

Think about it, there was no due process, they didn’t do any interviews, they didn’t do any depositions, they did nothing, they just said, “Oh, we’ve got to impeach this guy.” And then they sat on it. They had to rush through it, then sat on it. So, it does nothing for an American family and I’m disappointed for what the Democrats have done.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.