Club for Growth defends Rick Scott from McConnell’s ‘false attacks’

The Club for Growth, a prominent conservative advocacy group, is backing Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) reelection bid and pushing back against what it says are the “false attacks” of “establishment Republicans” like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).  

“Rick Scott is a proven conservative who has promoted economic growth and fought reckless spending in the U.S. Senate,” said Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh.

“While other Republicans have caved to massive tax-and-spend packages that have strained our economy, Rick Scott has consistently championed small government solutions centered around fiscal responsibility, and because of that he’s faced the unfounded and false attacks of liberal Democrats like President Biden and even establishment Republicans like Leader McConnell,” he said.  

The group’s statement comes after McConnell panned Scott’s proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years, which was included in the 12-point plan he introduced last year as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.  

“That’s not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell told radio host Terry Meiners. 

The Senate Republican leader disavowed Scott’s proposal again on Tuesday, responding to a line in President Biden’s State of the Union address asserting “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years.”  

“It continues to come up. The president was talking about it in the State of the Union,” he told reporters. “So let me say it one more time. There is no agenda on the part of Senate Republicans to revisit Medicare or Social Security. Period.” 

Scott says that critics who say he wants to sunset Medicare and Social Security are twisting the intention of his proposal. He says he fully expects Congress to reauthorize Medicare and Social Security if they are due to sunset and explains that his proposal is aimed at weeding out wasteful and ineffective federal programs.  

McConnell and the Club for Growth have feuded over political strategy and the direction of the Republican Party for years.  

The group backed conservative challenger Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party Republican, when he ran against the late Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), whom McConnell backed, in the 2014 Senate Republican primary. 

And last year the Club for Growth poured $5.5 million into the Arizona Senate race in the final days to help conservative candidate Blake Masters after a super PAC affiliated with McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund, canceled nearly $10 million in television ads in the race.