Kerry Eleveld on The Michelangelo Signorile Show: Rick Scott sets his sights on the White House
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Daily Kos senior political writer Kerry Eleveld joined Michelangelo Signorile on his show this week. The pair discussed Rick Scott’s “Rescue America” plan—an 11-point scheme that would raise taxes on low- and moderate-income Americans—and Joe Biden’s steady leadership as Ukraine faces a continued assault from Russia.
Scott’s plan would raise taxes on the majority of Americans, though he often glosses over that fact, seemingly aware it would not be a popular policy. Signorile noted that Democrats are fighting back to ensure it does not get implemented, with the DNC running digital ads aggressively on tax preparation sites, targeting Americans who are finishing up their taxes last minute.
If implemented, Scott’s plan would raise income taxes on approximately 100 million low- and moderate-income Americans, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet. Eleveld delved into the current power struggle in the GOP as many, like Scott, are sizing up the field and making potential plans to run in 2024:
Rick Scott, of course, laid this out much to the chagrin of GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell, who was very happily and smugly saying, ‘I’m not going to let anyone know what we’re going to do. We’ll let you know when we get the majority.’ He just didn’t want to put anything out there. So then, Rick Scott, who is kind of trying to position himself—this is kind of part of the problem the GOP has right now: by far the most popular person … right now in the Republican Party is Donald Trump. It’s still Donald Trump. It’s still true. But everybody is like, ‘Gee, is he really going to run? Or might some horrible thing block him from being able to do that?’ So everybody is still sort of positioning themselves to have opportunities, and Rick Scott has always wanted to run.
Even if Trump runs again in 2024, Eleveld added, Scott has not ruled out ousting McConnell as the Senate majority leader. McConnell still occupies that role simply because there haven’t been any better contenders: “McConnell has held onto that job partly because the big right-wingers in the caucus, like Josh Hawley, like Ted Cruz, are just enormously unpopular—nobody likes them … he doesn’t have any sort of popular people trying to oust him.”
Scott’s plan aims to raise a trillion dollars of revenue over the course of a decade on the backs of working- and middle-class Americans. At the same time, wealthy corporations and individuals would be able to continue benefiting from the unpopular tax cut that the GOP pushed through in 2017. As Scott put it, “Every American needs to have skin in the game.” Eleveld offered her translation of this: “Everybody needs to pay taxes no matter how disadvantaged they are, no matter how little means they have or whatever.”
In the absence of any other meaningful policy from the Republicans, Eleveld also pointed out, this has become the de facto plan of the party, as “Rick Scott [simply stepped] into that vacuum and offer[ed] up his vision.”
Signorile and Eleveld also discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how all these fights for democracy are interlinked. “The Ukrainians have to win their fight for democracy; we have to win our fight for democracy. We have to win here, there, and everywhere,” Eleveld emphasized, adding that having capable leadership to steer the country is very important at this moment in time. “This is a piece of protecting our democracy—having an empathetic president who is handling this very delicate, horrible situation, a tragic set of circumstances, competently.” And despite Biden’s lower approval ratings, she thinks that “on the issue of Ukraine, I really do think he has gained credibility,” and that he reflects how most of the country feels.
The full audio is available below: