Florida Senator Rick Scott Talks Bombing Effort to Beat Iran

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**Joe Mathieu** (0:07)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was pressed about how the administration can square the new round of strikes on Iran after declaring that the US had destroyed Iran's capabilities earlier this year.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:19)
How is it possible if their capabilities were, quote, functionally destroyed three months earlier, as you claimed, for them to be doing this now?

**SPEAKER_4** (0:28)
Senator, Iran is at the weakest point militarily it has ever been in in the past decade.

**Joe Mathieu** (0:36)
Joining us now for more is Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a member of the Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committees, also a veteran himself. Senator, thank you so much for being here live with us on Capitol Hill this evening. When we consider we're coming off of 10 consecutive days of the US striking Iran anew and the president repeatedly threatening to go harder, to consider heavier options to use his language to try to finally bring the regime to heal, is that the only course forward is just to intensify a campaign that has killed so many Americans already?

**Rick Scott** (1:09)
Well, first of all, my heart goes out to the families that lost their loved ones.
I was fortunate to be able to serve in the US. Navy, but never got shot at. So my heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones. Nobody wants that. You know, unfortunately, Iran's been killing Americans for 47 years. We finally have the president that said enough's enough. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. They're not going to have the ability to continue to kill Americans. Unfortunately, it's going to continue to take military effort to do it. The Iranian regime is not ready for change, so it's probably going to take a lot more bombing to get it done. But if we don't, then we're all at risk. None of us want to be killed by a nuclear weapon.
And so, I mean, it's, it's, it's, war is terrible.

**Kailey Leinz** (1:51)
If a lot more bombing must be done, there's a question about how much it might cost. And that was a big part of the conversation today with the defense secretary. He had a number for us today, 37.5 billion. Knowing this supplemental request is about twice that.
What is the administration birding for? Beyond replenishing supplies, will there be much more money required to continue this operation?

**Rick Scott** (2:17)
Well, we don't know. The bottom line is we don't know. We don't know when the Iranian regime is going to come around to decide they don't want, they don't want to continue to kill Americans.

**Kailey Leinz** (2:25)
Well, then should this be paid for? This is going to be a longer haul?

**Rick Scott** (2:27)
Well, I think, you know, I believe everything ought to be paid for. I don't think this government should, you know, any government should be running deficits. And so I've been, I've been frustrated up here because we're running $2 trillion deficits right now. So I think things have to be paid for if we want to get inflation under control.

**Kailey Leinz** (2:40)
Right.

**Rick Scott** (2:41)
And nobody wants their taxes to go up. So, but, I mean, it's a trade-off, right? Nobody wants to go to war, but we don't want them to have a nuclear weapon to kill us. I've got kids and I've got grandkids, and I want them to kill a nuclear weapon, or I'm sure you're in the same position. You want your family killed by a nuclear weapon. So it's going to cost us money. It's going to cost, have a strong military to be able to stop this. And let's look at the world right now. The world's dangerous.
You can blame anybody you want to blame. But the government of Russia hates us. The government of China hates us. The government of Iran hates us. The government of North Korea hates us. So it's a dangerous place. And so if we don't build up a military that can defend our freedom, then we're going to lose it. And so unfortunately it costs money.

**Joe Mathieu** (3:21)
Well, should there not be answers as to how much ultimately this is going to cost? You feel that the Pentagon has been transparent enough with that information. The Defense Secretary only revealed that today, giving sworn testimony before the appropriations came.

**Rick Scott** (3:36)
Well, I think it would be easy if we knew how many more days it was going to take. We don't. I mean, we don't know how many more days it's going to take to get a new regime and to destroy them and bring them to the table. We just don't. And we actually, you never have enough information about how well your enemy is doing.