Rick Scott urges Donald Trump to be ‘more aggressive’ with anti-American leaders

Rick Scott.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott on Tuesday took to Fox News radio to offer critiques of how President Donald Trump handles foreign policy, complete with suggested improvements.

The Naples Republican, on the Guy Benson radio program Tuesday afternoon, was responding to the host’s questions about how Trump seems to go too “easy” on certain foreign leaders, such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from Turkey, who Trump praised in a conversation with an American held hostage in Turkey.

Scott offered bland defenses of the President, before saying that he would like Trump to be “more aggressive” with leaders contravening American interests.

“Would I like him to be more aggressive in talking about these leaders? Yes, I would like him to be more aggressive,” Scott told Benson, extending his frame of reference to the leaders of Cuba and Venezuela.

The Senator noted that he had put a “lot of effort” into helping the President understand Latin American geopolitics.

“I’ve put a lot of effort into explaining to him why we have to hold the Castro regime accountable, Maduro accountable,” Scott said.

“So is his administration committed to it? Yes. Is there some rhetoric that — you know, he believes he can build these relationships and get these things done,” Scott said, veering into word salad territory briefly.

“So I know that he’s trying,” Scott continued. “He tried to sit down with North Korea. Did it work? No. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It never works to appease.”

“His policies have been right. His actions have been right,” Scott said.

For Scott, who advocated an interventionist play in Venezuela that the Trump administration has resisted, the frustration is quiet but clear with this President and a foreign policy that, at least in a few theaters of interest, doesn’t go far enough.