Rick Scott backs Liz Cheney, says Marjorie Taylor Greene is not a true Republican

Sen. Rick Scott. Image via AP.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott waded into controversies in the House of Representatives Republican caucus, affirming an embattled member of leadership and condemning a conspiracy theorist who claims the Parkland school massacre never happened.

The Senator made the comments Wednesday on the Fox News Channel, where he told host Martha MacCallum that Rep. Liz Cheney, reviled by Republicans in the Matt Gaetz wing of the GOP, had every right to vote for the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

“With regard to Liz Cheney, I think people ought to respect how people vote. You might disagree with how they vote, but you ought to respect how they vote,” Scott said.

Scott, who chairs the Senate campaign arm for the 2022 cycle, was one of a handful of Republican Senators who voted to decertify a slate of electors. He joins Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other establishment members of the party in offering Cheney cover as House Republicans demand atonement for her vote to impeach Trump for inciting the siege on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6.

The Senator, meanwhile, did not offer cover to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican on the precipice of removal from the House of Representatives. Greene has asserted the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School was a planned “false flag” event.

“She does not represent the Republican Party,” Scott said, asserting that “what she said about Parkland is disgusting, is wrong.”

“I was there three hours, four hours after the shooting,” Scott said. “I talked to the families, the seventeen families that lost loved ones.”

“She clearly doesn’t represent the Republican Party,” Scott, who was Governor when the massacre happened, said.

These comments track with what Scott told media earlier this week.

“I was the Governor of Florida when Parkland happened. And what she said about Parkland is wrong, disgusting. I was there an hour, just a few hours after it happened, I talked to the families that lost their loved ones. And so, but she’s not gonna be the face of the party. And it’s wrong, what she said,” Scott told media in D.C.