Fox chyron calls Biden's Medicare claim “debunked” as Fox hosts Sen. Rick Scott to defend his plan that would sunset Medicare and Medicaid
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From February 9, 2023, Fox News, America's Newsroom
BILL HEMMER {FOX NEWS ANCHOR): Well, some reaction there – doubling down on that debunked claim that Republicans want to end your Medicare and Social Security.
President calling out my next guest by name yesterday when he was on the road in Wisconsin. That man is Florida Senator Rick Scott, sir good morning to you. Thank you for joining our program today. You've been in the middle of this from the beginning. Clarify what your idea was. Because it wasn't just Medicare or Social Security. You wanted to look at everything – as a businessman that's probably where you are coming from, go ahead.
RICK SCOTT (FOX NEWS GUEST): I did it as governor. You do it in business all the time. You go back and look. If you did something, say OK, did it work? So, I said in my plan I put out, you can go to rescue america.com, I said let's look at every program every five years. There's a lot of programs we shouldn't be doing up. here – and then if it's worth keeping, we keep it. We do this with the defense budget every year. We don't pass a twenty-year defense budget. Every year, we do it, and we do it every year. We pass the National Defense Authorization Act.
Also said we ought to tell the American public how we're going to preserve Medicare and Social Security. But here's how Biden is a hypocrite. He wants to say Republicans want to cut Medicare and Social Security. I never will do that. I am not going to cut their benefits, but guess what? Joe Biden's proposed it. He proposed a bill when he was in the Senate to sunset everything and I don't know if you've seen the quote. He says when I argued we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well, I meant Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits. I meant every single, solitary thing in the government. That's what Joe Biden said. He is a hypocrite.
BILL HEMMER: Right – Let me get to that in a moment. That was 28 years ago. We have something to remind you of that. But what he also said on Tuesday night anyone who doubts it contact my office and I will give you a copy of the proposal. Now is that true or a lie?
RICK SCOTT: I hope he gives everybody a copy. But you can do it online. You go to rescueamerica.com. You can look at it.
I put out my ideas, I think everybody ought to. I want to make sure we balance this budget and we preserve Medicare and Social Security. If we keep going down the path we're going down where we run in trillion, two trillion dollar deficits, there is no federal program that we're going to be able to preserve. And I want to preserve all the safety nets that our American citizens care about.
BILL HEMMER: I get it. The other day you tweeted he rambled for a while, he was confused, but I'm asking you whether or not he was telling the truth. Was he? Was it a partial truth or was it a lie?
RICK SCOTT: No, he's a liar. It's a lie. The guy has been lying, I mean, the whole time. I've called him a liar. He is coming to Florida. I will be in Florida tonight. I put an ad up saying here is not only – is this guy lied, he actually didn't pay his Medicare taxes on his income after he was vice president. He used a loophole to not even pay his mMdicare taxes. I mean, this guy is a complete hypocrite.