President Joe Biden does not understand the threat China poses to America, according to Sen. Rick Scott.
“He pacifies [Chinese President Xi Jinping] all the time,” Scott, R-Fla., says of Biden’s relationship with the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
“China and Russia pose a threat to American freedom, Scott says, because “both of them don’t like us.”
“Both of them don’t want America to lead the world. They don’t like democracy. They don’t like freedom. They don’t like liberty,” the Florida lawmaker says.
With concerns over ties between China and Russia growing stronger, America has to “assume the worst,” the senator says. If a third world war does break out, “it’s because we have a weak president,” Scott says.
Scott joined “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss growing geopolitical tensions and what the Biden administration could be doing to secure American freedom. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., also joins today’s show to discuss the crisis on the southern border.
Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript:
Virginia Allen: It is my pleasure today to be joined by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida. Senator, thank you so much for your time today.
Sen. Rick Scott: It’s great to be here.
Allen: Senator, you serve on the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and, wow, it feels like just within the past couple of weeks the heat has really been turned up on geopolitics and we’re watching the world—just so much tension, it really feels like, everywhere you look. So I want to talk about a number of these tensions that are growing internationally, starting with China. China recently sent balloons with surveillance technology over America. What do you think China’s view of America is right now?
Scott: I think they think [President] Joe Biden’s weak. I don’t understand why he doesn’t stand up.
But look, it’s not just the balloons. They’ve got drones all over this country. The federal government buys drones. You’ve got TikTok. Every Chinese app surveilles us. They’re sending, what, all the fentanyl across the southern border—70,000 Americans die of fentanyl overdose each and every year, really, it’s fentanyl poisoning. They steal our jobs, they steal our technology. I mean, they’re building a military to defeat us. They don’t really like our way of life. They’ve taken over the basic rights of Hong Kong citizens, they’ve threaten in Taiwan.
I mean, Americans need to wake up. Don’t buy anything that’s built in China. Don’t buy/deal with any Chinese apps. Get rid of all these things. And our governments all have to do the exact same thing. We’ve got to decouple from China. American businesses should not be doing business in China. They want to demolish our way of life.
Allen: Does the Biden administration understand the threat that China poses to America?
Scott: No. I mean, look, here’s the deal. Either he doesn’t read the paper, he doesn’t watch the news, or somehow he’s got another problem where he’s somehow compromised. It doesn’t make sense. He’s doing nothing. He pacifies [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] all the time.
Allen: Let’s talk about COVID for a minute. Recently, the Department of Energy concluded that COVID likely came from a lab leak from a Chinese lab.
Scott: Shocking. Is that the first time you believed that?
Allen: I’ve heard it a couple times before, once or twice. The FBI, they have said the same. What does accountability of China look like in this instance related to COVID and their responsibility there?
Scott: Well, they ought to pay for it. They did it. They covered it up. They caused it. They covered it up. Think about this, it’s not just causing it. They covered it up. So they ought to pay for all the damage to our economy. I mean, if you do damage like this, you’re held accountable. Why aren’t they held accountable?
But the first thing … Americans are to do is realize that they are out to destroy our way of life. I don’t get why anybody would ever buy a product from China. I don’t know why anybody would get on TikTok. I don’t know why anybody would buy a Chinese anything, a drone, anything. And I don’t understand why our government does business with China.
Allen: Let’s talk for a moment about the relationship that China and Russia have. There’s a lot of concerns right now relating to that as we’re seeing increasing conversations appear to be happening between the Chinese and the Russians. What do we know about the relationship of China and Russia right now?
Scott: Well, first off, we know both of them don’t like our way of life. Both of them don’t like us. Both of them don’t want America to lead the world. They don’t like democracy. They don’t like freedom. They don’t like liberty. So, I mean, you have to assume the worst. You have to assume they’re going to cooperate. And so every freedom-loving person, every freedom-loving nation of the world is going to have to start showing up and realize that we’re in a war. Might not be a military war yet with China, but we clearly have an issue with Russia, with all the money we’ve had to invest in Ukraine.
Allen: You bring up Ukraine. We obviously have just passed that one-year mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States has sent billions of dollars to Ukraine. Are we being strategic enough in the aid that we are providing Ukraine?
Scott: Well, first off, the Biden administration has been slow on aid. I don’t know why they don’t want the Ukrainians to win. They need to get the lethal weapons. The Ukraine needs to defend their freedom and they need to do it now. You need to quit being so slow about it. So we’ve clearly provided a lot of aid. Germany and every other freedom-loving nation and country has got to show up. And then on top of that, there can’t be any corruption in Ukraine.
Allen: We’ve been seeing that, obviously, recently, Russia pulled back out of the New START nuclear arms treaty with America. What is Russia doing here? Are they just trying to make America a little bit nervous by doing this or do you think there’s real threat that Russia would use a nuclear weapon, whether against Ukraine or anybody else?
Scott: You assume the worst. You prepare for the worst and hope for the best. So you have to take [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for what he’s saying. He wants to reestablish the Soviet Union. So if that’s what he wants to do, let’s all decide, is it important to us that he not and what do we do to stop it? Biden needs to be a leader, needs to get freedom-loving nations all to show up. If we do, we’ll be able to stop him. If we don’t, we won’t.
Allen: Well, speaking of preparation, I think just a lot of people are nervous about what’s happening across the world right now. Not that we take Twitter too seriously, but we did see last month that the hashtag World War III was trending on Twitter. How likely do you think it is that we are going to see war break out in a large scale within the coming years?
Scott: If it does, it’s because we have a weak president. Weakness brings out the wolves. Weakness causes wars. The world needs a strong America. If America does not have a strong leadership, that’s how you end up with an unsafe world. So if we want to have a strong America and a strong, safe, and peaceful globe, we got to have a stronger America.
Allen: And what does that look like? What are the practical steps that should be taken and that yourself as a Republican in the Senate is advocating be taken so that we are that stronger America on the world stage?
Scott: Well, first off, you have to balance a budget. We’ve got to get ourselves out of all this debt. We’ve got to build a military. We can’t be defeated. We have to have a military that scares the crap out of everybody. We got to get our country back to work. So you can’t help somebody else if you don’t help yourself. And what the Democrats have done, and some Republican leaders have helped, this unbelievable spending has put us in a precarious position financially and this has got to stop.
Allen: Senator, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
Scott: OK, nice seeing you.
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