Rick Scott

Senator Rick Scott, the Florida Republican, is insisting he’s satisfied with his role in the Capitol, where his recent moves have sparked buzz about a potential change in GOP leadership.

A two-term senator, Scott has sought the top Republican spot twice, including in 2024 against Texas’s John Cornyn and eventual winner John Thune of South Dakota. He has dismissed the possibility of a third bid for leader, telling outlets like Politico and NOTUS his work in the Senate simply focuses on helping the GOP.

That work has sometimes conflicted with Thune, however, whose balance of a group of frustrated Republicans and a chaotic president grows more difficult by the day. Scott circulated a memo last week on his preferred priorities for the caucus, several of which are low on the majority leader’s list. He also invited President Donald Trump days later to a Senate GOP lunch without Thune’s blessing.

Scott told Politico on Thursday he feels fine about the South Dakotan’s role in the chamber.

“Here’s what I don’t get: Other people get to put out their position. If I put out mine, then I want to be leader?” he questioned.

The senator’s colleagues have puzzled over his ambitions, particularly after last week’s brow-raising moves. One Republican told NOTUS that Scott’s lunch invite of Trump was a show of force for a party gripped by the president’s influence.

“I don’t know how you couldn’t see it like that. That’s how I saw it,” the Republican said. “I think it’s an undermining of our leader, quite frankly. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have coordinated that.”

The lunch, which Scott planned to use as a forum for debate on the GOP’s priorities, devolved into yet another medium for Trump to air his grievances about a caucus that has refused to bend to his every whim. Rather than talk about the SAVE America Act, a voting bill demanded by the president for the past several months, Trump and Senate Republicans argued about a symbolic check on his war powers approved by the chamber the previous day.

Thune has pushed back on the president’s call for a so-called nuclear action to pass the voting bill, which lacks Republican support. The majority leader insists there aren’t enough votes to eliminate the filibuster and pass the act with a simple majority, although he occasionally entertains proposals to appease Trump.

Thune recently told Politico he’s pleased with Scott’s passion for productivity.

“He brings people in that help inform our conversations and discussions about some of the major policy issues,” Thune said. “I’m very supportive of what he’s doing.”