Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) pointed to Democrats and largely declined to answer when asked why he joined fellow Republicans in blocking a bill that would guarantee access to contraceptives on Wednesday.
“Why vote nay and explain how that’s not a bad issue for Republicans?” Fox News host Bret Baier asked.
Scott, who is reportedly being considered as former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, argued that people already have access to contraceptives, claimed that “will continue,” and accused Democrats of politicizing the issue.
Then, he changed the subject to abortion.
Baier eventually jumped in to bring Scott back to contraceptives, asking why Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would hold a vote on the issue.
“The polls are clear that they are losing this November election. The day of reckoning is November 5th of this year. They’re doing anything they can to try and demonize the Republicans as if we’re gonna do something as he suggested, he’s just wrong,” Scott said of Schumer.
Republicans have pointed to Supreme Court decisions protecting access to contraceptives to argue against the bill, while Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned of the high court posing a “real risk” to do the “same thing on contraception” as it did with abortion in 2022.
Schumer, in a press conference, declared that tens of millions of people have been “robbed of their reproductive freedoms” and tens of millions more “worry about something as basic as birth control.”
“That’s utterly medieval. It’s sickening. It should never happen here in the United States, but because of Donald Trump and the hard right, it’s reality,” he said.