Trump faithfully out for blood after Rick Scott lost the Senate majority

Top figures in the MAGA world spent Wednesday complaining that their choice for Senate Majority Leader, Florida Sen. Rick Scottdid not pass the first round of voting.

The outraged took to social media and their podcasts to whine and even threaten to oust Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — who was voted into the Senate leadership via secret ballot — if he doesn’t fall in line with everyone Donald Trump‘s requests.

“If he doesn’t endorse President Trump in the next 30 to 45 days to fill President Trump’s cabinet, we will remove him,” Real America’s Voice’s Charlie Kirk said, referring to Thune.

Kirk, of course, has no actual authority to remove Thune from Senate leadership. However, the right-wing activist and Turning Point USA founder has a significant following in the MAGA world.

Similarly, ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon – who hosts the daily podcast War room— was also crossed over Thune’s victory. He clearly stated on his podcast after it emerged that Scott had lost, “The victory is not ours. I don’t care how you dress it up, it’s not.”

Others to lament Scott’s defeat included Rogan O’Handley, the right-winger who runs the pro-Trump X account “DC Draino,” which has two million followers. “Every senator who voted for Rick Scott should publicly affirm that,” he said. “Then we can find out who the masterminds are.”

O’Handley added in a separate post: “MAGA is p—ed.”

Ryan Fournier, the 28-year-old who founded Students for Trump, called the Senate leadership result “ridiculous.” Right-wing influencer Savanah Hernandez went so far as to suggest that senators who did not vote for Scott should somehow be removed from office.

“We need to know which senators voted for Thune and Cornyn,” Hernandez wrote to his 600,000 followers on X. “The American people wanted Rick Scott in office and we made that clear on November 5. This was an extremely important vote, and the senators who voted against Scott must be removed.”

Conservative activist Joey Mannarino agreed, writing, “If we find out you didn’t vote for Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader, we absolutely want the s–t out of you.”

Thune, 61, is a former Trump foe who went on to level with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the second round of leadership votes. He will now take over the job that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held for nearly two decades.

Thune’s victory suggests that Trump’s grip on GOP lawmakers may not be as iron-clad as he had hoped. While Thune and the president-elect appear to have largely repaired their relationship, Thune famously said in 2020 that Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss to Biden “would go down like a shot dog.” Trump responded by calling him a “RINO,” which is short for a “Republican Only In Name.”

Trump, who requires the help of the Senate majority leader to confirm a number of presidential appointments, has never publicly endorsed Scott’s leadership bid or talked about it. But those close to Trump, such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, made it clear that the MAGA movement wanted Scott in the position.

The secret voting process means we will likely never know for sure how each senator voted. However, some divided their opinion ahead of the vote, with Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) each endorsing Scott.