Rick Scott will challenge Mitch McConnell for Republican Senate leader

Rick Scott announced Tuesday that he will challenge Mitch McConnell in Wednesday’s Senate Republican leadership election.

The Florida Republican made his announcement to his colleagues at a closed luncheon for senators on Capitol Hill.

“The status quo has been broken and a major change is needed. It is time for new leadership in the Senate uniting Republicans to advance a bold conservative agenda. That’s why I’m running for Senate Republican leader,” Scott wrote on Twitter.

Scott hopes to ramp up GOP anger over their failure to win the Senate majority in a victory over McConnell, the longtime Republican leader. His chances are considered slim.

Democrats sealed their Senate majority rule over the weekend as their candidates won key races in Nevada and Arizona.

Republicans are playing the blame game with McConnell and Scott in the aftermath, who ran the Senate campaign arm bickering over who is to blame for the GOP’s failure.

Scott is backed by former President Donald Trump, who has long despised McConnell and blamed him for the Republican losses in last week’s midterm elections.

McConnell’s team claims he holds all the votes for Senate GOP leader.

Mitch McConnell (center) met with newly elected Republican senators on Tuesday — from the left Senator Elect Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Senator Elect Ted Budd (R-NC), McConnell, Senator Elect Katie Britt (R-AL), Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO)

McConnell met with newly elected Republican senators on Tuesday as he attempts to challenge his leadership amid GOP anger over the outcome of the midterm elections.

The Senate GOP leader met with election winners Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama, JD Vance of Ohio and Eric Schmitt of Missouri in his Capitol Hill office.

When asked who they voted for in leadership, none of the newly elected senators answered, and aides rushed reporters out of the room.

Scott’s team goes to great lengths to blame McConnell. A Scott’s top adviser is questioned about McConnell’s commitment to winning Georgia’s runoff election between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican nominee Herschel Walker on Dec. 6.

Scott adviser Curt Anderson pointed out that McConnell’s super-PAC has not been issued in the state.

‘Extremely strange. A week has already passed, only three to go,” Anderson said NBC News via text message. “It would be sheer malpractice and dereliction of duty to leave Herschel Walker behind.”

McConnell’s committee, the Senate Leadership Fund, said it would spend money soon.

Trump and his allies also blame McConnnell, even as several Trump-backed candidates — including Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania – their consest.

“It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social website after the Democrats won the Senate.

“The Republican brand, put forth by Mitch McConnell, is unexciting, unconvincing, unconvincing to voters,” former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures show.

Newly elected congressmen gather for their class photo on the steps of the US Capitol

And many Republicans are angry about the outcome of the midterms.

“Holy crap, the Democrats are holding the Senate,” Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said in his latest podcast. Even worse, the Democrats may get a majority in the Senate. Worse than that, yes, we’ll take the House, but at best, we’ll take the House with a few seats. Maybe there’s an outside chance that we’ll lose the House. I don’t think we will. I think the numbers are enough to keep the House.”