Republicans float Lara Trump to fill Rubio’s Senate seat

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who has presented himself as a champion of the MAGA right wing in the run-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, threw his support behind Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law, to replace his colleague Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Lara Trump would be a GREAT Senator and represent Floridians well,” Scott, who lost his bid to serve as majority leader this week, wrote on social media Thursday.

Donald Trump tapped Rubio on Wednesday to serve as his secretary of state, and, if confirmed, Rubio will have to step down from his Senate seat. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who suffered a humiliating defeat to Trump in the party’s presidential primary race this year, has the power to appoint a replacement for Rubio until 2026, when a special election would be held for the final two years of Rubio’s term.

Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview on Fox Business on Thursday that she had not spoken to DeSantis about appointing a replacement, but she nodded to support she had received from other Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. “If this were something that I’m asked to do,” she said, “I would seriously consider it.”

“I don’t think you’ll find a person who is more in line with Donald Trump’s America-first values and policies than me,” she said.

Lara Trump, who is married to Trump’s middle son, Eric, was one of two handpicked allies of the president-elect — along with Michael Whatley — to lead a takeover of the Republican National Committee this year, gutting the party apparatus and remaking it in their image.

Lara Trump also served as a surrogate for her father-in-law on the campaign trail this year, repeating his lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and raising the specter of Democrats’ cheating in 2024.