The day after Republicans lost the House and the Senate, Austin Scott of Georgia spoke to a local TV station and told the country what was wrong with it.
"Americans voted for crazy, and I think they're going to get crazy," he told WALB.
Scott won his own race. He said he doesn't feel victorious. "I think it was a huge loss for America last night," he said.
He then warned that Democrats would bring higher taxes and open borders, and that people who didn't vote now have "something that I think is going to make your life much more expensive."
That is a bold thing to say on the day after an election about prices, from a man whose party has run the House for four years.
His own party's vice president disagrees
Scott's explanation for the loss was simple. "There are just a lot of Republicans that sat the election out," he said.
Vice President JD Vance says the opposite. He wrote on Wednesday that turnout was not the problem. "Our voters showed up," Vance wrote, and many of them voted for Democrats. Their reasons, he said, were to end the war, focus on the cost of living, "Put America First" and change the country's relationship with Israel.
So people didn't vote for "crazy." According to the number two Republican in the country, they were voting against the war and the prices.
Scott did get close to that. He said voters are worried about the price of fuel. He even said foreign dependence explains it: "Look at what that has done to the price of fuel in this country." He did say he supports stopping a nuclear Iran, which he said would be "able to do tremendous damage." But in WALB's account he never tied fuel prices to the war with Iran that his own vice president blames for the loss.
He also said Trump's policies are good, and that the trouble was the tone.
"Much more expensive"
Now look at what Scott did to Georgians' bills while he held the majority.
He voted for Trump's budget bill on July 3, 2025. KFF estimates 150,000 more Georgians will be uninsured by 2034 under it.
In the same interview, Scott said some people "voted for more federal control over your lives." He told viewers that the last time Democrats had big margins, they "took away a lot of the choices that you had in your health care." Losing your coverage is also a way of losing your choices.
The farm bill line
Scott also took a shot at food assistance. Democrats want more than 80% of farm bill spending to go to SNAP, he said. "Why do you call it a farm bill if 80% of it goes to SNAP benefits?"
About 1.77 million Georgians rely on SNAP every month. That is about 15.6% of the state. Those are the people on the other side of that 80%.
His voters held a town hall without him
Scott told WALB people who sat out now have to live with it. "We live in a country where we have the right to determine our outcome," he said.
The people in his district have tried to talk to him about their outcome. In March 2025, close to 200 people held a town hall for an empty chair. The groups behind that event say he hasn't held one since 2015, and that one was only for veterans.
Calling voters crazy is easier than taking their questions.
What he said, and what he did
Austin Scott told WALB that "Americans voted for crazy" and blamed Republicans who stayed home, while JD Vance says Republican voters showed up and left over the war and the cost of living. Scott warned that Democrats will make life "much more expensive," after voting for a budget bill that KFF estimates will cost 150,000 Georgians their coverage. Organizers in his district say he hasn't held a town hall since 2015.
