Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi interrupted a press conference by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to ask him to prove to the state taxpayers that he’s not on drugs by peeing in a cup.
“You benefit from hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars every year, so would you be willing to pee into this cup to prove to Florida taxpayers that you’re not on drugs, that you’re not using that money for drugs?” Mandvi asked.
Scott replied that he’s “done it plenty of times.”
Mandvi then tried to pass a cup forward: “Would you pass this forward to the governor? We can all turn around, it’s fine.”
The press conference was to present Scott’s budget recommendations, but Mandvi’s question referenced the law proposed by Scott and passed by the state legislature that requires all welfare recipients to take a drug test before they can receive benefits from the state. In October, a district court judge issued an injunction against the law in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU.
Here’s video from the presser, via the Miami Herald:
Later, the Herald reports, Mandvi tried again to pass the cup forward: “I hate to keep harping on this, would you pee in a cup?”
Scott fired back: “You don’t get to run this.”
h/t Ashley Lopez at the Florida Independent.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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