WEST BOCA RATON, Fla. (WSVN) — Florida Gov. Rick Scott wanted a cup of coffee but instead got an earful from a Starbucks customer. The unwelcoming conversation was caught on camera and has since gone viral.
Scott was in line at a Starbucks coffee shop in Gainesville, Tuesday, when activist Cara Jennings, who was sitting inside on her laptop, confronted him about some policies she didn’t agree with. "You’re an [expletive]. You don’t care about working people," she yelled at the governor.
Jennings, a former Lake Worth commissioner, said divine intervention led her to that coffee shop. She said she has been angry with the governor for defunding Planned Parenthood and cutting Medicaid. "I just casually said, ‘Governor Scott?’ and he turned," Jennings told 7News, "and that’s when I asked him, ‘Why did you pass that awful bill?’"
The activist claimed Governor Scott told her to go to the county clinic to get her services, and that’s when the double-shot of anger kicked in. "You don’t care about working people, you should be ashamed to show your face around here," she said in the video. "You stripped women of access to public health care. Shame on you, Rick Scott! We depend on those services. Rich people like you don’t know what to do."
The governor was in West Boca Raton for an event Wednesday and responded to Jennings’ claims. "She asked about why I signed the bill with regard to Planned Parenthood," Scott said. "She also brought up the issue with Medicaid expansion. As I’ve said all along, if the Federal Government wants to have a program, they should fund their program. As we all know, the best way to get health insurance: get to work."
Governor Scott also said that there was no conversation with Jennings, and he even left the Starbucks without his coffee. "I was there. She was not somebody you could talk to," he said.
Jennings said it was difficult to get her point across as well. "It’s really comfortable to sit in his offices and sign a law that affects women’s health care, but when a woman approaches him directly, face to face? He is misleading, he changed the topic and then he walked out of the room," Jennings said.
As the governor left the coffee shop, Jennings could be heard screaming at him, "Shame on you, Rick Scott. You’re an embarrassment to our state."