The White House is confident that once Florida's recount is settled, Florida Gov. Rick Scott will be the state's next senator, as he's leading incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson by 12,000 votes, White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp said Tuesday.
"That's going to be a hard gap to close," Schlapp told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"We have already seen with the Broward County supervisors that there have been voting irregularities for nearly two decades. So again, they have missed that court deadline, and I think we're going to get to a point where we are going to see Rick Scott coming over to Washington to be the next Florida senator."
Meanwhile, ensuring that there is no voter fraud is primarily a state responsibility, even though the federal government does provide support through the Department of Homeland Security.
"I think the key is obviously that in conjunction with state working with the federal government to make sure this doesn't happen," said Schlapp. "We always have to keep an eye on it because one the greatest rights that we have and privileges is that of voting. We need to ensure voter integrity at the state local and federal level."
Schlapp also discussed President Donald Trump's weekend trip to Paris, calling it "clearly" successful and stating that he and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke about the importance of paying for NATO.
"The U.S. has always paid more than these other nations," said Schlapp, "and so he has sent a strong message to our European allies and we have seen some changes and some positive shifts coming from our allies to pay more to NATO. We need their support."