I've taken an incredibly innocuous and non-controversial position
Defensive scum posturing intended to make ash's play look scummy I guess? It looks like a pretty straightforward defense of being targeted scum instead of actually, say, scum hunting.
And no, town absolutely won't actually exile you after I flip.
Here we are with the absolutes that only scum can have. Why would we flip ash if Joth flips scum. It'd be a ballsy and unnecessary bus so I don't think we'd wager that chance until some investigative results indicated we should.
If I thought they would, I might consider embracing your 1v1...These 1v1s are basically always bad for town....I'm also not moving my vote.
So basically, if he thought this could work out to his advantage he'd take the bait. Also note the wishy washiness of the "almost" always statement. Instead of saying these are never good for town he's implying that maybe this one right here actually is.
I get what he's trying to say but how he says it seems telling to me. I don't see how anyone reads this as anything but scum. I'd like to see your interpretation of it, though.