Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a 2024 presidential candidate, rejected former President Barack Obama‘s critique of his view on race relations.
Obama, the first black American to be elected president, said during a recent CNN podcast that voters should be skeptical of GOP candidates who lack a plan to address the consequences of hundreds of years of racism.
Taking aim at Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican member, and Nikki Haley, a GOP presidential candidate of Indian heritage, Obama argued there is a “history” of Republican candidates who “validate” the United States without a proper reckoning of the past.
“Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream, who was interviewing Scott, noted that the senator has opened up about being racially profiled, including by law enforcement inside the U.S. Capitol. She asked whether his own experiences underscore Obama’s point that racism is a prevalent issue, even for minorities who succeed today in the United States.
“Absolutely not,” Scott said. “Whenever the Democrats feel threatened, they drag out the former president and have him make some negative comments about someone running, hoping that their numbers go down,” he added.
2024 GOP candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) reacts to Obama’s comments on him and race:
"There's no higher compliment to be attacked by President Obama … The truth of my life disproves the lies of the radical left." pic.twitter.com/o5b9mN7yxI
— The Recount (@therecount) June 18, 2023
Scott argued that the “truth” of his life “disproves the lies of the radical Left.”
He set his focus on the fight against poverty, referring to his work on “Opportunity Zones,” an effort to bring investments to low-income areas across the country. Scott said this endeavor had brought more than $50 billion to “go into the poorest, hardest hit communities in this country. The majority of them are minority.”
Scott also talked about funding Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), quipping that Obama “totally missed it” during his administration. Scott boasted of boosting funding for HBCUs and making it “permanent” with a bill signed by former President Donald Trump in 2019.
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Another point centered on school choice: “The radical Left and the teachers unions refuse to allow quality education in big blue cities. I support school choice because I support common sense,” Scott said.
“The radical Left and President Obama: They have failed, they have failed, and they have failed,” Scott said.
Looking ahead, Scott said that if elected president, his administration “will make sure that kids have quality education in every single zip code. We’ll work on ‘Opportunity Zones 2.0’ to make sure that we bring more resources, more opportunities, and more jobs to the hardest hit areas, whether that’s rural Iowa or inner-city Chicago.”
“There is a way for us to alleviate poverty, not by a race, but by the statistics themselves,” Scott added. “That’s what America stands for. If anyone should be standing and shouting at the mountaintops that America is not a racist country, it should be the man that Americans supported twice for the nomination and becoming president.”
He concluded: “The evolution of America is palpable. Progress in this nation, undeniable.”