Sen. Tim Scott said President Trump had made historic progress for black Americans “to clean up Joe Biden’s mess,” calling on voters to examine the Democratic nominee’s decades in office in an election the South Carolinian said would be about “the promise of America.”
“This election is about your future, and it’s critical to paint a full picture of the records of Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Scott said, appearing as the final speaker on the first night of the Republican National Convention. “Joe Biden said if a black man didn’t vote for him, he wasn’t truly black. Joe Biden said black people are a monolithic community. It was Joe Biden who said poor kids can be just as smart as white kids.”
Scott closed out a night in which Republicans featured several minority speakers, including former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India, in a play to broaden their appeal beyond their base of white voters.
He began his remarks speaking about the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, which sparked protests across the country.
Scott pointed to former Vice President Biden’s efforts to pass the 1994 crime bill “that put millions of black Americans behind bars.”
He said that Trump’s criminal justice reform law, the bipartisan First Step Act, “fixed many of the disparities Biden created and made our system more fair and just for all Americans.”
“When it comes to what Joe Biden says he’ll do … look at his actions. Look at his policies. Look at what he already did and did not do while he’s been in Washington for 47 years.”
A Tea Party conservative from South Carolina, Scott has supported key Trump legislation, including the criminal justice reform act and “opportunity zones” to spur investment in low-income neighborhoods.
Scott assailed the Left’s campaign for a “cultural revolution” that he said would lead to a “fundamentally different America.” The night featured speakers from the country’s “silent majority,” people who have been aided by Trump’s policies, organizers of the convention said.
“It’s about how we respond when tackling critical issues like police reform,” Scott said. “When Democrats called our work a token effort and walked out of the room during negotiations because they wanted the issue more than they wanted a solution.” Democrats in June dismissed Scott’s plan for police reform, with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin calling it a “token, half-hearted approach.”
Of Durbin’s remark, Scott, the only black Republican senator, said at the time, “To call this a token process hurts my soul.”
“Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime,” Scott said Monday night. “Supporting the Republican ticket gives you the best chance of making that American Dream a reality.”
Scott was first appointed to the Senate by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2013 when former Sen. Jim DeMint left office to head the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.
“Best person in all of politics,” former Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, wrote of Scott on Twitter in April. “Incredible story of hope and perseverance. He’d make an amazing POTUS one day.”
