Sen. Tim Scott repeated on Sunday his view that President Trump’s ability to lead has been “compromised” following a string of controversial comments about the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and urged the president to get “better educated” on civil rights by sitting down with someone like civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.
“It’s going to be very difficult for this president to lead if, in fact, his moral authority remains compromised,” the South Carolina Republican said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Following a violent weekend in Charlottesville in which white supremacists groups clashed with counterprotestors — leaving three dead — Trump blamed “both sides.”
Since those remarks, the president has faced backlash from both sides of the political aisle for not holding strong to condemning the hate groups involved in the Charlottesville protests, such as the Ku Klux Klan. White supremacist leaders have also praised Trump’s hesistancy to do so.
However, Scott, who is the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate, said there is room for Trump to redeem himself.
“What the president should do before he says something, is to sit down, and become better acquainted, have a personal connection to the painful history of racism and bigotry of this country,” Scott explained. “It would be fantastic if he sat down with a group of folks who endured the pain of the ’60s, the humiliation of the ’50s and the ’60s.”
“This would be an opportunity for him to become better educated and acquainted with the looping history of so many folks from John Lewis [a Democrat from Georgia] to my mother and so many others, who have gone through the painful part of history of this country,” Scott added.
Earlier in the week, Scott warned Trump that his comments were compromising his moral authority.
“What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority. And that moral authority is compromised when Tuesday happened. There’s no question about that,” Scott said in an interview with Vice News.
