SC’s Scott touts opportunities for Black people under Trump presidency, rebukes Biden
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott headlined the first night of the Republican National Convention, saying the country will be a place of opportunity under a second term for President Donald Trump.
Scott, the U.S. Senate’s lone Black Republican, gave his prime-time address in a speech broadcast from the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.
The theme of the first night of the four-night virtual convention was the “Land of Promise.” Instead of speeches given from Charlotte as originally planned, prime-time addresses during this year’s convention were given remotely, as large crowds are discouraged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The convention ends on Thursday night with Trump accepting the GOP nomination for president.
Scott also spoke the same night as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Haley, an Indian American, was South Carolina’s first person of color to serve as governor and the first woman to hold the office.
Other people of color who spoke on Monday night included former NFL running back Herschel Walker, and congressional candidate Kim Klacik, a Black Republican who is running in a Baltimore-area district.
Scott’s speech referenced the ongoing pandemic, as well as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two Black people who were killed by police. Floyd and Taylor’s deaths have led to protests around the country calling for police reform.
Scott argued Republicans have tried to work toward solutions for police reform, but nothing has moved forward because of Democrats.
The election is “about how we respond when tackling critical issues like police reform, 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,” Scott said.
In his speech, Scott argued that Trump has benefited Black voters, a demographic that has been a loyal voting block for Democrats. He cited Trump signing a law that created a Scott-pushed initiative to create opportunity zones, which gives tax incentives for investments in economically distressed areas.
“President Trump built the most inclusive economy ever,” Scott said. “Seven million jobs created pre-COVID-19, two-thirds of which went to women, African-Americans and Hispanics.”
Scott also touted the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017 in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“We put hard-earned tax dollars back in people’s pockets by cutting their taxes, especially for single parent households like the one I grew up in — cutting single mother’s taxes 70% on average,” Scott said. “President Trump supported these tax cuts for those single moms, and other working families, and signed these policies into law...and our nation is better off for it.
“So, I’m going to ask you, the American people, not to look simply at what the candidates say, but to look back at what they’ve done.”
An attack on Biden
Scott pounced on verbal gaffes Democratic nominee Joe Biden has made during this election season. That included when the former vice president said Black people who couldn’t decide whether to support him weren’t truly Black, in a radio interview in May with Charlamagne Tha God.
Biden also said Black people don’t have diverse views like the Latino community, Scott recalled.
“Joe Biden said black people are a monolithic community,” Scott said.
Biden ending up apologizing for the comments he made in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God and in an interview with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists.
“In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith – not by identity, not on issues, not at all,” Biden said on Twitter to clarify his comments.
Scott argued Biden has been harmful to Black people in the country, including the push of the 1994 crime bill “that put millions of Black Americans behind bars.”
Trump signed legislation that would lead to higher funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Scott said.
“We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news — racially, economically and culturally-polarizing news,” Scott said. “The truth is, our nation’s arc always bends back towards fairness. We are not fully where we want to be, but thank God we are not where we used to be. We are always striving to be better. When we stumble, and we will, we pick ourselves back up and try again.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 10:58 PM.
