May 29, 2024
Tim Scott Repeatedly Misrepresents Truth In Most Recent CNN Appearance
Tim Scott had a very eventful, and troubling, chat with CNN's Dana Bash.
Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) continues to show that there is no limit to the depths he will go in order to be named Donald Trump’s vice president.
On May 26, Scott continued his months-long audition by condemning an advertisement released by the Biden campaign, calling it “insulting” on CNN’s State of the Union, before delivering this (at best) dubious claim.
“Well, here’s what I can tell you, is that under Donald Trump, we were better off.” Scott began. “There are two things that are driving Black votes back to Donald Trump: jobs and justice. No. 1, under Donald Trump, our wages were going up. Right now, fairness is going down.
Biden’s ad states that “Donald Trump disrespecting Black folk is nothing new. It’s why Trump stood with violent white supremacists, warned of a blood bath if he loses the next election, and, if he’s president again, vowed to be a dictator who wants revenge on his enemies.”
Scott also received criticism for suggesting that President Joe Biden was a supporter of school segregation, claiming that “the elimination of charter schools under Joe Biden re-segregates schools in America.” Scott added that the Department of Education under Biden “halted the growth of charter schools that provide greater diversity.”
Not only are schools already functionally segregated, but according to research from the UCLA Civil Rights Project, charter schools have more racial segregation than similarly situated magnet schools do.
The co-author of that report, Gary Orfield, said in a press release that the movement for school choice can replicate segregation unless schools actively work against it.
“Charter schools typically had no diversity goals or policies when established. The higher segregation in charter schools studied here, together with other research, including our studies of New York and Washington, D.C., shows that choice without integration strategies can intensify segregation and its well-documented harms.” Orfield said.
As the study explains, “In the school districts where both forms of choice were tried, magnets have done better than charters at modestly integrating students. An obvious explanation for this is that a basic mission of magnets, especially initially, was to address racial isolation. Policymakers interested in gaining the benefits of integration through choice might look closely at magnet schools.”
As Politico reported, Scott also did not disagree with Donald Trump’s version of events concerning the FBI raid at his Mar-A-Lago estate, during which the former president claimed FBI agents were “locked and loaded” when they arrived.
“I haven’t felt myself agreeing with Attorney General Garland on any issue,” Scott said on State of the Union. “I will say I saw the video of the SWAT team from the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago; I have not seen the same video of them raiding Joe Biden’s garage. So I’d love to have that comparison.”
Scott resorted to an age-old talking point when host Dana Bash pressed him on whether Trump’s rhetoric was dangerous. “Once again, we find ourselves reinforcing this two-tiered justice system— where we see a different standard for Republicans and specifically a different standard for Donald Trump,” Scott said, according to The New Republic.
Earlier in May, Scott courted criticism when he dodged a straightforward question about accepting the election results in 2024 if they were not in Trump and the Republican Party’s favor.
This time, criticism came from chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, Miles Taylor, who told The Hill, “Well, the hesitation, the faltering in his voice: It’s an audition. He’s auditioning, and he was thrown a question by the casting directors that he didn’t expect,” Taylor said. “And I think this is something that is sending a very chilling signal.”