Tim Scott fires back at Obama over race remarks

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) took a jab at former President Obama this week after the Democrat criticized the declared 2024 GOP presidential contender over his remarks about race and racial progress in the country.

“Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power. The Left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth,” Scott said in a statement Thursday.

“The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical Left. We live in a country where little Black and Brown boys and girls can be President of the United States. The truth is – we’ve had one and the good news is – we will have another,” he added.

The South Carolina Republican’s remarks are in response to comments Obama made during a podcast interview with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod published Thursday. The former president, who was asked about Scott’s messaging on race, suggested Scott was not offering solutions for how to tackle systematic racism within the country or acknowledging the difficulties Black Americans face.

“And so if a Republican, who may even be sincere in saying, ‘I want us all to live together,’ doesn’t have a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that. If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from … getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates,” Obama said.

“If somebody’s not proposing, both acknowledging and proposing, elements that say, ‘No, we can’t just ignore all that and pretend as if everything’s equal and fair. We actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.’ If they’re not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical,” he added.

Scott has argued that Black Americans are making rapid progress within the U.S., suggesting Democrats are underestimating how far Black Americans have come. But Scott has previously received pushback over his comments, including on “The View,” when co-host Joy Behar argued that the senator “doesn’t get it” on systemic racism.