Global Courant
Former President Barack Obama and presidential hopeful Sen. Tim Scott, RS.C., this week criticized each other’s handling of races, with Obama claiming that Republican talks about American unity are going nowhere.
Democratic strategist David Axelrod interviewed Obama for CNN Thursday and asked the former president what he thought of Scott’s discussions about race. Scott, meanwhile, argued that Obama missed an opportunity to bring the country together after his 2008 and 2012 elections.
“I think there’s a long history of African-American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything is great, and we can make it.’ I think Nikki Haley has a similar approach,” Obama told Axelrod when asked about Scott. “I’m not cynical about Tim Scott individually, but I might be suggesting the rhetoric of ‘Don’t we all get along’… That needs to be backed up with an honest account of our past and present.”
Obama further argued that candidates must address racial disparities in the legal system and elsewhere if they want to be taken seriously when they talk about American unity.
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Former President Barack Obama suggested that Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., only tell Republicans what they want to hear on racial issues. (Screenshot/YouTube)
Meanwhile, Scott pushed Obama back in a Thursday interview with Mark Levin, telling the radio host that Obama had failed to bring the country together.
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“When it comes to race, don’t you think Barack Obama missed a great opportunity to bring the country together? To make people accept each other as they are instead of building into this groupism?” Levin asked.
Scott says Obama dropped the ball on racial unity during his presidency. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“Mark, he missed a softball moving slowly with a big bat,” Scott replied. “You can’t miss this opportunity. America was hungry for bringing our country together, this coalition building where you can see black kids and white kids and red and brown, as MLK (Martin Luther King, Jr.) talked about, join hands and sing with a new meaning, ‘My country is yours.'”
“President Biden ran as the great unifier, and he has been the great divider. I’ve heard more negative things about people under his leadership than I’ve heard in a long time. I’ll tell you, the one thing that the far left doesn’t want a black person to be in this country is a conservative,” he continued. “It’s possible for Americans to come together not because of our skin color, but because of the consistency of our value system.”
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Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, announced his 2024 presidential campaign in late May, joining a crowded and still-growing field.
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter at Fox News Digital covering national politics and major news events. Send tips to Anders.Hagstrom@Fox.com, or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
