‘The Truth of My Life Disproves Their Lies’: GOP Sen. Tim Scott Launches Presidential Campaign in North Charleston

“My momma said we could be victims or victors — and she chose victorious,” Scott said. “But under President Biden, our nation is retreating away from work and dignity. Millions and millions of people have dropped out of the workforce entirely. And the share of working-age men choosing to work is the lowest it has ever been.”

President Joe Biden speaks during the annual House Democrats Issues Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel March 1, 2023 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Scott’s story has long inspired the American right, as despite his upbringing and his background—he is also the descendant of slaves—he is a conservative who does not believe the nation is a racist country and has spoken out against the radical left’s racial politics narratives.

Scott said here he is “the candidate the far left fears the most.”

“When I cut your taxes, they called me a prop,” Scott said. “When I re-funded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the N-word. I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disproves their lies. I will proclaim these truths from the highest mountaintop and I will do so from the deepest valley. I will take our message to the boardroom and I will take it to the classroom. I will take it to a gymnasium filled with friends and the inner-city church surrounded by skeptics. I have lived the American dream. I have held the truth, the inalienable truth, that all men and women are created equal. And endowed by our Creator with the right to be free. Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing. Victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness? I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.”

That’s a theme Scott has talked about publicly for years. Scott, when he gave his widely-acclaimed GOP response to Democrat President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress in 2021, hammered the left for racial hypocrisy.

“I have experienced the pain of discrimination,” Scott said in that 2021 address. “I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping.”

“I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would have the newspaper in his hands,” he continued. “Later, I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example. I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called ‘Uncle Tom’ and the N-word — by ‘progressives’! By liberals! Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege… because a relative owned land generations before my time.”

Scott, in that 2021 address in response to Biden, added: “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.”

In his speech launching his 2024 White House bid, Scott referenced that 2021 speech again, making clear that the United States is not a racist country.

“I will be the President who destroys the liberal lie that our country is evil,” Scott said. “Two years ago I spoke to the nation and said America is not a racist country. We need to stop canceling our Founding Fathers and start celebrating them. Finally — my grandfather’s stubborn faith was not just faith in the goodness of our nation. It was faith in the goodness of our God Himself. I will be the President who stops the far left’s assault on our religious liberty. I will preserve one nation, Under God, indivisible — where we honor our Creator and respect every innocent life.”

Scott also zoned in on several major policy planks of his 2024 campaign, from securing the border and controlling immigration to strengthening the military to rebuilding the economy to confronting China and more.

Texas National Guardsmen reinforce a stretch of razor wire as migrants try to cross into the U.S., on the banks of the Rio Grande, as seen from Matamoros, Mexico, Thursday, May 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

“On my first day as Commander-in-Chief, the strongest nation on Earth will stop retreating from our own southern border,” Scott said. “If you don’t control your back door, it’s not your house. And if our southern border is unsafe and insecure, it’s not our country. Hundreds of people on the terrorist watch list are crossing our borders. Chinese nationals are flooding into Mexico to break in. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing nothing while 70,000-plus Americans lose their lives to fentanyl. Every county in this nation is a border county. The Left shut down your schools and churches in the name of slowing down a virus. But they won’t secure the border to protect your family from fentanyl. When I am President, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist. I will freeze their assets. I’ll build the wall. And I will let the world’s greatest military fight these terrorists — because that’s exactly what they are.”

Regarding China, Scott called the ongoing competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party a new Cold War—one he said he would win for the U.S. if elected president.

“It’s about our supply chains. It’s about medicines, microchips, and critical minerals,” Scott said. “It’s about China buying American farmland, infiltrating our airspace, and tracking our kids. It’s about President Xi siding with Putin and Iran. America can win this competition. But Joe Biden can’t. As President, I will rebuild a military so lethal and powerful that our adversaries will fear us and our allies will respect us. My father — who is here with us today — and my brothers have 85 years of combined military service between them. When I am President, our servicemembers will have every tool they need, and our veterans will have every resource they deserve. We will not try to be the world’s police force. But we will always defend our vital national interests and our people. And we will win the next century by the strength of our economy. China started this new economic Cold War, but America will finish it.”