During his response to President Joe Biden’s address to Congress, Sen. Tim Scott shot back at The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler for writing a hit piece against the black Republican over his family heritage.
“I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called Uncle Tom and the N-word by progressives, by liberals,” Scott said. “Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privileged because a relative owned land generations before my time.”
.@TimScottSC goes after @GlennKesslerWP for his “fact check” on his grandfather’s history picking cotton. "Last week a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege" pic.twitter.com/reJZl85HkK
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 29, 2021
In the so-called “fact-check“, Kessler spent nearly 30 paragraphs analyzing census documents and other records to try to counteract Scott’s claims that his grandfather left elementary school to pick cotton and “never learned to read or write.” The writer not only framed the article to suggest Scott inherited a privileged heritage because his impoverished family bought land instead of participating in sharecropping, but he concluded by admitting that the corporate outlet chose not give the Republican’s statements their usual Pinnochio rating.
Scott concluded part of his speech by detailing his legislative efforts to contribute to the nation’s racial “healing” that the left often claims to pursue while working to damage it.
“Believe me, I know firsthand, our healing is not finished. In 2015, after the shooting of Walter Scott, I wrote a bill to fund body cameras. Last year, after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, I built an even bigger police reform proposal, but my Democratic colleagues blocked it. I extended an olive branch. I offered amendments, but Democrats used the filibuster to block the debate from even happening.”
He also pushed back on claims that Biden’s administration brings unity to a divided nation.
“This should be a joyful springtime for our nation. This administration inherited a tide that had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run!” the senator said in his prepared remarks. “Thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines. Thanks to our bipartisan work last year, job openings are rebounding. … A nation with so much cause for hope should not feel so heavy-laden.”
