Tim Scott: 'Joy Reid is saying a Black man cannot think for himself'
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., torches Joy Reid, and the liberal elite for not accepting that Black Americans can think for themselves.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is the U.S. Senate's lone Black Republican, and with that designation has come extra media attention and invective.
Scott found himself in the media's crosshairs after he gave the response to President Biden's first speech to a joint session of Congress in 2021, particularly when he said the U.S. was not a racist country. Branded "Uncle Tim" by some progressives on Twitter, a reference to the "Uncle Tom" slur for Blacks viewed as too deferential to Whites, Scott was also savaged on "The View" as being unable to understand the concept of systemic racism.
He also raised media hackles when he said "woke supremacy" was as bad in his mind as White supremacy, and he's always been viewed warily for his support of Donald Trump, given Trump's past racially charged remarks and the strong majority of Black voters who opposed him in 2016 and 2020.
So when Scott joined most of his Republican colleagues in voting against Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation, there was unsurprising media backlash directed at him for not supporting the first Black woman to be nominated to the high court.
Far-left MSNBC host Joy Reid likened Scott to a domesticated dog in a tweet last week savaging him for not voting to advance Jackson's confirmation to the floor.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) talks with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in the Senate subway at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., December 15, 2021.
"Not surprised by anything @SenatorTimScott does. He let @LindseyGrahamSC & the sheriffs dog-walk him and destroy police reform after pretending to work on it and now he'll go along with Lindsey's barking-dog racism against Judge Jackson because: he's Tim Scott," she wrote.
Scott fired back in an interview last week on "Fox & Friends First," calling her remarks "vile."
"What is so offensive about what Joy is saying is that a Black man cannot think for himself, I have to follow somebody else. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but it reinforces the liberal elites' approach to minorities who will not fall in line and do what they tell us to do," he said.
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It wasn't the first time Reid has attacked Scott personally. She also took heat last year for saying his presence at a Senate GOP press conference was to give it the "patina of diversity," even though it concerned the minimum wage, an issue Scott has worked on extensively.
"The fact that you can be Black and conservative and help the Black community is a direct threat to the left's power structure, and that's the whole reason why he is having all these arrows fired at him," a source close to Scott told Fox News Digital.
As hosts on "The View" scolded Senate Republicans on Monday who didn't stay on the floor to cheer the confirmation of Jackson last week, Sunny Hostin singled Scott out, disapprovingly saying, "I was surprised at Tim Scott as well."
In the Washington Post, opinion writer Colbert I. King fumed Jackson was "disowned by someone who looks like her and who now claims victimhood for himself."
U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 14, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool)
As the "sole Black member in the Senate caucus," Scott would be remembered for "standing by" while Judge Jackson was "bullied" by his GOP peers, King wrote.
"Scott stood by as his GOP colleagues harangued, besmirched and badgered a well-qualified, widely respected Black woman with untruthful smears and bad faith attacks," King wrote. "But when the bullying got started, Scott went missing."
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Scott angered some Black progressives with his opposition to Hostin, but he's also sought to pass police reform, shepherded the permanent funding of historically Black colleges and universities that was signed by Trump in 2019, won funding of opportunity zones to benefit low-income areas, and for years pushed for federal anti-lynching legislation before it finally passed and was signed into law by President Biden earlier this month.
"Any criticisms from the left about his commitment to the Black community are unfounded and part of a greater effort by the progressive left to alienate, discredit and besmirch Black conservatives," Republican National Committee spokesperson Paris Dennard told Fox News Digital, calling him a trailblazer on issues like school choice and opportunity zones.
While speaking with Fox News last week, Scott pointed to other Black Republicans like John James in Michigan who he said needed support, which the source close to Scott said was indicative of how media attacks on him are meant to be a warning to other minority conservatives.
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"The attacks on him, while about him, are more importantly an attempt at deterring other minority Republicans from seeking office and speaking out … It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're doing," they said. "It takes a lot of courage to absorb the body blows that he does."
Fox News' Kristine Parks contributed to this report.