Presidential candidate and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott shocked the nation and votes when he abruptly announced on Thursday that he was suspending his pursuit of the White and dropping out of the race for U.S. president.
Scott, a Republican, announced his decision to leave the race, much to the surprise of the interviewer and the viewing public, that “When I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate. I am suspending my campaign,” Scott said in an appearance on former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Fox News program.
“I think the voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear that they’re telling me: not now,” Scott continued.
The only Black candidate in the race for the White House in 2024 has been criticized in the past for his conservative views and his perceived lack of understanding on racial issues effecting Black Americans.
Former President Barack Obama had harsh words for Scott in a recent interview with former White House senior advisor David Axelrod. The popular previous occupant of the White House suggested that Scott’s hopeful message on race is lacking “an honest accounting of our past and our present,” per The Hill.
“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,” Obama said. “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.”
“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,” he continued. “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.”