NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Ali Vitali spent several minutes telling the Republican senator from South Carolina Tim Scott with questions about the former president Donald Trumpand Scott spent those minutes changing the subject.
This week, Scott gently launched a 2024 presidential campaign, and among the interviews he did was an extensive meeting with Vitali.
But after 98 seconds the subject of Trump came up and Scott spent several minutes after that refusing several servings of bait until he told Vitaly “we’re talking about what I want to do and you’re talking about what other people want to do” , and she continued:
ALI VITALI: Have you spoken to former President Trump about this at all? TIM SCOTT: I haven’t talked to any candidate about what I should do with my life and for the American people. ALI VITALI: Including your fellow South Carolina native Nikki Haley? TIM SCOTT: The way I look at it is there are 330 million Americans, about 150 million Americans have a chance to vote. These are the people who need to talk to you about their priorities. ALI VITALI: I think one of the open questions here is that you look at the polls, you look at the fact that in this Republican district, President Trump is kind of the guy to beat. Why wouldn’t he want to be nominated by the party again? TIM SCOTT: One of the things I hear a lot on the Faith in America Tour is that they’re concerned about the most important issues in their lives is what drives their decisions. And one of the most important issues in their lives is the economic reality that President Biden seems to have come up with a plan on how to ruin America. And that plan talks about how we see ourselves at 13 and a half percent inflation. Who is fighting this, after I had the chance to actually write the tax bill that we passed in 2017, I wrote the personal side of that tax bill, cutting taxes by 70 percent for single mothers and 60 percent for dual-income households. Seeing that happen is one of the things that resonates is that I have actual decisions and I’m leading the way, so I’m looking forward to the opportunity to contrast where I am and what I believe with the members in the race. ALI VITALI : But it was a Trump bill. I mean, where are you different than him, because innately, when you run for office, you say, “I think I can be a better president than he is.” TIM SCOTT: I think it’s very simple, actually. The American people are looking for leadership that is positive, optimistic, and anchored in conservatism. The bill that I wrote, I am grateful that I wrote the bill. When we talked about the opportunity zones, it brought about $200 billion to the poorest communities. I wrote the bill. So there is a very important part of being an architect of legislation. And I’m grateful that the people we’re talking to across the country are really resonating. So while people want to have a conversation about other candidates. I’m going to have a conversation about what I can do to get us to the future I want the country to have. ALI VITALI: But I think inevitably, to get to a general election against Joe Biden, you have to go against the other Republicans who are in that field. It sounds like you’re happy to take credit for the parts of the Trump administration that you helped and did well, but is there anything you think should have been done differently? TIM SCOTT: I only take credit for what I did and what I wrote. I would simply say what I have already said, which is that the American people continue to have an opportunity to determine what their priorities are. My agenda has thus far met their priorities, and as long as it continues to do so, they will have choices to make. And when the time comes to make that choice, I believe they will choose me. ALI VITALI: I want to ask you, though, about something that the former president said specifically on Fox, he said that Putin is very smart, that Kim Jong Un is on top, and that Xi is brilliant. Is this the way a commander-in-chief should talk about our adversaries? TIM SCOTT: All we know is that you look at the new axis of evil that starts with China and President Xi includes President Putin, and you certainly see the role of Iran as well. So what we’re trying to do is talk about why China is such an existential threat to our country, and whether it’s President Biden’s failure in terms of balloons violating our sovereign borders, or whether it’s our failure to stop them from stealing our intellectual property or their ability to sink the nations of the world into debts they can never repay. Whether it’s the future of Made in China 2025 or the Wuhan lab, we have a real adversary threat on our doorstep. We need leadership that stands up to this. As long as we do that, we’ll have another American century. If we don’t do that, we won’t. ALI VITALI: But Trump doesn’t push that away. TIM SCOTT: Well, we talk about what I want to do, and you talk about what other people want to do do. So I want to keep talking about what I can control, not what others control.
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