The mad scramble to become Donald Trump’s vice president/personal bathtub attendant is proceeding apace, and one of the top contenders is Sen. Tim Scott, the junior suck-up from South Carolina.
In his nationwide search to find a running mate who’s somehow more obsequious than Mike Pence, Trump has identified several promising candidates, and Scott has gradually worked his way to the top of his jackboots. And hey, why not? South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem might as well have shot herself when she wrote about murdering her dog, and if Trump can’t pick a woman VP, he may decide to balance the ticket by selecting a Black man.
The key is to find one who’s not a felon, hasn’t stored top secret government documents in a heavily trafficked club ballroom, doesn’t run fraudulent businesses, isn’t on the hook for $83 million for defaming his sexual abuse victim, and doesn’t make gross, highly inappropriate comments about Ivanka Trump.
Scott fills that bill (as do lots of people, frankly), and he’s eager to roll up his sleeves to improve the lives of the four Black people in the country who’ve managed to maintain cordial relationships with Trump.
But while Scott may be perfect for Trump, he’d be a disaster for this country—for several reasons. First among these is his extreme deference to a guy who, in the past, wanted to nuke hurricanes, attack Mexico and North Korea while blaming other countries, shoot migrants in the legs, as well as shooting domestic protesters—and who currently wants to eliminate the income tax in favor of an extremely regressive estimated 120% tariff (i.e., sales tax) on all imported goods.
In other words, Trump needs a voice of reason, not two South Carolina devil senators on either shoulder telling him it’s perfectly constitutional to rendition Jimmy Kimmel to Gitmo. And as Scott made clear ages ago, he is not that voice of reason.
You need look no further than Scott’s ipecac-like display of obeisance at a time when Nikki Haley, the woman who made Scott a senator, was still in the Republican primary race.
Shortly after Scott endorsed him, Trump asked the senator, “Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim? And, think of it, appointed and you’re the senator of her state. And [you] endorsed me. You must really hate her.”
Here’s how Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner summarized Scott’s response:
After Trump surmised that Scott seemingly hated Haley, Scott walked around and surprised Trump by actually talking. “I just love you!” Scott declared. Big smile. Big smile.
It leaves the impression that if Trump demanded self-immolation from his followers, Tim Scott wouldn’t hesitate to pull out a lighter. His efforts to be Trump’s pick for vice president would not be more obvious if he went around wearing a “Pick Me!” sandwich board. It’s genuinely icky.
If, for some reason, you’d like to transform those subtle notes of vomit in the back of your mouth into a full 21-barf salute, you’ll want to watch the video:
Tim Scott genuflects to an N-word-uttering racist and may end up first in line to the presidency. Which just goes to show that America is still a land of opportunity if you’re willing to suck up to billionaires.
And guess what—Sen. Scott totally is!
In fact, he’s such a skilled billionaire whisperer, he’s eager to herd some of these democracy-squishy plutocrats onto the Trump train—which will definitely run on time under fascism and will never spill thousands of gallons of toxic spray-tan fluid in a small Ohio town just because a newly emboldened Republican Party completely eliminated rail safety regulations.
Bloomberg:
[Sen. Scott’s] policy summit-cum-fundraiser on the Juneteenth holiday will include some of the world’s wealthiest people: Citadel’s Ken Griffin, Apollo’s Marc Rowan, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are all featured speakers on topics ranging from tax policy to crypto.
Sponsored by Scott’s political advocacy group, Great Opportunity Policy Inc., and seeking donations of up to $250,000, the gathering shows the powerful network the former presidential candidate has built — and the money he can potentially attract. Since joining the Senate a decade ago, Scott, 58, and his allied organizations have collected more than $134 million from donors, including at least a dozen billionaires whose combined net worth exceeds $325 billion.
It also comes at a pivotal time for the South Carolina senator, who is the closest he’s ever been to realizing a dream 30 years in the making: becoming vice president. As the veepstakes heats up, his best shot at winning Trump’s approval may come from his ability to charm billionaires who’ve been hesitant to endorse the controversial former president.
Oh, yay! Thanks for making the insurrectionist, convicted felon, and serial business failure more palatable to obscenely wealthy donors, Tim! America’s coming generations of immortal, cryogenically frozen billionaire heads will thank you. For the tax cuts, if nothing else.
Of course, even if the Thousand-Year Trumpian Reich never actually comes to fruition, it certainly won’t be because of Sen. Scott’s resolute dedication to democracy.
Because Trump is convinced that the only legitimate result of the 2024 election is either a landslide Trump victory or a landslide Trump victory the likes of which no one has ever seen before, Scott’s been only too willing to preview that predetermined conclusion.
Asked during a recent appearance on “Meet the Press” whether he’d accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of the outcome, Scott would only say, “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump.”
So that’s a no then.
Meanwhile, Scott has already fulfilled a key prerequisite for serving as Trump’s sidekick: a willingness to lie—brazenly, if necessary—to prop up the Yellin’ Felon.
He did exactly that this past weekend when he tried to claim the country was being ravaged by crime, even though violent crime rates—which spiked under Trump—are currently near a 50-year low under Biden, and falling fast.
So violent crime rates are actually near a 50-year low but Scott claims violent crime is the worst it’s been in five decades. Either career FBI statisticians anonymously collecting paychecks are lying or this Trump-affiliated politician is. Whom to believe? It’s quite a puzzler.
Then again, Scott does tend to see the world through orange-colored glasses. You probably remember Trump’s appearance at the recent Libertarian Party convention as a giant disaster for him, during which he was lustily booed by a group of men who typically reserve their lust for their Ayn Rand dolls.
Well, Scott didn’t see it that way. In his telling, the appearance was a bona fide Trumpian triumph.
Rolling Stone:
NEVER MIND THE heckles and boos, Sen. Tim Scott insists Donald Trump is gaining popularity! Trump’s critical reception at the Libertarian Convention this weekend isn’t deterring the senator from rosily insisting that while you may have heard jeers, there was a “wave of red hats” in the crowd.
“I saw a wave of red hats at the Libertarian convention,” Scott told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union Sunday. “Donald Trump’s popularity continues to increase.”
But as Semafor’s Dave Weigel pointed out, the red hats on the convention floor were in support of Javier Milei, Argentina’s new president. The hats were not MAGA hats; they read, “Make Argentina Great Again.”
To be fair, Trump does have a much better shot at making Argentina great again than he does at improving America. But that’s just because Trump likely doesn’t know where—or why—Argentina is.
Finally, as if it weren’t already obvious, Scott clearly doesn’t hew to any core principles of his own—unless hoping to be the Black sidekick to the most racist presidential candidate in modern American history somehow counts as a principle.
Take his views on abortion. Like many of the cowards in his party, Scott has backed off a previous hardline position on abortion in favor of Trump’s mealy “states’ rights” dodge. But while running for president in April 2023, he claimed he “would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”
So now, in order to remain a viable VP choice, Scott has radically changed his tune on what conservatives have traditionally viewed as the most pressing moral challenge of our time. He recently dodged questions on whether he’d nudge Trump in a more pro-forced birth direction, opting instead to regurgitate the predigested pabulum about states’ rights: “President Trump and Speaker Johnson have both said that this will remain a states’ issue,” he mewled.
In other words, in the fever swamps of MAGA World, Cheesus trumps Jesus every day, and thrice on Sundays.
Of course, to be a Trump VP contender you have to be an awful person, and Sen. Scott is doing his best to prove his mettle—mostly by gaslighting voters on behalf of Dear Leader and taking ass-kissing lessons from fellow South Carolinian Sen. Lindsey Graham. Indeed, in this race to the bottom, Scott has long since strapped on his concrete boots.
RELATED STORY: Kristi Noem is out. Doug Burgum is up. Trump’s VP shortlist gets shorter
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