On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that for their response to President Joe Biden’s speech, “Republicans picked their one black senator, Tim Scott, who gets a lot of work on TV” and agreed with author and historian Nancy MacLean that Scott should ask why Republicans keep “making me run point?”
Maher said, “Republicans picked their one black senator, Tim Scott, who gets a lot of work on TV. And he said, ‘America is not a racist country.’ And, within 24 hours, Biden agreed with that, Kamala Harris agreed with that. I think it’s a silly paradigm to put — to begin with. Because it’s not an either-or. … Tim Scott, by his own account, he said one time he was pulled over seven times in a year. He said he’s been followed shopping, he’s the one black Republican senator, okay, this is evidence of racism. So, plainly, we’re a recovering racist country or something. But yeah, I mean, both things are true.”
MacLean then said, “I felt sorry for the man. I mean, he comes from the party that put — worked with the tobacco industries to deny the harms of tobacco smoke, then is working with the — captured by the fossil fuel industry denying the climate. So, he’s just the logical next step. And they denied the insurrection. They denied that the election was won. But you’d think he’d kind of look around and say, how come they keep making me run point?”
Maher responded, “Right, I agree. But — And I think most — I mean, I don’t think Kamala and Biden are being disingenuous when they agree with that, we’re not a — because they’re thinking of the many millions and millions of people who are not, and they just don’t want to be told all the time, every day, come on, you think you’re not a racist? Dig a little deeper.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett