America's Talking - Republican Senator Exploring Run for President

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., announced Wednesday that he is launching an exploratory committee in a potential run for president in 2024. “I will never back down in defense of the conservative values that make America exceptional,” Scott said in his announcement on Twitter. “That's why I'm announcing my exploratory committee for President of the United States. This fight is personal. I want every American to have the same opportunities I had.” Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to America and Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today, as he does every week, is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. We are still a year and a half away from the 2024 presidential election, but it looks like we might have another Republican jumping into the race. Tell us what you reported this week. Yeah, the presidential primary, it seems kind of impossible. that we're already here, Dan, but we are. And it is definitely heating up. Senator Tim Scott, the Republican from South Carolina announced this week that he is launching an exploratory committee. So this is a soft launch. I mean, this is all but announcing you're running for president. He released a video on Twitter that sure looked like a presidential announcement video to me.

I mean, it was very well done. His speech, his content, his script was really well done. I think a strong candidate, if he can somehow push past, you know, the Trump steam. Roller. Trump has kind of become a steamroller in Republican politics, destroying anyone he gets in his way. But, you know, we've had several people announced at this point. I'll just read a quote from his announcement, and I'll toss it back to you, Dan, see what you think about this. But this is from the video, says, Joe Biden and the radical left have chosen a culture of grievance and Victorhood, Scott said in a video, they are promoting victimhood instead of personal responsibility, and they are indoctrined in our children to believe that we are living in an evil

country. And all too often, when they get called out for their failures, they weaponize race to divide us to hold on to power. So really hitting on some of these more incendiary topics in politics today, like race, like victimhood, like cancel culture. What's your initial response to this, Dan? Does he have the name recognition and the financial backing to make a big enough push that he can challenge former president Donald Trump? Is he enough of a threat to warrant personal attacks from the former president who likes to attack any and all of his challengers, whether they're of the same party or not. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, you're right to say there's kind of two sides of this, which is there's the Trump and then there's the anti-Trump. So Ron DeSantis,

the Florida governor, who has not yet announced his candidacy, is expected to, but you know, we don't really know. I mean, this field gets crowded and DeSantis's poll numbers continue to go down, which they have recently, and Trumps continue to go up, which they have recently. DeSantis may, he may sit this one out, but there's really, I think, there's room for two major candidates in this primary. There's Trump, of course. And then there is all the people who want something different than Trump need to rally behind one person to challenge him. Because if they split the vote seven ways like they did in 2015, then Trump will win. And so they're going to have to pretty quickly rally around one candidate, but I don't know if they're going to be able to do that. So there's really there's

kind of these two factions from the Republican Party. I think Ron DeSantis is seen as the natural opponent to Trump, someone who could actually really challenge him and win a general election. But so far he hasn't announced. And I think, you know, if people did get behind Tim Scott that he could pose that challenge, he, you know, I'm not sure about his fundraising. I mean, I think a lot of the anti-Trump money right now would still go to DeSantis. So DeSantis's decision could really make a big difference. Trump certainly considers DeSantis enough of a threat that he's already started months ago. He started the personal attacks, even though DeSantis has not officially announced. That's right. And, you know, we've seen a lot of senators run for president and not do really well.

recent elections. I mean, since Obama, of course, but even then, Obama was, you know, he was a brand new senator and he was something kind of more than that. When he ran, he kind of became an icon pretty quickly. You know, Biden, even though he was a senator, he had to be vice president before he ran. Of course, Trump was an outsider businessman. And so I think that going from Congress to the White House is a little bit, it can be difficult because it's hard to make the argument that you're not some regular politician. But, you know, I think, I think Tim Scott has done a good job. He has a decent record. He has good reputation among conservatives.

And so, you know, he's a lot better option than, I think, in the Republicans' mind than some of the other guys. But it's going to depend on does DeSantis actually run? And if not, can he collect all the fragmented pieces of the Republican Party to oppose Trump? And South Carolina certainly represents in the GOP campaign with the former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley also announcing. Who else is in the race so far that we know? I mean, we have, there's actually, you know, there's always a lot of people,

Vivek Ramoswamy is another big name, not as big as some of these others, but he is a entrepreneur, businessman who's really become really honed in his message. I mean, anti-woke, he's really well-spoken, but he doesn't have that same level of name recognition that like a Nikki Haley or Trump or Tim Scott would. So I think we'll have more people announcing. They like to space these out so that their announcement doesn't get swallowed by another candidate. So I wouldn't be surprised if we have some more announcements in the coming months. And of course, we will be followed.

following everything for presidential election-wise at thecenter square.com or Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAulb. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.