Senator Tim Scott joined me this morning:

Audio:

10-30hhs-scott

Transcript:

HH: Joined by United States Senator Tim Scott, who is running for president. Good morning, Senator. I look forward to seeing you next week in Miami.

TS: Well, thank you for being there, number one. It’s good to have a conservative at the podium helping us navigate the questions and have a serious conversation about why the conservative platform is the path to a stronger, healthier, more vibrant America.

HH: Well, thank you. I look forward to it, Senator. I want to begin with the breaking news. The NBC/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll published an hour ago. Former President Trump in Iowa has 43%. Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Haley have 16%. You are in fourth place with 7%. Governor Christie at 4%, and Vivek Ramaswamy at 4%. That’s down for you. How do you react to those numbers, Senator?

TS: Well, it’s one of the reasons why we’re heading to Iowa and staying there consistently, because we realize that historically speaking, Iowa voters, they break late in the cycle, and that’s great news, having an opportunity for us to continue to share our message. And to do it full-time in Iowa will be very helpful. And also, we have to remember historically, 2011, 2015, it was Herman Cain and Ben Carson were leading in the Des Moines Register polls. So we are excited about where we are. We have made the decision that it’s Iowa or bust for us, and I’m looking forward to being there.

HH: Senator, I’m asking all the candidates this when they come on my radio show. If you don’t finish first or second in either Iowa or New Hampshire, will you exit the race?

TS: You know, Hugh, I’m not going to make any predictions other than that we will be in the top two in Iowa without any question.

HH: All right, so let me move now to the issue of Israel and Gaza. Do you have any timetable for Israel? Do you think there ought to be any timetable for Israel to finish its operation to eliminate Hamas?

TS: I don’t think there should be a timetable, number one. Number two, we should give the support, the resources, and the backfill necessary for Israel to be able to be effective, to have an overwhelming dominance, and to finish the conflict as soon as they possibly can. That requires the United States of America to stand shoulder to shoulder with no daylight with Israel, as opposed to having a president who speaks with a forked-tongue, supporting Israel during the middle of the day, but then delaying Israel’s progress at night. That is a terrible strategy. We should be full-throated in our support of Israel.

HH: Now Senator Scott, you know that the Department of Justice has a division of Civil Rights, and the Department of Education has an office of Civil Rights. Either or both of those could be investigating Cornell, Columbia, anywhere where anti-Semitic actions have taken place. Do you intend to ask officials from those departments when they come before your committee, if they ever come before your committees, if they have investigations opened up? For example, Cornell, which has had to close the kosher dining hall because of threats against it.

TS: Well, one of the things I’ve said very clearly is I am not leading on legislation new laws that will pull federal funding from schools that refuse to hold their students accountable for the advocating of mass murder, for supporting genocide, and for supporting terrorism. I believe that our college campuses have become hotbeds of indoctrination, not education. And you can see that glaringly obvious as you think about those Jewish students on college campuses who are told to go run and hide in attics, who feel threatened on the campus. And the administration on the college campuses refuse to do anything about that. They do not deserve the federal funds.

HH: Now this office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education has been very activist and very left-leaning over the past 20 years.

TS: Yes.

HH: Have you seen anything from them initiating even one investigation of one campus?

TS: Zero. Hugh, not a single thing. It’s one of the reasons why you have to fire Joe Biden, fire the entire political appointees in the Department of Justice and the Department of Education, and refocus on having Lady Justice wear a blindfold. We cannot have our Jewish students, our Jewish-Americans afraid to walk on the streets of New York or afraid to go to class on a college campus. The way you reverse that is having America and our Department of Justice, Department of Education, and every good American standing in the gap for our Jewish citizens and students.

HH: Now Senator, I want to turn to the topic of mass shootings as happened in very close to where I lived during the summer in Maine. And the state is shook up. I know you’ve been active in legislation on police reform and on gun rights. Can you tell us what Tim Scott believes about background checks and about whether or not people like this killer ought to be able to have weapons, and when red flags are appropriate or not appropriate?

TS: Well, one of the things we’ve seen in Maine, and frankly, in most of the states where we’ve seen the mass shootings, that the background checks, had it been in place like they were supposed to be, many of the shooters would not have been eligible to have a gun. I think back to Charleston, South Carolina, my hometown, where the shooter, the racists who walked into a church and killed nine African-Americans simply because of the color of their skin during a Bible study, that person was ineligible for the weapon. Had we had the background system working, that is the goal. And it’s a challenge that we have, is to make sure that all the information that should be in there is in the system, and second, to make sure that the proper authority responds within that three-day window. The next thing I’d say is that most of the states already have red flag laws. What we’re learning is having the kind of access to the information is important. The Maine killer had literally sent a number of signals for weeks, and frankly, even a year earlier, and those were ignored.

HH: Senator, the one thing I want to follow up on, the New York Times reporting this morning that the killer in Maine had mental health issues. A gun shop owner was approached by him to purchase a silencer, and the gun shop owner turned him down because of the NICS check. Should gun shop owners who get a red no, who are denying someone, ought they be obliged to contact police in the hometown of the person who had provided their appropriate form and who got dinged by the NICS check?

TS: You know, Hugh, one of the things that we should have is the interconnectivity necessary through the different layers of local, state and federal government where you have the access to the information sent to the local police office as well as the state police office. If that were to happen, we would have the kind of blanket so that when there is a red flag within the system, all levels of government can see the same information real time. That is something that should be easy to actually achieve.

HH: Last question, Senator Scott, goes to the economy. And the economy has gotten buried by the massacre in Israel on 10/7, and by the shooter in Maine. In the Wall Street Journal this morning, it says does strong growth fuel inflation? Fed debates whether old model still applies. It does. So my question to you, if you were in the position of President Biden, would you be jawboning Jerome Powell to keep rates going up, because it just seems to me with 5% or nearly 5% growth in Q3, inflationary pressures are going to continue.

TS: Well, listen, one of the things I’ve suggested is that the separation between the Federal Reserve and the administration should remain. There should be a firewall between the two. But what we’ve noticed over the last two years is as inflation has gone up, there’s no question rates have followed, the 11 consecutive rate increases were caused by the 16% inflation in our economy, which was driven by the actual spending in Washington, and not the production in the private sector. One of the ways that we reduce inflation and slow down the rate increases is for us to stop spending money in Washington so as to allow the private sector to be the engine of our future, and not Joe Biden and the public sector. As it relates to the ability to bring rates down, as inflation continue to come down, I believe that will bring our rates down. The 4.9% that we saw this last quarter in economic activity, I think actually foreshadows a very difficult second half of 2024.

HH: Very last question, Senator Scott. Your friend, Jim Lankford, is co-sponsoring with Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which would basically keep the government funding by cutting existing appropriations. Do you support that act? Or is that sequestration under a better name?

TS: Well, no, there’s no doubt that having the responsibility to get your job done is a good thing. James Lankford’s approach to it is a solid one. Looking at all the details, I don’t know all the details, but freezing spending and/or having a small decrease is actually a good thing. So I would encourage and support the concept of the legislation. Of course, I would want to read it first, but yes. Freezing and then reducing spending is always in the right direction, especially when you’re dealing with a shutdown.

HH: Would you exempt Defense Department spending from that, Senator?

TS: I think what you would have to do it take a look at the overall spending, the $4.8 trillion dollars of revenue coming in, $7 trillion going out. So the question is where are the essentials? And so every office, whether it’s making sure that Social Security continues to function, Medicare continues to function, our military continues to be paid, frankly, our Border Patrol agents and our law enforcement apparatus, so there is always, that’s one of the reasons why the devil is in the details, making sure that the umbrella of our law enforcement, emergency responders that are embedded in the federal government, are exempt from that, would be necessary. But seeing the construct of the legislation that provides a glidepath of reducing spending, that is a good thing. Making sure that it’s not across the board where it hurts our law enforcement officers and the federal agencies that provide first response, that would be a bad thing.

HH: Senator Scott, always a pleasure. I will see you a week from Wednesday in Miami. Thank you for joining me today, and keep coming back. I appreciate it very much.

TS: God bless.

End of interview.