Eyes on 2024: Scott downplays “racial divide” in Iowa

At an event in Iowa on Thursday, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., downplayed the notion that there’s a racial divide in this country, blaming “the left” for weaponizing the racial differences among Americans, per NBC News’ Nnamdi Egwuonwu.

“There is, however, an insidious force that benefits by weaponizing race and class against the American people. It’s a radical force on the left that benefits from having us all feel like we’re in cultural quicksand,” Scott told a voter who asked him how he would heal the “racial divide” in the U.S.

Scott, the only Black candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and the only Black person in the room at Thursday’s event, per Egwuonwu, has downplayed the notion that there is a racial divide in this country since he got into the race. 

“From cotton to Congress in one lifetime,” Scott said in campaign ads while he ran for re-election to the Senate last year, referring to his grandfather who picked cotton and later watched Scott become an elected official.

In ads run by his presidential campaign this year, he points to his own story for proof against a racial divide.

“It pains my soul to see the Biden liberals attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. The radical left says we’re an evil, declining country. I say the truth of my life disproves your lies,” he tells viewers in one TV ad.

Scott’s comments at Thursday’s event came as he ramps up his schedule in Iowa, hitting multiple events this week after he appeared at just four events in the state in July, Egwuonwu reports.

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Not knocking: NBC News’ Allan Smith and Natasha Korecki scooped that the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC is halting door knocking in Nevada and California (as well as other Super Tuesday states) as it redoubles its focus on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. 

Hurricane politics: Politico reports on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “complicated relationship with disaster aid,” while President Joe Biden will head to Florida Saturday after a hurricane swept through the state earlier this week. 

Not backing the blue: One of former President Donald Trump’s top New Hampshire aides said during a video filmed on Jan. 6, 2021 near the U.S. Capitol that police officers should “go hang yourself.” 

On the offensive: Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is out with a new campaign ad attacking his opponent, GOP state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, on abortion. “When a woman or girl becomes pregnant from rape, the trauma is unimaginable. Daniel Cameron thinks a nine-year-old rape survivor should be forced to give birth. Nobody, no child should ever have to go through that,” Jefferson County Prosecutor Erin White says in the ad.

All in the family:  West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s daughter has emerged as one of his top advisers as he charts his political path forward, NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reports.