Things got hot and heated this week on ABC’s hit show “The View” after U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina appeared as a guest.
The politician was so focused on his talking points that host Whoopi Goldberg had to call in a crew member to hush him up.
Scott went to great lengths to share his belief that as a successful Black man, he has been wrongly characterized as the “exception” to the rule.
Scott’s Monday, June 5, appearance on the 31-time Emmy winning-show was prompted by multiple comments the hosts have said about his presidential candidacy and conservative views. While trying to defend his point, debating mostly with Sunny Hostin, he overtalked Goldberg while she tried to throw to a commercial and caused her to get a staffer to get the politician to be quiet.
The episode started out with Alyssa Farah Griffin celebrating Scott entering into the presidential race because of his core position as a “traditional” conservative with a “hopeful message.” Griffin’s first question focused on how the politician planned to convince Trump supporters to follow him.
“I think people are hungry for something hopeful and optimistic,” Scott said when defending his political posture over that of the confrontational former president.
During his spiel on hopefulness, he shared his belief that there are “too many kids in poor ZIP codes trapped in failing schools,” a circumstance that has an impact on their ability to achieve the American dream. He said he understood how education created an opportunity for him, affording him a slice of the American pie that helped him purchase a house with a garage for his mother so that she would no longer have to live in one of those poor and dangerous neighborhoods.
Approximately 4 minutes into the interview Hostin probed the senator on his beliefs on systemic racism.
“You were the first Black senator elected in the South since the reconstruction that would be 114 years,” she said, adding, “Yet you say that your life disproves leftist lies. My question to you is: I’m the exception. You’re the exception. Maybe even Miss Whoopi Goldberg is the exception, but we are not the rule.”
She continued by saying that racial inequality in America is measured in five core aspects: Economics, Education, Healthcare, Criminal Justice, and Housing. Hostin then argues Black and brown people are challenged because whenever there are major individual and corporate achievements in these spaces, minorities are “threatened,” and the achievements are “erased most often by white violence.”
She posits to Scott, “You have indicated that you do not believe in systemic racism. What is your definition of systemic racism.”
Scott, who has in fact very explicitly described how systemic racism affects even successful Black people like him, did not answer her question but challenged her notion that successful Black people are the exception to the rule and not the rule.
“One of the reasons I’m on this show because of the comments that were made, frankly, on this show,” he said, adding the idea that “the only way for a young African-American kid to be successful in this country is to be the exception and not the rule … is a dangerous offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people today is that the only way to succeed is to be the exception.”
Scott went on to list accomplishments by African-Americans in recent years, including the first Black U.S. president and the first Black mayor of his hometown.
“In 1975, there was about 15 percent unemployment in the African-American community. For the first time in the history of the country it is under 5 percent,” Scott touted as progress.
Hostin rebutted, “It’s 40 percent homelessness —“ to which Scott replied: “You had your chance to ask the question. I’ve watched you on the show. You like people to be deferential and respectful, so I’m going to do the same thing.”
As the two go back and forth over whether progress for Black people means systemic racism doesn’t exist, co-host and lead moderator Goldberg tries to throw to a commercial. Scott ignores the directive and continues to talk.
“I need an opportunity because I have to go to break. They’re begging,” Goldberg says.
Scott retorts as he gets out of his seat, “[I’m] just getting started. I believe all people can see the success that I’ve had.”
After realizing the request, Scott pulls himself together and sits down, saying, “Oh, oh, ok.”
This was not the only time during the approximately 13-minute bit the live show needed to go to a break — but the senator would not yield again to Goldberg’s directives.
Entertainment Weekly reports the multiple times Goldberg tried to get him to stop talking for the break. At one point, she had to call out to a staffer to come and get him to be quiet.
“Go up and tell him. Go tell him!” the Ghost star said.
The man came through to the panel and said, “We have to go to a commercial. We’ll come back. You’ll stick around.”
After one break, when the segment resumes, Goldberg asks a question to the senator about progress for Black people in the Republican party and why he hasn’t spoken up.
Scott starts to answer her, saying discrimination is not just a Republican issue but a human problem. He then says he believes the Republicans have made “fabulous” progress in that area. When Hostin asks him how he came to that conclusion, he turns away from Goldberg and faces her to pick up their contentious exchange.
As Scott continues to direct attention to Hostin, the EGOT winner reminds him that she asked him the question and then asks, “Shall I come next to her?”
With that, she walks over to stand with Hostin as he defends his point but inadvertently turns his back to Ana Navarro, another host on the five-host panel.
“Your back looks pretty damn good from here,” Navarro says.
Despite this remark, Scott never adjusted his seat to speak to the entire panel— only flexing his bicep.
One point that stood out was that over the last decade, there’s been a considerable amount of Blacks in the Senate and their cabinets. Today, out of the approximately 2,000 people who have served in the United States Senate, there have been only 11. This includes Vice President Kamala Harris and the three that are currently in office: Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey, Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock, and Scott.
When challenged about these stats, particularly him being the first to hold this office in 114 years, he said, “Both sides of the aisle can do a better job on race.”
