For years, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has championed the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), an office under the direction of the Commerce Department.
Scott led congressional efforts to permanently authorize the agency, expand its services into rural areas and leverage the program to help minority-owned businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Politico.
Now, thanks to the Trump administration’s budget cuts, the MBDA, which funds grants to business owners and provides technical assistance, support and mentorship, has lost 100 percent of its staff, about 50 people in all. They have been placed on administrative leave or transferred to other posts within the Commerce Department, a Commerce employee and a Democratic staffer, granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters, told Politico.
Scott, who has prioritized efforts to expand access to capital and economic mobility for minority entrepreneurs, has said nothing about the dissolution of his signature project.
The senator was one of Donald Trump‘s most visible surrogates during the presidential campaign and was once rumored to be a leading contender to be his vice presidential running mate. But apparently that hasn’t earned him much influence with the president.
Critics have assailed Scott’s silence.
“Scott is always the good MAGA soldier. How does he sleep at night?,” asked one X account holder.
“Talk is cheap — especially when your legacy gets bulldozed and you don’t even flinch,” added one commenter. “Guess silence is the new strategy.”
The Commerce Department employee went further, calling out Scott’s “cowardice.”
“They are watching this happen, and they are doing nothing,” the Commerce Department employee said of Scott’s and other Republicans’ silence on cuts to the program. “And it cuts especially deep when the people you once believed were your champions turn their backs in silence.”
Besides the job cuts, all grants to the agency’s 41 business centers were terminated, according to a Commerce employee. A letter sent April 17 by DOGE worker Nate Cavanaugh, under the authority of Keith Sonderling, acting undersecretary of the MBDA and the current deputy secretary of Labor, specifically cited Trump’s executive order to minimize the agency.
“Upon further review, MBDA has determined that your grant is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and MBDA program,” Cavanaugh wrote in the letter.
Scott might have seen it coming. He reportedly told minority businesses he remains supportive of the program’s mission but wishes the agency would change its name, fearing it might be grouped in with DEI efforts targeted for elimination by the president, according to one of the Commerce Department employees.
Though silent now, Scott was quick to defend Trump during the campaign, especially when matters of race were concerned.
He said the Republican nominee was “taken out of context” when he accused migrants of taking “Black jobs” during his debate last summer against Joe Biden.
“I think what he meant to say was the fact that two-thirds of the jobs he created … went to African Americans, Hispanics, and women,” Scott said. “I think we should take a whole look at the picture, and I don’t think that happens.”
Asked to comment about the MBDA, a Scott spokesperson trumpeted the senator’s record of working with Trump to deliver “life-changing results for minority communities around the nation.” They singled out Scott’s efforts during Trump’s first term to secure permanent funding for historically Black colleges and universities, creating “opportunity zones” under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and cutting taxes for single mothers.
“Their vision of America is one that allows every American, no matter their background, to have the necessary tools and resources to achieve their American dream,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Senator Scott and President Trump are undoubtedly working to make sure our country works for all hard-working Americans.”
