The hosts of “The View” took a shot at Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas’ Blackness and dragged 2024 Republican Presidential candidate Tim Scott into the argument on Tuesday.
Joy Behar argued that neither man understood the systematic racism that Black people face in America because they consider themselves Black Republicans.
The conversation on Tuesday from “The View” came after Scott officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race on Monday and did a sit-down interview with NBC’s Tom Llamas.
Llamas asked Scott about how he thinks Americans will view him as a candidate.
“What people really want is an optimistic positive conservative who has a backbone but also believes that the best is yet to come. I don’t think you have to be a pessimist to be strong,” Scott responded to Llamas.
Behar and her co-hosts played the sound bite from Scott’s interview with Llamas then proceeded to criticize his version of the Black experience in America.
“He’s one of these guys who, you know, he’s like Clarence Thomas,” Behar said. “Black Republican who believes in pulling yourself by your bootstraps, rather than, to me, understanding the systemic racism that African Americans face in this country, and other minorities. He doesn’t get it. Neither does Clarence. And that’s why they’re Republicans.”
Thomas recently made headlines when it was discovered he received gifts from billionaire megadonor and Republican Harlan Crow. In November, Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin called out Thomas for not knowing the meaning of diversity.
Social media users didn’t like that Behar commented on the Black experience in America and brought up past accusations of her wearing blackface.
Scott also responded to Behar’s on-air remarks in a tweet on Tuesday, claiming that Democrats fear Black conservatives. A majority of Black voters tend to lean left at the polls.
“When a Black conservative who believes in the future of this nation stands up to be counted, they lose their minds. That’s why I’m the candidate the radical Left fears the most,” the South Carolina senator wrote.
Scott also got support from other Black Republicans.
“Joy, dressing up as a Black woman for Halloween with dark paint on your face doesn’t magically make you Black or make you an expert on what it’s like to be Black,” wrote U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida. ” From one Black person to another White liberal who got a pass for wearing Black face, sit this one out.”
Donalds doubled down his online onslaught on Behar Wednesday morning.
“Joy Behar doesn’t understand that she is a buffoon. Joy hasn’t walked a day in Tim Scott’s shoes, my shoes, or any Black person’s shoes,” the GOP congressman said in a tweet where he shared of video interview calling the host’s comments “utterly ridiculous.”
Scott’s stiffest competition for the GOP presidential nomination is former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
