GOP Presidential Candidate, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), has vowed to complete the U.S.-Mexico border wall, a project initiated by former President Donald Trump, if he wins the 2024 election.
What Happened: Scott, in an interview with Fox News, criticized the Democrats’ understanding of the border issue and accused the Biden administration of selling materials earmarked for the wall’s construction.
“Washington is out of touch with the rest of the nation. One of the reasons we need change in the nation’s capital is that Washington is so consistently broken that the American people don’t trust the people in Washington. I understand that,” Scott said.
“As a guy who spends some time in Washington, but a whole lot of time in South Carolina, I can just say to the leaders of this nation today, bless your heart, which is a Southern way of saying you guys just don’t get it,” he added.
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The South Carolina senator also praised Texas Governor Greg Abbott‘s migrant bussing program for highlighting the border crisis. “Biden refuses to fix a fixable problem at our southern border,” he said, adding that it would be fixed “not by selling the construction material to finish the wall – that’s what he’s doing – but by using the construction material to complete the wall.”
Why It Matters: Scott has been vocal about the Biden administration’s shortfall in the immigration system. He also put forward a proposal to allocate $10 billion towards the completion of a border wall, coupled with enhanced technological surveillance capabilities.
He earlier advocated for the reallocation of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, originally intended to strengthen the Internal Revenue Service’s workforce, towards the recruitment of additional Customs and Border Patrol Agents.
Last week, a survey from Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll revealed that 39% of respondents said they would vote for Scott when asked about a hypothetical match-up between him and Biden in 2024, while 3% said they would back the current president.
Photo via Shutterstock.
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