President Joe Biden is weighing in after Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) declared that the U.S. is “not a racist country.”
The president was asked about Scott’s GOP rebuttal to his address to Congress Wednesday night, where the senator said, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.”
“No, I don’t think the American people are racist,” Biden responded during a “Today” interview with NBC’s Craig Melvin. “But I think after 400 years, African-Americans have been left in a position where they are so far behind the eight-ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity.”
He added, “I don’t think America’s racist, but I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and before that, slavery, has had a cost, and we have to deal with it.”
Watch Biden’s comments below:
“I don’t think America’s racist, but I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and before that slavery have had a cost and we have to deal with it.” -President Biden pic.twitter.com/j52kCMC9O5
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 30, 2021
During his remarks on Wednesday night, Biden called for “systemic racism” to be “[rooted] out.”
He said, “My fellow Americans, we have to come together to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the people they serve, to root out systemic racism in our criminal justice system and enact police reform in George Floyd’s name that passed the House already.”
Biden continued, “With the plans outlined tonight, we have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues America and American lives in other ways.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also reacted to Scott’s rebuttal, saying during a “Good Morning America” interview, “First of all, no I don’t think America is a racist country. But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
“These are issues that we must confront,” Harris added. “It does not help to heal our country, to unify us as a people to ignore the realities of that.”
