FLASHBACK: Tim Scott Lied In Response To Trump’s 2020 National Address To Congress

Ahead of tonight’s response from Senator Tim Scott, we wanted to remind you how, just over a year ago, Senator Scott was peddling falsehoods in his 2020 response to Trump’s State Of The Union.

That 2020 address was the last time Scott issued a response for the Republican Party. He lied over and over again to cover for Donald Trump’s failed leadership that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives and an economic recession. 

Tonight, we can expect more of the same. 

SCOTT’S LIE: “Thanks to tax reform, American families are keeping more of their hard-earned dollars at home.”

THE TRUTH: The majority of the tax cuts went to the top 1% and big corporations while working families got left behind. 

Vox: “By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.”

CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”

SCOTT’S LIE: “President Trump’s help on my Opportunity Zones initiative is uplifting our most vulnerable Americans.”

THE TRUTH: Trump and Scott’s Opportunity Zones helped the well-connected, but did little to help vulnerable communities.

New York Times: “A new tax break that President Trump frequently touts as a boon to black Americans and hard-hit communities is spurring relatively little job creation while disproportionately helping high-profit real estate projects and not small businesses, an extensive new study by the Urban Institute has found.”

SCOTT’S LIE: “Entrepreneurship is booming and we’re seeing more small businesses throughout the Palmetto State. At the national level, we can see new projects creating anywhere from hundreds to thousands of jobs for folks in underserved communities.”

THE TRUTH: The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered businesses, leaving millions of Americans unemployed, while the Trump administration failed to help small businesses in underserved communities.

Brookings: “Many hundreds of thousands of small businesses—and the
millions of jobs they are responsible for—are gone.”

NPR: “But a new report from the Small Business Administration’s inspector general found that businesses owned by people of color may not have received loans as intended under the Paycheck Protection Program. There was no evidence, the report said, that the SBA told lenders to prioritize business owners in ‘underserved’ markets, including business owners of color — something the CARES Act had specifically instructed the SBA to do.”

SCOTT’S LIE: “It is clear that our nation is moving in the right direction, and it is so important that we move forward from the division of the past few weeks and months.”

THE TRUTH: Trump had just fueled the nation’s division with his State of the Union address as his failed response to the pandemic was about to send the country into a tailspin.

CNN: “Trump makes dazzling, divisive reelection pitch in State of the Union”

New York Times: “Yet even with all of these problems, one country stands alone, as the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe, sustained outbreak for more than four months: the United States.”

SCOTT’S LIE: “President Trump is winning for the American people and our country couldn’t be in a better place than right now.”

THE TRUTH: At the time of this speech, President Trump was knowingly downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, tweeting on February 5: “Only 5 people in U.S., all in good recovery.”

New York Times: “Trump Admits Downplaying the Virus Knowing It Was ‘Deadly Stuff’”

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