In a rousing speech Monday on the opening night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Sen. Tim Scott discussed the miraculous survival of former President Donald Trump from an assassination attempt two nights earlier.
“If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you got to be believing right now,” Scott, R-S.C., told the crowd. “Thank God almighty that we still live in a country that still believes in the king of kings and the lord of lords.”
At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh, late Saturday night, a gunman took aim at Trump, grazing the former president’s right ear with a bullet.
“On Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet, and he roared,” Scott continued, as the crowd chanted, “Fight, fight, fight, fight!”—which Trump shouted while pumping a fist in the air as he was hustled to safety by the Secret Service.
Scott, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination himself, was reportedly a finalist to be Trump’s vice presidential pick. Trump selected one of Scott’s colleagues, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
In his address, Scott looked to both the past and the future.
“We are the Republican Party of Frederick Douglass and of Abraham Lincoln, of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump,” he said, and offered new initials for the GOP.
“We are not just the party of our leaders. We are also the party of one woman in Wisconsin taking over her family farm, an Hispanic father working 16 hour days in Nevada, and a black teenager in Philly starving for opportunity,” Scott said. “We are not just the Grand Old Party of the past. We are the great opportunity party of America’s future.”
The South Carolina lawmaker also brought up a point he said upsets liberal elites.
“America is not a racist country,” Scott said as the crowd roared. “But if you are looking for racism today, you’ll find it in cities run by Democrats. Look on the South Side of Chicago—poor black kids, trapped in failing schools, thousands shot every single year, including one of my former interns.”
