Tim Scott, co-founder of the Black-Jewish caucus, enters 2024 presidential race
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, reportedly committed $50 million to support the campaign
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) on April 27, 2023. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh May 22, 2023
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, entered the 2024 Republican presidential primary on Monday with a message of optimism and compassion. “Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing: Victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness?” Scott said in a speech at his campaign launch at Charleston Southern University. “I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.”
Scott, 57, who has served in the Senate since 2013, is the ninth Republican to announce a White House bid, a race that includes former President Donald Trump.
Among his supporters is Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is Jewish. Ellison attended the campaign kickoff event and was acknowledged by Scott from the stage.
Scott’s challenge will be finding his voice in a crowded field that is seeking to appeal to an electorate that has an array of alternatives to choose from in the early primary states. Most notably, among them, are former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and other candidates who are expected to soon announce their bids: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence. All have cast themselves as the anti-Trump candidate.
If successful, Scott would be the first Black person to win the Republican presidential nomination and the second elected to the presidency after Barack Obama.
Black-Jewish relations
Scott is one of the founders of the Senate’s bipartisan Black-Jewish caucus. It was launched in 2021 — with Democratic Sens. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who is Jewish, and Cory Booker of New Jersey – to raise awareness of the challenges facing the Jewish and Black communities, to combat racism and antisemitism, and to provide members of Congress the resources they need to work on building bridges and strengthening relations between the two communities.
“There are tracks that are parallel, and pain that creates promise and opportunity,” Scott said at the launch event, which took place at a virtual conference hosted by the American Jewish Committee, referencing the history of Jews in Egypt and nearly 250 years of African American slavery.
In 2016, Scott introduced the bipartisan “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act,” which would require the Department of Education to adopt on college campuses the definition of antisemitism written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). He said he felt compelled to do it given the “healthy relationship” between the Jewish and Black communities that he’s “watched growing” in the past 40 years.
The bill failed to advance amid criticism about limiting free speech and criticism of Israel, and was reintroduced in 2019. It was welcomed by mainstream Jewish organizations.
Trump issued a similar executive order later in 2019 that recognized Jewish university students as a class protected from discrimination. “I will tell you,” Trump said in remarks at the signing ceremony, “without Tim this wouldn’t have happened.”
An open ear with Trump
As the only Black Republican senator, Scott walked a tightrope with Trump, issuing mild criticism when the former president made racist statements or invoked antisemitic dog whistles.
Scott criticized Trump after he said that there were fine people on “both sides” of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville — remarks that were widely condemned as a dog whistle to white nationalists and neo-Nazis. He suggested that the president’s “moral authority” was “compromised.”
He later met privately with Trump at the White House to explain the severity of these statements. After the meeting, Scott said that Trump had “obviously reflected on what he has said” and was “very clear” he didn’t intend to defend racism.
Scott also suggested that Trump “misspoke” in 2020 when he told the far-right “Proud Boys” group to “stand back and stand by” when asked about condemning white supremacy at a presidential debate.
When Trump dined last November with rapper Kanye West, who had gone on several antisemitic rants, and Nick Fuentes, a prominent white supremacist, Scott issued a vague statement through his spokesperson. “It’s a bad idea for anyone to elevate racists or antisemites,” he said.
In contrast to his treatment of other political rivals, Trump welcomed Scott to the primary on Monday, calling him a “highly successful” politician. “It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. (Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his candidacy this week.)
Standing up for Israel
In Congress, Scott is a staunch supporter of Israel.
“If there’s anything that is not debatable, it is standing strong with our allies,” Scott said in an interview after a number of Democrats opposed the replenishment of Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome defense system in 2021. “I can’t even count the number of lives that have been saved because of Iron Dome.”
He was one of 45 co-sponsors of the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, which formalized the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding reached between the Obama administration and Israel in 2016.
“I have and always will stand with the Israeli people,” Scott wrote on Twitter earlier this year.
Scott co-authored a bipartisan resolution earlier this month honoring the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.
Jewish mentors
Scott considers Larry Freudenberg, a fourth-generation owner of a family-run insurance agency in Charleston, to be one of his first mentors. Freudenberg, whose father and grandparents fled Germany in 1939, hired Scott as an insurance agent and financial adviser after he graduated from college.
Scott opened his own insurance company, Tim Scott Allstate, before running for Congress.
At a 2021 event hosted by the American Jewish Committee, Scott said Freudenberg gave him a “piece of the pie” by encouraging him to ”work for yourself, always.”
Scott also named Jerry Zucker, an Israeli-born American businessman who died in 2008, as someone who influenced his career. Scott said that Zucker dissuaded him from opening a restaurant before he became successful in the insurance industry.
As a member of Congress, Scott’s first chief of staff was Nick Muzin, a Canadian-born Orthodox Jew. Muzin played a key role in Scott’s rise, advising his congressional campaign and assisting with his political action committee. In 2013, Scott was appointed to replace Sen. Jim DeMint, who was retiring. Scott has since won three general elections.
Ellison’s role
Scott is currently polling at 2% among Republican primary voters. But he has the potential to expand his support with Ellison’s help. Ellison is listed as the sixth-wealthiest person in the world. He has reportedly committed to spending more than $50 million to an outside Super PAC supporting Scott’s candidacy.
He donated $30 million in the 2022 election cycle for Scott’s PAC, The Opportunity Matters Fund PAC.
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