Story at a glance
- The vice president agreed with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) that the U.S. isn’t inherently racist.
- Harris noted, however, that domestic terrorism manifested by white supremacists is “one of the greatest threats to our national security.”
- “It doesn’t help to heal our country, to unify us as a people, to ignore the realities of that,” she said.
Vice President Harris on Thursday said she agreed with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s (R) claim that America is not a racist country, but noted the U.S. needs to “speak truth” about the history of racism in the country.
“No, I don’t think America is a racist country,” Harris said during an interview with ABC News’s “Good Morning America.”
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“But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today. I applaud the president for always having the ability and the courage, frankly, to speak the truth about it,” she said.
Harris noted that domestic terrorism manifested by white supremacists is “one of the greatest threats to our national security.”
“It doesn’t help to heal our country, to unify us as a people, to ignore the realities of that,” she said.
Her comments come after Scott, the only Black Republican in the upper chamber, delivered a GOP alternative to President Biden’s first joint address to Congress on Wednesday.
During his speech, Scott said he has experienced the “pain of discrimination” but stressed that the U.S. was not a racist country and race should not be used as a political weapon to “settle every issue the way one side wants.”
“It’s backward to fight discrimination with different typs of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present,” Scott said Wednesday.
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