Maddow’s Blog | Tim Scott presents a regrettable solution to his Trump team’s ‘problem’

Sen. Tim Scott wasn’t exactly subtle about his national ambitions. After the South Carolina Republican’s presidential campaign was a costly failure—Scott struggled to reach 5 percent in the polls, in part because he seemed terrified of differentiating himself from the donald trump — began the senator embarrassing yourself in the apparent hope of joining the former president’s ticket for 2024.

There is one important part of Scott’s resume, however, that his intra-party critics took advantage.

Time Magazine reported it has been a few months since the senator “will have to overcome an irremediable sin of the MAGA World: he voted to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory in 2020”.

He did, indeed. Just hours after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the Senate voted to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Of the 100 members of the House, just eight far-right Republicans voted against certification – and Tim Scott was not one of them.

What’s more, during a presidential primary debate last summer, the senator told then-Vice President Mike Pence “absolutely“I did the right thing on January 6th. In case it isn’t obvious, this is no Trump’s position.

With this in mind, what, pray tell, is the South Carolinian prepared to do about his partisan “problem”? As NBC News observedScott seems to have opted for the most unfortunate solution possible.

Repeatedly, host Kristen Welker pressed the Republican to simply say: “yes or no,” whether he was prepared to accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. He declined to say — although Scott was willing to question the integrity of NBC News’ journalism for unknown reasons.

It is worth pausing to appreciate the extraordinary circumstances in which we find ourselves. Traditionally, high-level senators They weren’t even asked. whether they were prepared to accept their own country’s election results, because the answer would be obvious.

But in 2024, as the radicalization of Republican politics intensifies, Scott has not just been questioned, he has also refused to answer — no doubt because the senator knew that if he responded in a way that expressed support for democracy, it would have caused fury at Mar-a-Lago.

In other words, Scott believes the key to solving his Team Trump “problem” is to appear more openly hostile to the American political system, which in turn can boost his national ambitions.

How the Republican Party race to the bottom unfolds, I still believe that no one should want to be vice president so much.

This article was originally published in MSNBC.com