Joy Behar claimed Thursday that Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott didn’t seem to understand the difference between a “racist country” and “systemic racism.”
Behar reacted to both President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress and Scott’s rebuttal during the opening segment of ABC’s “The View.” (RELATED: ‘There’s No Liberal Bias’: Joy Behar Claims News Outlets Are ‘Basically Balanced’ Except For Fox And MSNBC)
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Cohost Whoopi Goldberg asked Behar to weigh in on Scott’s claim that the United States “is not a racist country.”
“Joy, what country is Tim Scott living in?” Goldberg asked.
Behar began by noting that Scott had complained about a lack of bipartisanship from Democrats and the Biden administration, adding, “When he says, Biden, we’re on track to cutting child poverty in half and you look around the chamber and nobody on the Republican side is standing or clapping. Does that mean they’re for child poverty?”
Behar went on to say that she felt Biden had been warm and presidential, and that she had felt “wonderful” after watching him address the nation — but then she pivoted to attack Scott.
“Now, Tim Scott, he does not seem to understand — and a lot of them don’t seem to understand the difference between a racist country and a systemic — systemic racism. They don’t seem to get the difference,” Behar continued. “Maybe it’s not a racist country. Maybe Americans, the majority, are not racist. But we live in a country with systemic racism.”
Behar argued that systemic racism was what impacted things like housing and education, and it wasn’t just about people being racists.
“The fact that Tim Scott cannot acknowledge this is appalling. How can you go out there and say that when you just said two minutes ago you were the object and the victim of discrimination? Then he says this is not a racist country. At least acknowledge that there is systemic racism. That’s what I wanted to hear from him and he didn’t say it,” Behar concluded.