Sen. Tim Scott says there's 'no higher compliment than being attacked by President Obama'

WASHINGTON — South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Sunday pushed back at former President Barack Obama’s criticism of Republican African Americans candidates who don’t give an “honest accounting” of racism in the United States.

Scott, the lone Black Republican in the Senate and a GOP presidential hopeful, said Democrats drag out Obama whenever they feel threatened.

“There’s no higher compliment than being attacked by President Obama,” Scott said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Scott had been asked about comments Obama made on a recent podcast about the senator’s claim that that he’s living proof of the progress the nation has made on equality.

Obama said there’s a long history of GOP candidates who come from minority groups validating America by saying “everything’s great, and we can all make it.”

In Scott’s video announcing his presidential exploratory committee, he called America “a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression.”

“I’m not being cynical about Tim Scott individually,” Obama told his former adviser, David Axelrod, on Axelrod’s podcast.

But, Obama, continued, Republicans need a plan for addressing issues like generational poverty that’s a consequence of hundreds of years of racism.

“There may come a time where there’s somebody in the Republican Party that is more serious about actually addressing some of the deep inequality that still exists in our society that tracks race and is a consequence of our racial history,” Obama said. “And if that happens, I think that would be fantastic. I haven’t yet seen it.”

Scott said the “opportunity zones” he’s championed that offer tax incentives for investments in economically-distressed communities have primarily helped minority communities.

Scott also touted his support for federal funding for historically Black colleges and universities and for alternatives to traditional public schooling.

“There is a way for us to elevate poverty, not by a race, but by the statistics themselves,” he said. “That’s what America stands for.”