Tim Scott endorses Trump-Pence ticket during RNC
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina endorsed President Trump during the first evening of the Republican National Convention
Video Transcript
TIM SCOTT: Good evening. I'm Senator Tim Scott from the great state of South Carolina. To all of you tuning in and participating in the political process, god bless you. This isn't how I pictured tonight. But our country is experiencing something none of us envisioned. From a global pandemic to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven't seen for decades.
But regardless of the challenges presented to us, every four years, Americans come together to vote, to share stories of what makes our nation strong and the lessons we have learned that can strengthen it for further generations. Because while this election is between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it is not solely about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It's about the promise of America.
It's about you and me, our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams. It's about how we respond when tackling critical issues like police reform, when Democrats called our work a token effort and walked out of the room during negotiations, because they wanted the issue more than they wanted a solution.
Do we want a society that breeds success or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with? I know where I stand, because you see, I am living my mother's American dream.
My parents divorced when I was seven years old. And we moved in with my grandparents into a two-bedroom home, with me, my mom, and my brother sharing a room and one bed. My mom worked 16 hours a day to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. She knew that if we could find the opportunity, bigger things would come.
I thought I had to use football to succeed in life. And my focus on academics faded away. My freshman year, I failed out. I failed four subjects-- Spanish, English, world geography, and even civics. Trust me though. After seven years in the Senate, I know I'm not the only one in Congress who failed civics.
But even while I was failing the ninth grade, my mother always said to me, Timmy, if you would just shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll be among the stars. She never lost faith in me, even when I lost faith in myself. Because of her encouragement, I went to summer school and caught up.
The next year, I met my mentor, John Moniz, a Chick-fil-A operator. John saw something in me that I could not see in myself and started teaching me valuable life lessons, like having a job would be a good thing. But creating jobs would be even better. That having an income could change my lifestyle. But creating a profit could change my community.
He planted the seeds of what would become opportunity zones. This initiative that the president and I worked together on is now bringing more than $75 billion of private sector investment into distressed communities.
