Tim Scott is the first black Republican U.S. senator from the South since Reconstruction and the only black Republican in the Senate at the moment. He also has announced he will vote for Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to become the next attorney general.
Given the allegations of racism that have followed Sessions since he was denied a federal judgeship in 1986, Scott’s decision to support him has been met with plenty of criticism.
And lots of that criticism has come online, especially on Twitter, where Scott has 162,000 followers. But one tweet in particular annoyed Scott. User @Simonalisa blasted Scott and former Sessions aide William Smith by referring to them using a racial slur.
“I have three or four pages of that kind of crap because of the Sessions nomination,” Scott told the Washington Post. “There were so many n-words and racially insensitive words coming at me over the Budget Control Act in 2011 that my employees were crying. Unfortunately, people feel like they have a license to say stupid stuff, and too often it comes from liberals.
“So I thought it was a good time to tell people what I thought.”
Scott’s response was simple.